VTDigger

This commentary is by Kenyon Bolton. He is an internal medicine physician who lives in East Montpelier.

It is already difficult to find a new primary care clinician in Vermont. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” making its way through the U.S. Congress will likely make it harder thanks to its proposed Medicaid work requirements and more frequent eligibility recertifications.

I am an internal medicine physician who works in hospital medicine. I love primary care and volunteer in an outpatient clinic, but chose employment in the hospital setting in part due to the administrative burdens increasingly placed on primary care.

Primary care clinicians already have the unenviable task of gatekeeping many social services. When not in the exam room, they are completing paperwork for their patients’ disability determination for social security, special education services, substance use disorder support, home health services, housing and food assistance and family medical leave, in addition to onerous tasks related to documentation and insurance.  continue reading