More regulations imposed under Obamacare mean that doctors are now spending less time with patients. Dr. Rosemary Stein, a private practitioner in Burlington, NC, gives some insight in yesterday’s Charlotte Observer:
Today, we have less treatment time per day thanks to the burgeoning paperwork required by all the regulations – 13,000-plus pages at last count. Each physician in our practice now spends up to four additional hours per week filling out, filing, and faxing paperwork.
Those four hours would be better spent treating patients.
The administrative burden is so acute that we recently had to hire an extra nurse and a clerical position, costing our practice around $80,000 per year. Yet these additions don’t allow us to see more patients, they simply help keep us from drowning in a sea of paperwork.
The increasing regulatory burdens don’t just take time away from our patients They also create a climate of fear for physicians and practice owners like us. As doctors, our livelihoods depend on our reputations. If we inadvertently misplace a decimal point, a comma, or misspell a word when complying with the thousands of regulations, we could face fines, penalties, even possible license revocation – even if the mistake has zero impact on patient health.
Read the full article here.
