Robert Villare, MD, a vascular surgeon at the Veterans Health Administration in Lebanon, Pa., connected with Becker’s to discuss what private practice could look like in 10 years.
Note: This response has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Dr. Robert Villare: Many physicians, like they are now, will be employed by some system. I don’t see private practice as viable for much longer.
Care is moving into the patients’ home. I think we’re going to see more of a home-based healthcare setting, kind of like the “homespital,” rather than the hospital, is the way I like to think about it. It’s going to be technology-driven. Could private practices do it? Yeah, but I don’t see them with all the technology that’s needed to sit there and do it privately. [They] might, but I think we’re going to have wearables and sensors in our clothing, shoes, watches and phones that are going to be able to detect lots of physiologic parameters. There’s a wireless blood pressure cuff now that you don’t even have to blow up. There’s so much new technology coming out, like the blood sugar measurements underneath your skin.
So that’s why I think [care is] going to move away from private practice, unfortunately. It’s also going to be driven by payments, and I don’t think physicians or nurse practitioners will be able to support themselves in a private practice setting; it would be very difficult. That’s why I think there won’t be any [private practices] like we know it today.
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