Revisiting the time needed to provide adult primary care (1 July 2022)

Summary

Patients benefit from guideline-based preventive, chronic disease, and acute care, but many do not receive it. A limitation to providing high-quality care is insufficient time for primary care providers (PCPs).

The aim of this study was to quantify the time needed to provide preventive care, chronic disease care, and acute care for a nationally representative adult patient panel by a PCP alone, and by a PCP as part of a team-based care model.

The authors concluded that PCPs do not have enough time to provide the guideline-recommended primary care. With team-based care the time requirements would decrease by over half, but still be excessive.