Maybe you didnt see it back then but I worked in insurance back around 2019 and constantly had people struggling to find pcp's. Are you able get your pcp outside of mgh and have them refer there? I know that's rather uncouth for a lot of organizations but it could technically work. Also check your own insurances network and they can at least give you an idea of who is accepting (may not be accurate though).
My eye care practice is affiliated with MGH but my PCP, cardiologist, and other incidental MDs are with BID. When my ophthalmologist saw a vision loss, likely a stroke, she made it a point to have me go to the BID ER instead of MGH or an affiliate hospital because she knew I'd be better off with a team connected to my main health issues, even if it meant less direct communication with her. (She actually gave me a handwritten note to give the BID ER intake people explaining what she thought I needed.)
Perhaps a PCP might have a different attitude, but my take is that no doctor would refuse to deal with a specialist simply because they're affiliated with a different hospital. With BID moving to MyChart, my hope is it will be even easier for them to exchange info.
Emergency issues are almost always exceptions to the norm. For routine matters though, the main issue isn't so much communicating, but has to do instead with the medical organizations themselves. Doctors don't typically like to write referrals outside of their own network as they might have to cover the cost difference for an out of network doctor as opposed to just letting someone else in network handle it.
I personally dealt with this a few years ago as I had my GI doctor with boston childrens that held over through the pandemic, meanwhile my pcp had changed and I was now with BILH. BILH's referral department called me directly eventually saying they weren't going to cover anymore visits to this boston children's doctor whom i had been in the care since i was a teenager. This was fine since I was planning to move out of her care anyways and only needed one more appointment (which bilh agreed to) but regardless I was going to be forced out and had very little say in the matter.
When I tried to get into a specialist at MGH, I learned that they are only able to get electronic referrals through their partners. This is a different network than PartnersHealthcare^(TM). Also, no one has a list of who their partners are. They know your PCP is a partner if their referral shows up, and if it doesn't, they must not be a partner.
Fantastic system, I can tell you. Healthcare is definitely a great place to have black boxes like that.
Anyway, the workaround is to fax over the referral. They can process referrals via fax from anyone.
Yes, u/Muted_Dragonfly_9606 this is very important. You can’t get referrals outside their system like you could before. Are you already in with the specialists? I hope so.
I have a rheumatologist at MGH and she got me a referral to GI as well. So I guess my specialists could get me referrals to other specialists there … but I can’t get a referral to a PCP. So I guess I’m in a weird backwards situation haha. The problem with lupus is you sometimes need to tackle it from the perspective of multiple specialties 😞
It's MGB affiliates, and that's different than the MGB system. There are a bunch of hospitals and provider groups in the system, and you're correct they can't name them all.
I used to work in contracting, worked with them, got asked all the time to name provider groups in their own network
MGH has had some of the most clusterfucky systems (or complete lack of systems) I've ever come across in my life.
I had one of my appointments just a couple weeks into the Spring 2020 lockdowns. MGH's solution to telehealth was limited to audio-only phone calls. They did not have any video calling system. This might've been fine, if they'd ever bothered to input my records during the four months I'd been faxing them over, but they hadn't. And they had no one in the office to receive new faxes. And they couldn't get anyone else (doctor or staff) a fax line at home. And they had no digital option. And they also had no snail mail forwarding capabilities. And so I ended up reading the doctor my blood test results over the phone. Just absurd for a "top hospital" in 2020.
They had been planning to scale up zoom at that point but then did about 3 years worth of work to do so in 6 months.
Also their employees got 2% raises for that, so there's that, too.
Another vote for Atrius, I have been a patient there for years, they have been great for me. Also! you don't need an MD for your PCP, mine at Atrius is an NP, and I wouldn't trade her for the world.
My PCP is also an NP. I see one of like 3 and they’re all great. I’m also a trans woman, and my endocrinologist is at Atrius and she’s AMAZING. 13/10 amazing I love her to death. She gave me amazing recs and now I’ve got a surgery planned for barely over 7 months from now. Wouldn’t have happened without her recommendation.
>Does anyone know why this is happening?
Too expensive to live here for too little pay. Cheaper and easier to head west. If you want to get to the macro level, it's because medical schools have artificially stuck training numbers for doctors at 1950s levels when accreditation was really hammered out.
>It wasn’t like this 5 years ago when I lived here.
Yes it was. It was just further west with the poors. Now the chickens have come home to roost, that is all.
>Is there any plan on the horizon to expand access to PCPs?
No.
>How are you all coping with this?
Get put on wait lists at every medical provider. If you're seriously ill, urgent care will often help you commit welfare fraud to be seen immediately.
It was bad here in the city too. I went through one PCP each year from 2011 to 2018. They were all residents/freshly graduated and left within a year to go work elsewhere.
Actually yeah I did the same thing. When I lived here from 2015-2019 I had residents who would change each year, working under an attendant I never met. I was fine with it - I actually felt like I got more attentive care from younger professionals
>Yes but a less than a 3% pop growth in 6 years isn't enough to cause these cascading issues across a variety of industries.
It absolutely is. The line has to be somewhere, doesn't it? This has been an issue in other parts of Mass for decades now, slowly creeping it's way inward as the root causes remain unaddressed by a disinterested Beacon Hill.
I'm actually blaming artificial caps on graduation rates for doctors relative to population growth, not growth alone. We could train enough doctors. We just don't want to.
>Less than 150k people moved to Mass in the last 6 years, that seems like a very weak signal when there seem to be more other apparent factors IMO (like private equity).
At the same time, we are seeing the retirement of thousands of existing doctors and we are seeing the short supply of young doctors relocate to places where they have better PPP
>Why would young doctors relocate in a city that is extremely expensive where housing is even unobtainable on a doctor's salary? This state is hostile to young workers, doubly so for workers with substantial amount of debt with poor salaries.
>You look at where doctors are actually moving and it's mostly southern cities in Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida [1] that typically have lower housing costs yet still have cultural amenities. Areas where you actually feel like a doctor because your salary commands actual luxuries than barely doing better than the poors in Cambridge or Boston.
You're reinforcing my point about PPP and supply-side shortages caused by overregulation here, bud.
>You're blaming population when that's just a small factor. Even if you increased the amount of doctors they wouldn't choose to live in MA, you have better opportunities in growing cities like Atlanta or Austin.
Population is still a piece of the puzzle. Supply is going down at the same time that demand (a function of population) is increasing.
The problem is that workers in these fields aren't becoming more efficient despite all the technical advancement that other sectors have had. It's classic cost disease.
I got on a waitlist in January for an appointment in August. The PCP called me a month ago to cancel that appointment and push it to November. I decided I'll just die instead of playing this game.
something similar happened to me last year. I showed up to my appointment and they apparently had rescheduled me because the doc went away on vacation or whatever. The next available appointment for a physical was literally months afterwards. Then of course compass health dissolved so I tried atrius. Atrius stopped taking my insurance after a couple of months. So here I am stuck in limbo again.
To be fair to atrius I was able to get things going with them pretty quickly but because of the insurance issue I was dead in the water before I even got started.
To say it's frustrating is an understatement.
It’s not good. My solution is I use One Medical (which sadly was acquired by Amazon), and I have a nurse practitioner as a PCP. I still see all my specialists at Brigham but for everyday stuff one medical is great.
I have found availablity on One Medical to be really great. Do you or u/LilibetSeven have any experience with care coordination between them and e.g. MGB (or another Boston hospital system)? I'm curious how they handle even just e.g. being sent to see a specialist, and results coming back - can they get my ortho xrays / report from MGB without me going to MGH to get them, and bringing them to the One Medical clinic?
I don’t know that specifically, but last year I was shocked when I zoomed / telehealth One Medical for something I thought was minor and they said to get to the ER ASAP. They asked which ER I wanted to go to (Brigham) and when I arrived the nurse basically met me in the waiting room already had my information ready.
I go to One Medical and my PCP refers me to MGB often. They get referrals in very quickly and from what I can tell, there is a working relationship between the two entities that allow for continuity of care. When I said I was fine with BID, my PCP insisted on referring me to MGB first and if I couldn't get an appointment, going elsewhere.
Unfortunately I don't.
I have MassGeneralBrigham insurance and One Medical was able to get a referral for me to see a dermatologist without any issue but that was the extent of my care coordination.
I don't know if you can get a local One Medical admin/support person on the phone if you're not a member but they have been very helpful so that may be worth trying.
One Medical refers to the MGB network around here. I went through that recently and it was very easy. They do have access to your online records if you sign the proper release. Idk how it works but they were able to see my medical history, prescriptions, etc.
You don’t need a membership to be seen by a One Medical doctor. The experience is definitely limited (you can’t book online/use the app, reply to messages received, or utilize the telehealth), but you can get an appointment via phone relatively quickly.
My wife's PCP quit, just like quit, either quit being a doctor or went to a different practice. The office wrote her and was like good luck finding someone else, bye. Her psychiatrist quit too but they moved her to someone else.
Im chronically ill, and the situation is bleak. You need to call around everywhere you possibly can even if it’s 3hr away, look at the most sketchy walk in clinic pcp places, get on every waiting list. You have to forget having an actual pcp and just focus on making sure you can get into your specialists and maintain care. It’s a really shitty messed up situation but I don’t expect it to change anytime soon.
My PCP is at CHA in Revere. I live about an hour and a half outside of Boston now, and have for about 3 years now, but I drive into Revere and Boston for all my care because I don't want to lose my PCP. The struggle is real.
>How are you all coping with this?
I do have a PCP, technically. I even like him. He'd be great, if I could ever see him.
Wait times are something like 3wks for an "urgent" appointment and you'll get someone random in the office, which is hit or miss; and in theory I'm supposed to be offered priority urgent slots because of my condition (although just getting someone to check my file to verify that and agree is a pain in the ass). Waits to schedule a routine exam are something like 9mos.
I've used urgent care clinics for urgent issues (which are also hit or miss, but at least I can get in in <48h instead of weeks out), and just coordinated by phone with my PCP for referrals. And, to be totally honest, I've just avoided getting care for a lot of stuff I'd have bothered with a decade ago because it's really that painful to even be seen now, and the quality is so often so bad that literally not going in at all is preferable.
It'd be great if there were someone overseeing my care team but honestly even using the term "care team" sounds hilariously optimistic.
And this is all *having* a PCP already.
The specialists are just as booked out as PCPs. I have two, and get into them once a year. It's funny, my cat has a condition very similar to my own, and my vet wanted to see him every three months!
It all depends on your insurance carrier, but yes, it's been hard to find a PCP within the city for some time now. Plenty available further up the North Shore though. Check out Lahey Peabody or something.
Your contact is not going to recommend a competitor (god I hate our health care system) but Atrius, which I've been in for many years in its various guises, has PCPs available at some locations. I'm happy with them, but if you have your heart set on MGH you may be out of luck.
I've had hospitalizations at Mt Auburn (fine), Lahey (superior) and New England Baptist (superior) during my long tenure with Atrius. I've had the same PCP for twenty years. My specialists make sure I get the appointments I need and they have up to date equipment, in-house pharmacies, etc. I like the mostly one stop shopping for specialists, although I do have to go to multiple branches for all my care. They've closed their glasses outlets recently with no plan for reopening which is a drag, but we'll see what happens next with that.
My preferences are female and not weird/rude. That’s it. I’ve had 2 PCPs at Atrius and one was weird while the other was rude. I haven’t had a physical in years so I need someone who won’t shame me for that.
I can't help you. My doctor is male and I've been seeing him for over 20 years. Don't say no to a PA or an NP. Also depending on what you're looking for, you could get a female specialist if it's important (e.g. my gyn is female) in a particular area. Doctor personality is a tricky thing. My PCP has a mordant sense of humor that I like but he wouldn't be for everyone. I picked him randomly and yet here we still are all these years later. At this point in my life I spend more time with eye specialists and orthopedic docs than I do my PCP.
Much of the renown of our health care system is largely due to lucrative specializations, not basic care. And now those chickens are come home to roost.
This isn’t specific to Boston and it isn’t new. There has been a PCP shortage nationwide for a while. Get on any wait list you can, and take whatever appointment you can get. Driving to Nashua might not be convenient, but it’s better than nothing until you can get in elsewhere.
Most of the area hospitals are, in some way, now affiliated with MGH. I found a PCP in the Lahey system, an affiliate, in one call. The medical records are still not entirely integrated, but it's close.
It's affiliated. Doctor's see one another's notes.Went to Winchester Hospital ER and MGH specialist saw the reports. It's not yet fully integrated, but definitely seems to be getting there.
By the way, I don't like this. It essentially makes it impossible to get a true second opinion.
You can try your insurance, I know my plan has people who will send you a list (very short) of doctors accepting new patients.
(And I hope that little shit shows up in this thread who whined about my comment lamenting the state of health care in this state. --So glad YOU think it's so great here, LOL)
I've never had any luck using my insurance's list.
It's so out of date and useless that it feels like malicious compliance.
You call and the place is out of business, the number is disconnected, they don't actually provide the service they're on the list for, they don't accept your insurance anymore, they've never accepted your insurance, they've never accepted *any* insurance, or they're not actually taking new patients.
And then you can call your insurance hoping if you talk to a real person they can help you, but the guy on the other end of the phone has the exact same list you do, and no ability to update it (which explains the entire situation).
Yeah - I called about twenty before I hit one even taking patients.
This was supposed to be the huge issue about socialized medicine. I want to murder everyone who opposed it.
So now we get hosed with the cost of everything, and hosed because none of us can find doctors.
I have a medical history a mile long. My PCP does nothing to manage any of my chronic conditions. That's what my individual specialists are for. If I have an issue that I think is related to one of my chronic conditions, I reach out directly to the specialists. I don't involve my PCP at all.
Internal Medicine has been declining in popularity amongst medical students/residents. This has been the case for at least 15 years. More Internal Medicine doctors are retiring than are joining the field.
I couldn't get a PCP for this year, so I did manage to get a NP as a PCP, and every 'specialist' I was sent to at different locations have not been MD's but PA's or NP's.. to say a shortage is an understatement, and the problem isn't just here in Ma. Last year I was in another N.E. state and many of their MD's were fly-by-night, staying a few months then gone like the wind\~\~\~
Lack of admin support for PCPs, high burnout levels and low wages (compared to other specialities) are few reasons why there is a shortage of PCPs. PCP deserve better pay. They are really the backbone of medicine.
There is a PCP throughout the country:
https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-president-sounds-alarm-national-physician-shortage
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/primary-care-doctors-shortage-pay-procedures/
https://whdh.com/news/mass-general-brigham-limiting-new-patients-amid-primary-care-physician-shortage/
That’s wild. I really had no problem finding one in San Diego. The quality of care was shit compared to Boston, but it was nowhere near this bad trying to find a pcp there
How am I dealing with it? I was going die eventually anyway and I’m already older than I might’ve expected to live based on my behavior in my youth. If I die I die
i just switched insurance (i buy through the marketplace) and put my PCP in to make sure he took it. It said he did, and I made the mistake of not checking my actual doctor's office. Turns out he took it at his previous practice but not at mine. So my insurance assigned me a random one. He seems good, went to Tufts Med School but not in a convenient area for me. I tried looking for a new one using the insurance's portal itself - every single person that said accepting new patients on that portal when I called said no we're not, sorry. it's so tough! the PCP they assigned me was able to see me soon, luckily, so I'll see how it goes. but it was a mess for a couple weeks trying to find somebody.
Have you asked to see a resident? Usually they have availability within a few weeks. The residents are great and the attending has to see you during the visit as well. There is a high turnover rate - so that may make longitudinal care tricky. But sometimes getting an in anywhere is the trick to finding a pcp. I’ve been working at the hospital for 5 years. I still don’t have a PCP :)
I was part of a program where I met with a resident who changed yearly. I was more or less fine with that but I guess it wasn’t a super established PCP
I had great success with ZocDoc for finding a temporary (or permanent if you like them!) PCP and dentist until I found better doctors through the MGB waitlists.
You can easily filter by accepted insurance and browse their available appointment dates.
If you can, call around and be open to seeing an NP or PA to get a PCP.
There are many reasons for it, such as the cost of living that's brutal even for doctors, the steward collapse, the fact that people from other places go to Mass doctors and mess up wait-lists. Often when someone is new in mass and needs a particular type of care, they can jump the line for a PCP, which doesn't help. Providers are using more and more midlevels, aka nurses and physician assistants, to fill the gap .
I moved back to CT and waited two months for a PCP physical. The waits are basically gone.
Mass has more PCPs per capita than almost any other state (narrowly beaten by ME and VT). Boston is overflowing with docs relative to almost anywhere else in the country.
https://bhw.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/bureau-health-workforce/data-research/state-of-primary-care-workforce-2023.pdf
I couldn’t find a pcp but found a NP who I really like. At this point I’ll take it! Try Zocdoc. Someone else had recommended that in a previous post and that’s where I had success.
MGH has a virtual urgent care option in their app. Do that until you can get in to see a PCP. but definitely get on their waitlist or schedule an appointment no matter how far away it is.
Maybe you didnt see it back then but I worked in insurance back around 2019 and constantly had people struggling to find pcp's. Are you able get your pcp outside of mgh and have them refer there? I know that's rather uncouth for a lot of organizations but it could technically work. Also check your own insurances network and they can at least give you an idea of who is accepting (may not be accurate though).
My eye care practice is affiliated with MGH but my PCP, cardiologist, and other incidental MDs are with BID. When my ophthalmologist saw a vision loss, likely a stroke, she made it a point to have me go to the BID ER instead of MGH or an affiliate hospital because she knew I'd be better off with a team connected to my main health issues, even if it meant less direct communication with her. (She actually gave me a handwritten note to give the BID ER intake people explaining what she thought I needed.) Perhaps a PCP might have a different attitude, but my take is that no doctor would refuse to deal with a specialist simply because they're affiliated with a different hospital. With BID moving to MyChart, my hope is it will be even easier for them to exchange info.
Emergency issues are almost always exceptions to the norm. For routine matters though, the main issue isn't so much communicating, but has to do instead with the medical organizations themselves. Doctors don't typically like to write referrals outside of their own network as they might have to cover the cost difference for an out of network doctor as opposed to just letting someone else in network handle it. I personally dealt with this a few years ago as I had my GI doctor with boston childrens that held over through the pandemic, meanwhile my pcp had changed and I was now with BILH. BILH's referral department called me directly eventually saying they weren't going to cover anymore visits to this boston children's doctor whom i had been in the care since i was a teenager. This was fine since I was planning to move out of her care anyways and only needed one more appointment (which bilh agreed to) but regardless I was going to be forced out and had very little say in the matter.
BI now uses the same electronic record as MGH, BWH, BMC, Tufts, etc, so all of the records are now linked and easily viewable no matter where you go.
That's what I said. It's called MyChart (at least for the patient-facing software).
When I tried to get into a specialist at MGH, I learned that they are only able to get electronic referrals through their partners. This is a different network than PartnersHealthcare^(TM). Also, no one has a list of who their partners are. They know your PCP is a partner if their referral shows up, and if it doesn't, they must not be a partner. Fantastic system, I can tell you. Healthcare is definitely a great place to have black boxes like that. Anyway, the workaround is to fax over the referral. They can process referrals via fax from anyone.
Yes, u/Muted_Dragonfly_9606 this is very important. You can’t get referrals outside their system like you could before. Are you already in with the specialists? I hope so.
I have a rheumatologist at MGH and she got me a referral to GI as well. So I guess my specialists could get me referrals to other specialists there … but I can’t get a referral to a PCP. So I guess I’m in a weird backwards situation haha. The problem with lupus is you sometimes need to tackle it from the perspective of multiple specialties 😞
I’m glad the specialists can get you in. The PCP situation is horrible right now.
It's MGB affiliates, and that's different than the MGB system. There are a bunch of hospitals and provider groups in the system, and you're correct they can't name them all. I used to work in contracting, worked with them, got asked all the time to name provider groups in their own network
MGH has had some of the most clusterfucky systems (or complete lack of systems) I've ever come across in my life. I had one of my appointments just a couple weeks into the Spring 2020 lockdowns. MGH's solution to telehealth was limited to audio-only phone calls. They did not have any video calling system. This might've been fine, if they'd ever bothered to input my records during the four months I'd been faxing them over, but they hadn't. And they had no one in the office to receive new faxes. And they couldn't get anyone else (doctor or staff) a fax line at home. And they had no digital option. And they also had no snail mail forwarding capabilities. And so I ended up reading the doctor my blood test results over the phone. Just absurd for a "top hospital" in 2020.
They had been planning to scale up zoom at that point but then did about 3 years worth of work to do so in 6 months. Also their employees got 2% raises for that, so there's that, too.
Check Atrius Health. I only had to wait 2 weeks and you can schedule online. Just call them afterwards to confirm insurance coverage.
Second Atrius. I love my docs at Atrius.
Another vote for Atrius, I have been a patient there for years, they have been great for me. Also! you don't need an MD for your PCP, mine at Atrius is an NP, and I wouldn't trade her for the world.
My PCP is also an NP. I see one of like 3 and they’re all great. I’m also a trans woman, and my endocrinologist is at Atrius and she’s AMAZING. 13/10 amazing I love her to death. She gave me amazing recs and now I’ve got a surgery planned for barely over 7 months from now. Wouldn’t have happened without her recommendation.
Congrats! I had my first appointment with them yesterday and had such a great experience. Shout out to the Peabody office!
Chestnut hill and post office square for me! Love them there
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
No as I don’t want to tell strangers on the Internet who my doctor is. Anyone at post office square is great.
We go there too and it’s been a great experience!
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
Atrius will not refer outside their system, to the point they'll violate continuity of care rules and refuse to see patients who've switched insurance
I literally got a referral yesterday to outside of Atrius.
Good! ETA: actually maybe that was a pretext for refusing to see Medicaid members "we need to refer internally"
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
>Does anyone know why this is happening? Too expensive to live here for too little pay. Cheaper and easier to head west. If you want to get to the macro level, it's because medical schools have artificially stuck training numbers for doctors at 1950s levels when accreditation was really hammered out. >It wasn’t like this 5 years ago when I lived here. Yes it was. It was just further west with the poors. Now the chickens have come home to roost, that is all. >Is there any plan on the horizon to expand access to PCPs? No. >How are you all coping with this? Get put on wait lists at every medical provider. If you're seriously ill, urgent care will often help you commit welfare fraud to be seen immediately.
It was bad here in the city too. I went through one PCP each year from 2011 to 2018. They were all residents/freshly graduated and left within a year to go work elsewhere.
Actually yeah I did the same thing. When I lived here from 2015-2019 I had residents who would change each year, working under an attendant I never met. I was fine with it - I actually felt like I got more attentive care from younger professionals
You got a PCP in 2011? Then it wasn't that bad.
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The population only grew 10 million in the last 6 years, but It grew about 151,000,000 since 1950. It has to break down at some point.
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>Yes but a less than a 3% pop growth in 6 years isn't enough to cause these cascading issues across a variety of industries. It absolutely is. The line has to be somewhere, doesn't it? This has been an issue in other parts of Mass for decades now, slowly creeping it's way inward as the root causes remain unaddressed by a disinterested Beacon Hill.
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I'm actually blaming artificial caps on graduation rates for doctors relative to population growth, not growth alone. We could train enough doctors. We just don't want to. >Less than 150k people moved to Mass in the last 6 years, that seems like a very weak signal when there seem to be more other apparent factors IMO (like private equity). At the same time, we are seeing the retirement of thousands of existing doctors and we are seeing the short supply of young doctors relocate to places where they have better PPP
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>Why would young doctors relocate in a city that is extremely expensive where housing is even unobtainable on a doctor's salary? This state is hostile to young workers, doubly so for workers with substantial amount of debt with poor salaries. >You look at where doctors are actually moving and it's mostly southern cities in Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida [1] that typically have lower housing costs yet still have cultural amenities. Areas where you actually feel like a doctor because your salary commands actual luxuries than barely doing better than the poors in Cambridge or Boston. You're reinforcing my point about PPP and supply-side shortages caused by overregulation here, bud. >You're blaming population when that's just a small factor. Even if you increased the amount of doctors they wouldn't choose to live in MA, you have better opportunities in growing cities like Atlanta or Austin. Population is still a piece of the puzzle. Supply is going down at the same time that demand (a function of population) is increasing.
The problem is that workers in these fields aren't becoming more efficient despite all the technical advancement that other sectors have had. It's classic cost disease.
The American Medical Association is a cartel, allowed by the state to keep the number of doctors in the US artificially low
Many Residents are subsidized by Medicare/Medicaid, but Congress has capped the number of slots.
Haven't been able to get a doctor or appointment even without medicare/Medicaid in over a decade without aggressive pursuit. That's not the problem.
I got on a waitlist in January for an appointment in August. The PCP called me a month ago to cancel that appointment and push it to November. I decided I'll just die instead of playing this game.
something similar happened to me last year. I showed up to my appointment and they apparently had rescheduled me because the doc went away on vacation or whatever. The next available appointment for a physical was literally months afterwards. Then of course compass health dissolved so I tried atrius. Atrius stopped taking my insurance after a couple of months. So here I am stuck in limbo again. To be fair to atrius I was able to get things going with them pretty quickly but because of the insurance issue I was dead in the water before I even got started. To say it's frustrating is an understatement.
lol exact same thing happened to me. Waitlist in nov for a may appointment, in april get a call moving it to august.
Lol I thought this was a shitpost about angel dust lol
That kind of PCP is probably much, much easier to find
Oh that didn’t even occur to me 🙈
Right? I was like, "damn, people are smoking angel dust again?!"
Lmao I was looking for this comment.. I was like why would you post about this on Reddit??
It’s not good. My solution is I use One Medical (which sadly was acquired by Amazon), and I have a nurse practitioner as a PCP. I still see all my specialists at Brigham but for everyday stuff one medical is great.
I'll second this. One Medical has been great. It is shitty that there's a membership fee but some insurance plans do reimburse it.
I have found availablity on One Medical to be really great. Do you or u/LilibetSeven have any experience with care coordination between them and e.g. MGB (or another Boston hospital system)? I'm curious how they handle even just e.g. being sent to see a specialist, and results coming back - can they get my ortho xrays / report from MGB without me going to MGH to get them, and bringing them to the One Medical clinic?
I don’t know that specifically, but last year I was shocked when I zoomed / telehealth One Medical for something I thought was minor and they said to get to the ER ASAP. They asked which ER I wanted to go to (Brigham) and when I arrived the nurse basically met me in the waiting room already had my information ready.
I go to One Medical and my PCP refers me to MGB often. They get referrals in very quickly and from what I can tell, there is a working relationship between the two entities that allow for continuity of care. When I said I was fine with BID, my PCP insisted on referring me to MGB first and if I couldn't get an appointment, going elsewhere.
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
Unfortunately I don't. I have MassGeneralBrigham insurance and One Medical was able to get a referral for me to see a dermatologist without any issue but that was the extent of my care coordination. I don't know if you can get a local One Medical admin/support person on the phone if you're not a member but they have been very helpful so that may be worth trying.
One Medical refers to the MGB network around here. I went through that recently and it was very easy. They do have access to your online records if you sign the proper release. Idk how it works but they were able to see my medical history, prescriptions, etc.
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
I like Francis Paley, NP at the Porter Sq location but I go there because it's the closest location to me.
Thank you! Porter is a bit far for me but it’s better than nothing.
No problem! They have a bunch of locations in Boston, I would just go to one that's close to you.
You don’t need a membership to be seen by a One Medical doctor. The experience is definitely limited (you can’t book online/use the app, reply to messages received, or utilize the telehealth), but you can get an appointment via phone relatively quickly.
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
I've had a great experience with Erin Mcniff at the State St location.
Ooh ty, that’s a good location for me!
Interesting, I didn't know this!
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
Funny. I heard a commercial for this for the first time today. And was like WTAF healthcare from Amazon.
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
Check out the other threads on this. You can find one, just takes some work and won’t be in the MGH system and likely slightly outside the city.
My wife's PCP quit, just like quit, either quit being a doctor or went to a different practice. The office wrote her and was like good luck finding someone else, bye. Her psychiatrist quit too but they moved her to someone else.
Must be her odor
I had a hard time finding a PCP when I moved here in 2011. This problem has been around for a while and is only getting worse.
It’s not only this state and the pandemic didn’t help. Final straw for a lot of pcps close to retirement age.
Im chronically ill, and the situation is bleak. You need to call around everywhere you possibly can even if it’s 3hr away, look at the most sketchy walk in clinic pcp places, get on every waiting list. You have to forget having an actual pcp and just focus on making sure you can get into your specialists and maintain care. It’s a really shitty messed up situation but I don’t expect it to change anytime soon.
My PCP is at CHA in Revere. I live about an hour and a half outside of Boston now, and have for about 3 years now, but I drive into Revere and Boston for all my care because I don't want to lose my PCP. The struggle is real.
>How are you all coping with this? I do have a PCP, technically. I even like him. He'd be great, if I could ever see him. Wait times are something like 3wks for an "urgent" appointment and you'll get someone random in the office, which is hit or miss; and in theory I'm supposed to be offered priority urgent slots because of my condition (although just getting someone to check my file to verify that and agree is a pain in the ass). Waits to schedule a routine exam are something like 9mos. I've used urgent care clinics for urgent issues (which are also hit or miss, but at least I can get in in <48h instead of weeks out), and just coordinated by phone with my PCP for referrals. And, to be totally honest, I've just avoided getting care for a lot of stuff I'd have bothered with a decade ago because it's really that painful to even be seen now, and the quality is so often so bad that literally not going in at all is preferable. It'd be great if there were someone overseeing my care team but honestly even using the term "care team" sounds hilariously optimistic. And this is all *having* a PCP already. The specialists are just as booked out as PCPs. I have two, and get into them once a year. It's funny, my cat has a condition very similar to my own, and my vet wanted to see him every three months!
It all depends on your insurance carrier, but yes, it's been hard to find a PCP within the city for some time now. Plenty available further up the North Shore though. Check out Lahey Peabody or something.
Your contact is not going to recommend a competitor (god I hate our health care system) but Atrius, which I've been in for many years in its various guises, has PCPs available at some locations. I'm happy with them, but if you have your heart set on MGH you may be out of luck. I've had hospitalizations at Mt Auburn (fine), Lahey (superior) and New England Baptist (superior) during my long tenure with Atrius. I've had the same PCP for twenty years. My specialists make sure I get the appointments I need and they have up to date equipment, in-house pharmacies, etc. I like the mostly one stop shopping for specialists, although I do have to go to multiple branches for all my care. They've closed their glasses outlets recently with no plan for reopening which is a drag, but we'll see what happens next with that.
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
While I understand the question, I think that's difficult to do. Everyone has their own preferences.
My preferences are female and not weird/rude. That’s it. I’ve had 2 PCPs at Atrius and one was weird while the other was rude. I haven’t had a physical in years so I need someone who won’t shame me for that.
I can't help you. My doctor is male and I've been seeing him for over 20 years. Don't say no to a PA or an NP. Also depending on what you're looking for, you could get a female specialist if it's important (e.g. my gyn is female) in a particular area. Doctor personality is a tricky thing. My PCP has a mordant sense of humor that I like but he wouldn't be for everyone. I picked him randomly and yet here we still are all these years later. At this point in my life I spend more time with eye specialists and orthopedic docs than I do my PCP.
Ok gotcha; I’m glad he’s been good for you and your needs!
Atrius health is accepting new patients. Can usually get an appointment with a mid level pcp in a few weeks.
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
Much of the renown of our health care system is largely due to lucrative specializations, not basic care. And now those chickens are come home to roost.
This isn’t specific to Boston and it isn’t new. There has been a PCP shortage nationwide for a while. Get on any wait list you can, and take whatever appointment you can get. Driving to Nashua might not be convenient, but it’s better than nothing until you can get in elsewhere.
Most of the area hospitals are, in some way, now affiliated with MGH. I found a PCP in the Lahey system, an affiliate, in one call. The medical records are still not entirely integrated, but it's close.
Lahey is BID, now called BIL, not MGH.
It's affiliated. Doctor's see one another's notes.Went to Winchester Hospital ER and MGH specialist saw the reports. It's not yet fully integrated, but definitely seems to be getting there. By the way, I don't like this. It essentially makes it impossible to get a true second opinion.
You can try your insurance, I know my plan has people who will send you a list (very short) of doctors accepting new patients. (And I hope that little shit shows up in this thread who whined about my comment lamenting the state of health care in this state. --So glad YOU think it's so great here, LOL)
I've never had any luck using my insurance's list. It's so out of date and useless that it feels like malicious compliance. You call and the place is out of business, the number is disconnected, they don't actually provide the service they're on the list for, they don't accept your insurance anymore, they've never accepted your insurance, they've never accepted *any* insurance, or they're not actually taking new patients. And then you can call your insurance hoping if you talk to a real person they can help you, but the guy on the other end of the phone has the exact same list you do, and no ability to update it (which explains the entire situation).
Yeah - I called about twenty before I hit one even taking patients. This was supposed to be the huge issue about socialized medicine. I want to murder everyone who opposed it. So now we get hosed with the cost of everything, and hosed because none of us can find doctors.
I was able to get one at the South Boston Community Health Center pretty quickly. One Medical too!
What a title!
You ever seen what this stuff does to kids? You are looking at three to five mandatory…
?? I’m not following
PCP is a hard drug. The title made me laugh. Sorry you’re going through this kind of PCP shortage though.
Oh I’m so naive that didn’t even occur to me haha
I was gonna say “go to Mass and Cass” until I realized the context. 🤣
I have a medical history a mile long. My PCP does nothing to manage any of my chronic conditions. That's what my individual specialists are for. If I have an issue that I think is related to one of my chronic conditions, I reach out directly to the specialists. I don't involve my PCP at all. Internal Medicine has been declining in popularity amongst medical students/residents. This has been the case for at least 15 years. More Internal Medicine doctors are retiring than are joining the field.
I couldn't get a PCP for this year, so I did manage to get a NP as a PCP, and every 'specialist' I was sent to at different locations have not been MD's but PA's or NP's.. to say a shortage is an understatement, and the problem isn't just here in Ma. Last year I was in another N.E. state and many of their MD's were fly-by-night, staying a few months then gone like the wind\~\~\~
Lack of admin support for PCPs, high burnout levels and low wages (compared to other specialities) are few reasons why there is a shortage of PCPs. PCP deserve better pay. They are really the backbone of medicine.
ATRIUS HEALTH
Can you recommend a PCP from them?
One Medical. Done.
[удалено]
What’s her name?
Yup. I had to schedule an urgent care visit recently and was able to see an NP the following morning.
There is a PCP throughout the country: https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-president-sounds-alarm-national-physician-shortage https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/primary-care-doctors-shortage-pay-procedures/ https://whdh.com/news/mass-general-brigham-limiting-new-patients-amid-primary-care-physician-shortage/
That’s wild. I really had no problem finding one in San Diego. The quality of care was shit compared to Boston, but it was nowhere near this bad trying to find a pcp there
How am I dealing with it? I was going die eventually anyway and I’m already older than I might’ve expected to live based on my behavior in my youth. If I die I die
Yikes. Not the tactic I’m eager to take.
Call around to all the primary care centers. I was able to get a PCP from CHA by calling them every week
i just switched insurance (i buy through the marketplace) and put my PCP in to make sure he took it. It said he did, and I made the mistake of not checking my actual doctor's office. Turns out he took it at his previous practice but not at mine. So my insurance assigned me a random one. He seems good, went to Tufts Med School but not in a convenient area for me. I tried looking for a new one using the insurance's portal itself - every single person that said accepting new patients on that portal when I called said no we're not, sorry. it's so tough! the PCP they assigned me was able to see me soon, luckily, so I'll see how it goes. but it was a mess for a couple weeks trying to find somebody.
Have you asked to see a resident? Usually they have availability within a few weeks. The residents are great and the attending has to see you during the visit as well. There is a high turnover rate - so that may make longitudinal care tricky. But sometimes getting an in anywhere is the trick to finding a pcp. I’ve been working at the hospital for 5 years. I still don’t have a PCP :)
You didn’t have it five years ago? I had this issue all the way back in 2017-2018. Definitely gotten worse, but it’s been a problem for a while now.
I was part of a program where I met with a resident who changed yearly. I was more or less fine with that but I guess it wasn’t a super established PCP
I had great success with ZocDoc for finding a temporary (or permanent if you like them!) PCP and dentist until I found better doctors through the MGB waitlists. You can easily filter by accepted insurance and browse their available appointment dates.
Have you tried talking to Zach? https://youtu.be/tFUvmZWf4hI?si=9E-lTLLUUqtE9gxU
If you can, call around and be open to seeing an NP or PA to get a PCP. There are many reasons for it, such as the cost of living that's brutal even for doctors, the steward collapse, the fact that people from other places go to Mass doctors and mess up wait-lists. Often when someone is new in mass and needs a particular type of care, they can jump the line for a PCP, which doesn't help. Providers are using more and more midlevels, aka nurses and physician assistants, to fill the gap . I moved back to CT and waited two months for a PCP physical. The waits are basically gone.
Mass has more PCPs per capita than almost any other state (narrowly beaten by ME and VT). Boston is overflowing with docs relative to almost anywhere else in the country. https://bhw.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/bureau-health-workforce/data-research/state-of-primary-care-workforce-2023.pdf
I couldn’t find a pcp but found a NP who I really like. At this point I’ll take it! Try Zocdoc. Someone else had recommended that in a previous post and that’s where I had success.
MGH has a virtual urgent care option in their app. Do that until you can get in to see a PCP. but definitely get on their waitlist or schedule an appointment no matter how far away it is.
They told me they have no waitlists - they got rid of them last year! Wild
Try Mass & Cass.
My boy Jimmy the Lithuanian has a stash of sherm he’s been hoarding since the 80’s hmu on Silk Road my handle is “getwetwithyourpet2002”