Group appointments with doctors: When three isn't a crowd
Mar-21-2013

When visiting the doctor, there may be strength in numbers.
In recent years, a growing number of doctors have begun holding group appointments - seeing up to a dozen patients with similar medical concerns all at once.
Advocates of the approach say such visits allow doctors to treat more patients, spend more time with them (even if not one-on-one), increase appointment availability and improve health outcomes.
Some see group appointments as a way to ease looming physician shortages. According to a study published in December, meeting the country's health-care needs will require nearly 52,000 additional primary-care physicians by 2025.
More than 8,000 of that total will be needed for the more than 27 million people newly insured under the Affordable Care Act.
"With Obamacare, we're going to get a lot of previously uninsured people coming into the system, and the question will be 'How are we going to service these people well?' " says Edward Noffsinger, who has developed group-visit models and consults with providers on their implementation. With that approach, "doctors can be more efficient and patients can have more time with their doctors."
Some of the most successful shared appointments bring together patients with the same chronic condition, such as diabetes or heart disease.
For example, in a diabetes group visit, a doctor might ask everyone to remove their shoes so he can examine their feet for sores or signs of infection, among other things.

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