The Burrill Report (June 26, 2009): A Primary Problem in Healthcare Reform (.MP3,11.65 Mb)

Thomas Bodenheimer thinks it will not be possible to have successful healthcare reform without addressing the crisis in primary care. Bodenheimer, a professor at the Center for Excellence in Primary Care in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco recently co-authored a perspective for the New England Journal of Medicine in which he agrues that a comprehensive federal initiative is needed to revitalize primary care in the United States. He calls for a three-point plan to reform primary care payment, invest in infrastructure and organization, and improve the work life of these physicians. We spoke to Bodenheimer about why young physicians are not pursuing careers in primary care medicine, why fixing this problem is critical to fixing healthcare, and whether or not the problem is recognized by lawmakers hammering out healthcare reform legislation.