December CFSAC Part 2: Touchdowns Will Win the Game
In this Part 2 of my review of the December 2017 Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee meeting, I'll address a question discussed there: Should we target specialists or primary care doctors in a physician education project? Dr. Jose Montoya said in the meeting that the best place for the type of clinical care SEID (systemic exertion intolerance disease) patients need is in the specialist setting. I absolutely agree. Those who are our experts now give a long time to each patient, an amount of time that is not profitable for each patient in a primary care setting. Our medical care system is still set as a pay for service. "It's not unusual for primary care doctors' appointments to be scheduled at 15-minute intervals," says a 2014 USA Today article . This is not a match for our multi-system, multi-symptom, multi-treatment disease. Setting aside the time element, there is also the level of knowledge needed. Specialists are specialists because the...