![]() ![]() “Now,” Mehrotra said, “people say, ‘That’s crazy, why would I wait that long?'” Younger patients, Mehrotra noted, are unwilling to wait a few days to see a doctor for an acute problem, a situation that used to be routine. Convenience in almost every aspect of our lives,” from shopping to online banking. I think people’s expectations have changed. “These trends are more evident among millennials, but not unique to them. Ateev Mehrotra, an internist and associate professor in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. “There is a generational shift,” said Dr. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)Ī 2017 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a Washington think tank, and Greenwald and Associates yielded similar results: 33 percent of millennials did not have a regular doctor, compared with 15 percent of those age 50 to 64. There was a pronounced difference among age groups: 45 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds had no primary care provider, compared with 28 percent of those 30 to 49, 18 percent of those 50 to 64 and 12 percent age 65 and older. Subscribe to KHN's free Morning Briefing.Ī national poll of 1,200 randomly selected adults conducted in July by the Kaiser Family Foundation for this story found that 26 percent said they did not have a primary care provider. Unlike doctors’ offices, where charges are often opaque and disclosed only after services are rendered, many clinics and telemedicine sites post their prices. Many young adults are turning to a fast-growing constellation of alternatives: retail clinics carved out of drugstores or big-box retail outlets, free-standing urgent care centers that tout evening and weekend hours, and online telemedicine sites that offer virtual visits without having to leave home. Their preferences - for convenience, fast service, connectivity and price transparency - are upending the time-honored model of office-based primary care. Services are rendered in a quick manner.”īrown’s views appear to be shared by many millennials, the 83 million Americans born between 19 who constitute the nation’s biggest generation. ![]() “It means getting in a car going to a waiting room.” In his view, urgent care, which costs him about $40 per visit, is more convenient - “like speed dating. “The whole ‘going to the doctor’ phenomenon is something that’s fading away from our generation,” said Brown, who now lives in Daly City outside San Francisco. “As a young person in a nomadic state,” Brown said, he prefers finding a walk-in clinic on the rare occasions when he’s sick. Since his graduation last year from the University of San Diego, Brown has held a series of jobs that have taken him to several California cities. This story can be republished for free ( details).Ĭalvin Brown doesn’t have a primary care doctor - and the peripatetic 23-year-old doesn’t want one. This story also ran on The Washington Post.
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