Article

Health Reform and the Decline of Physician Private Practice (2010)

By Grant McInnes

Nation’s Frontline Physicians Unhappy with Healthcare Reform Measures

Executive Summary: In 2010, The Physicians Foundation released the results of a national survey of more than 100,000 physicians that found strong negative feelings towards the new healthcare reform law and fear that patient care will suffer in the months and years ahead. This physician survey was intended to gauge doctors’ initial reaction to the passage of health reform and to learn the ways in which they plan to respond to it.

Conducted on behalf of the Foundation by Merritt Hawkins, a national physician search and consulting firm, the research coincided with the two-year anniversary of the Foundation’s first national physician survey – which found growing dissatisfaction among doctors as they struggled with less time for patient care and increased time dealing with non-clinical paperwork, difficulty receiving reimbursement and growing government regulations. The 2010 research reinforced those findings and identified anxiety among physicians that the healthcare reform could exacerbate existing challenges and worsen the shortage of primary care doctors, making it more difficult for patients to access quality care.

To view the full report on the survey, please click

Download Report

Linked In