Boston’s mayor announced an innovative service to help residents find primary care physicians in one of America’s oldest cities: a telephone referral service staffed by city workers.  A concierge health desk of sorts, the calls will come in through the mayor’s health line and attendants will provide callers with a list of primary care physicians who are accepting new patients.

The primary care referral service is a result of outrage by Mayor Thomas Menino in response to the primary care crisis in Boston, whereby many sick patients are unable to find physicians.  It appears that the retail healthcare movement in Boston spurred recent concern by the mayor over the “allowing of retailers to make money off of sick people.”  (Read more about retail clinics here and here)

An innovative idea, the primary care referral service is not the only card up the mayor’s sleeve.  The mayor is also considering the feasibility of requiring medical institutions to subsidize housing for primary care physicians in order to lure them into the city. 

The primary care crunch has been in the works for a while now and there isn’t a clear end in sight - in fact it’s looking like it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.  Hats off to some healthcare innovation out of one of America’s most historic cities.  Click here for a link to the article on Boston.com.

“One of the most important things we need to do as a city this rich in resources is make sure that all of the residents, particularly those who are most vulnerable, have really good access to primary services.”

Tags: Boston, Mayor Thomas Tenino, primary care shortage, retail clinics

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Entrepreneurship, Policy, Primary Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.