Impending collapse of Primary Care Medicine and Its Implications for the State of the Nation's Care

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is the nation's largest specialty society, representing 119,000 internal medicine physicians (internists) and medical students.

"Primary care, the backbone of the nation's health care system, is at grave risk of collapse due to a dysfunctional financing and delivery system. Immediate and comprehensive reforms are required to replace systems that undermine and undervalue the relationship between patients and their personal physicians. If these reforms do not take place, within a few years there will not be enough primary care physicians to take care of an aging population with increasing incidences of chronic diseases. The consequences of failing to act will be higher costs, greater inefficiency, lower quality, more uninsured persons, and growing patient and physician dissatisfaction." <excerpt>