Female doctors on maternity leave or retired practitioners could help for a few hours a week. They cannot or do not want to afford their own doctor’s office, and part-time employment is usually not worthwhile at other facilities.
“It is assumed that the one who runs a general practitioner’s office today would hire someone. There should be at least two certified doctors in a team practice. The goal is to increase the availability and quality of care,” explained Petr Šonka, chairman of the Association of General Practitioners, to Novinkám.
According to him, fears about the disruption of small surgeries in villages are unfounded. “It would not be desirable in rural areas,” he added.
Some regions already have a problem with availability. “We have six hundred thousand unregistered insured persons, both children and adults,” pointed out Šonka.
Five and a half thousand general practitioners and another roughly two thousand pediatric practitioners are not enough, although several hundred graduates leave the schools every year.
Collapse in sight. You can’t get to a practitioner without a side payment, says ex-minister Němeček
PoliTalk
“Joined practices will bring better efficiency and availability of care by sharing equipment, substitutability of doctors, transfer of administration from medical professionals to non-medical staff and, last but not least, extension of office hours,” stated the Ministry of Health in the concept presented by Minister Vlastimil Válek (TOP 09) last week .
It would help especially in the Karlovy Vary region or Mosteck, where the problem with accessibility is the biggest. At the same time, there are very few practitioners.
There would be several nurses in one office, one of whom, according to Šonka, could be set aside, for example, for home visits and specializing in geriatric patients. An administrative worker could also find a job, writing instead of a doctor, for example, reports for the Czech Social Security Administration due to pensions.
New comprehensive centers
Even now, surgeries can increase the number of workers, but most cannot afford it financially. They are therefore seeking reimbursements from health insurance companies to help them get started, and it looks like they should get them next year. According to the concept, the ministry is counting on this in the “near future”.
However, not everyone would be able to reach it, which is to prevent accountants who will claim that they are taking new patients, but in reality they are just asking for a contribution from the insurance company. Doctors will have to document how many new people they have admitted.
But the ministry’s ambitions are bigger. They want to start a big reform. Complex primary care centers should be included, where the entire multidisciplinary team of experts would work. They would also help people with mental problems or with nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. But it is more about a vision for the future. It is not clear where the centers should be established or at whose expense.
The previous government was already thinking about supporting so-called combined practices. But the test project was thwarted by the covid pandemic, which lasted for two long years.
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Would you welcome shared surgeries where there would be more general practitioners?
A total of 310 readers voted.
Child psychiatrists are not. Pediatricians are increasingly dealing with psychological problems
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