This is so hilariously false and completely inverted that it shocks me that people not in medicine can believe it.

Out of respect for you as a fellow intelligent HN commenter — you are deeply misinformed, and I would urge you to reconsider your perspectives on this.

Every study shows that utilization of APPs and nurse practitioners Leads to decreased quality of care and a significant increase in utilization of other healthcare resources, like the emergency department and imaging, that better-trained physicians don't need.

Less-trained providers misdiagnose cancers, refer patients to the wrong specialists, overprescribe antibiotics, and generally cost the system significantly more in overall health load than if we had better-paid general practitioners.

There is an argument that not enough physicians go into general practice, which is true, but it's because subspecialties are in such high demand that they're generally better paid. The unfortunate fix is that we need to find a way to better compensate primary care, even though Medicare physician reimbursement rates continually decline and our health insurance system is not well structured to support this kind of primary care model.

I've left a few links below if you'd like to read them:

General burden of NPs higher than physicians even with lower appointment cost: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/615326dd2c363f1e2a5c8...

Skin cancer misdiagnosis: https://www.ovid.com/journals/jaderm/abstract/10.1001/jamade...

Antibiotics overprescribed: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5047413/