I say this because I've got mixed feelings as to the direction primary care has evolved in.
So I had an acute medical issue that really flared up at work yesterday afternoon. I called my primary care for an appointment and the next available was for another 3 weeks (!). No surprises as he's stupidly busy and i forgot to mention this to him during a recent visit.
I took the day off today - privilege of still having PTO days - to go to urgent care. Had an excellent conversation with the urgent care doctor who verbally confirmed some things I was seeing while on the clock.
So I'm fortunate enough to live in a place with access to urgent care services. But it feels like primary care is now its own specialty in this model, where if people prefer having that doctor manage acute issues, it's damn hard to get a timely appointment.
This is why on the clock we often curse when our patients miss primary care appointments. I'm glad urgent care exists - it is a great intermezzo for filtering out acute issues and stepping them down to primary care follow up or up to going to the emergency room. And having care in the same system where my primary care can see today's visit via EMR is good. I just question how well providers are having conversations with patients on issues like these and how the system still doesn't accommodate as flexibly people who rather get acute issues addressed directly by primary care.
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