The Washington Post featured an article this month that told the story of a woman in DC and her struggles to find a primary care physician. Her realization after receiving rejection upon rejection from doctors offices… having health insurance does not guarantee access to a doctor.

If you have even a passing interest in the shifting demographic composition of our country, you’re certainly aware of the generational tsunami that is beginning crash on our shores at this very moment.

If you consider the health care consumption of people as we age, the above chart (now ten years old) offers insight into the health care supply & demand crisis that patients like the one featured in the Washington Post are beginning to feel. Of course, this problem is magnified by the simultaneously shrinking ranks of medical students with an interest in a career in primary care.

Clearly this phenomenon will serve to drive the growth of private physician practices. And these statistics make yet another argument for patients to secure a relationship NOW with a private physician.

If you are a private physician that is still accepting new patients, you should acquaint yourself with this simple tale of supply and demand and use it in your presentations to patients and employers.

No one can argue with these numbers.

Post by: Tom Blue