I feel like you might be tired of hearing another concierge medical success story. But then again, there’s still plenty of opposition to the model. Which brings up a post about how a concierge doctor saved a woman’s life. (Original link no longer available.)
The post from The DO, a blog for osteopathic physicians, features two doctors who successfully transitioned to the model.
One of the men, Dr. Schneiderman, a Monterey, California-based concierge medical doctor, was ready to leave his home state to practice medicine elsewhere. He was frustrated that he didn’t have actual time to spend with his patients. He tried everything. Working for the prison system, working for the Veterans Affairs system, and none of it made a difference.
Then as all the stories go, he heard about an alternative—an annual fee-based model—my favorite type of primary are model, of course.
He made the switch. He found the time to really see his patients. In fact, in one case, instead of running in and out of rooms, he spent a while talking to an older woman who seemed very healthy.
Dr. Schneiderman and the woman spoke, and he learned more about her family’s history. She was at risk for heart disease so he wound up running some tests and found she had a 99% occlusion of one of her coronary arteries. She got angio and stints done and avoided an almost certain heart attack.