An analysis of the impact of the loss of a primary care physician on a patient population.

A case study was undertaken to analyze the effect of the loss of a primary care physician upon the population he served. While the physician in this study retired, the effects of his retirement can be extrapolated to the situations of sickness, death, etc, in which the services of a primary care physician are lost. A sample population of the patients who had lost their "family doctor" was interviewed in depth regarding the problems incurred by this loss. The mechanisms of informing the patients, transfer of patient records, exchange of responsibility and continuity of care, patterns of primary vs specialty care, and use of the Emergency Room before and after the retirement were investigated. It was found that only one out of every six families established a reliable and permanent relationship with a new physician within six months without experiencing "great difficulty". While recognizing the limitations of one case study, recommendations are made to mitigate the "difficult" aspects of such transfers in the future.