Who has 7-plus hours a day to put toward preventive care?

Researchers recommend using nurse practitioners and others to assist in providing patients this type of care, freeing up doctors for acute and chronic care.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. April 21, 2003.

You may not need researchers to tell you that you're too busy to handle all of the recommended preventive care for each patient. But you might want to hear what they have to say about how bad the problem is, and what you can do to improve matters.

A new study found that primary care physicians would need to spend 7.4 hours a day providing recommended preventive care. "Physicians feel there isn't enough time to complete the tasks recommended. It's a large reason why [preventive care] doesn't get done," said Kimberly Yarnall, MD, lead author of the study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The study, which examined recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, cited research showing that preventive care often is not done because of lack of time and counseling expertise by the physician, inadequate insurance reimbursement and low interest by patients. The problem may increase as new genetic tests become available.

According to the research cited, the average patient in a family practice waiting room needs 25 preventive services. Those may include blood pressure screening, mammograms, cholesterol tests, and counseling on exercise and smoking.

A base of 2,500 patients modeled after U.S. Census Bureau figures was set by researchers. Conservative time estimates were assigned for prevention tests and counseling.

"The complaint that doctors have that there isn't enough time is real," said Dr. Yarnall, a family physician and an associate clinical professor of community and family medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C.