Here’s One Way Not To Retain Physicians

This was just publicized:

NYC Health + Hospitals is halving appointment times for adult and pediatric primary care visits to expand availability and meet the system’s own growth goals, according to internal records reviewed by POLITICO.

Details: Starting this fall, appointment times for new patients will be slashed from 40 minutes to 20 minutes. The change will enable Health + Hospitals to tackle long waitlists by having doctors see more patients, officials said in internal presentations to staff

How many doctors do you think they will lose? I would say a lot. You just doubled their workload. Did they agree to this? Of course not.

Some doctors worry that shortening appointment times will diminish the quality of patient care and contribute to higher burnout rates among physicians in a public health system already struggling to compete with its private counterparts for clinical staff.

The Doctors Council SEIU, the union that represents physicians in the public health system, says NYC Health and Hospitals should focus on recruiting more doctors, rather than loading up employees’ patient rosters. The union is in the midst of negotiating with the city over a new contract.

“This is the wrong solution to a systemic problem that Doctors Council SEIU has been addressing at the bargaining table for almost a year and further highlights the retention and recruitment crisis the system is facing,” Dr. Frances Quee, president of the Doctors Council and a pediatrician at NYC Health and Hospitals’ Belvis clinic in the Bronx, said in a statement on the decision.

This will eventually burn this hospital system. Doctors will be looking for jobs immediately. I guarantee it. There are ways to keep doctors. This is NOT one of them.