Delegating work in primary care: a false ideal?

Primary care physicians are advised to delegate as much work as possible to support staff enabling them to serve larger patient panels and handle more patient visits, and thus generate more revenue. We explain that this advice is based on several fallacies and show evidence that dividing work processes among different types of support staff actually reduces productivity and profitability of primary care practices. We conclude that the efficient operation of large practices requires sophisticated practice management skills.