Almost 50 percent of primary-care doctors surveyed said they would seriously think about working in other field than the health care one within the coming three years if they had an alternative.

The Physicians' Foundation conducted a survey to promote better relationships between physicians and their patients. Of the 11,950 respondents, an estimated 49 percent said they reflected on leaving the medical field for different reasons. A great number of them admitted being besieged by their job due to the red tape generated by health maintenance organizations (HMO), as well as government agencies. Difficulty in receiving reimbursement from insurance companies is another factor that makes doctors want to stop practicing entirely. "Tens of thousands of primary care doctors face the same problems as millions of ordinary citizens: frustrations in dealing with HMOs and government red tape," stated Dr. Sandra Johnson, board member of the foundation.  

The respondents said time and again that “they're unhappy they can't spend more time with their patients, which is why they went into primary care in the first place," Johnson said in a press statement.

9 out of ten doctors who participated in the survey said the amount of time they spent on dealing with non-clinical paperwork has risen by no less than 63 percent in the last 36 months. Taking into account this aspect, doctors spend less time with their patients. 

Several doctors’ groups are militating for decreasing the amount of labor hours and maintaining the payments for treating Medicare, Medicaid and other patients covered by health insurance.

The results also showed that 78 percent of doctors in the survey, which has a margin of error of 1 percentage point, consider there is a lack of primary care physicians in the U.S., United Press International reported. At last week's American Medical Association annual meeting, experts predicted that, by 2025, the number of primary care doctors will reduce with up to 40,000.
66 percent of those surveyed said they were either working at "full capacity" or "overextended and overworked."

All physicians agree it’s high time for some changes to be implemented; both in the health care field and in the insurance industry. Now that Obama has been elected President, maybe some changes will finally be made. He declared he would pay physicians extra so as to get them to spend more time with their patients to prevent them from disease. According to his campaign staff, his ideas would reduce spending in the health care sector with 8 percent and save $2,500 per tax payer.

A survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in September revealed that many medical students look away from primary care. This happens because of the long hours they have to work and the low pay they get for what they work.