Sustaining Primary Care Practice: A Model to Calculate Disease Burden and Adjust Panel Size

In late 2008, the Ohio Permanente Medical Group (OPMG) faced severe staffing shortages in its primary care physician group. In addition, the local market for recruitment did not look promising. As a result, many OPMG primary care physicians had very large patient panels, resulting in physician burnout and the Region faced member dissatisfaction in getting appointments. One solution explored was to hire nurse practitioners (NPs) to fill the...