Posted by: AtlasMD

March 22, 2014

Five MORE Failures of the American Healthcare System

Second part in a series.

Supporting direct care is imperative to American healthcare success. It’s about empowering patient and doctor, and yes, taking back control from healthcare’s crony oligarchs: insurance & government. The fact is, if we use insurance for primary care — things like a physical, blood panels, monthly prescriptions, a splint for a sprained ankle — the only buyer and seller is the insurance company and/or the government. Why? It’s because we’re looking at a subsidized system involving the general public.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

March 21, 2014

Knock, Knock, Knocking On The Broken Door…

haha

Direct care + Atlas.md EMR = affordable care, accessible doctors, awesome benefits (free procedures, discounted labs, wholesale prescriptions, and a business person ready to negotiate for everything else. Oh, and it’s all HIPPA-free…

Posted by: AtlasMD

March 21, 2014

[INFOGRAPHIC] Lost Records, Lost Lab Results, and Lost Lives: American Healthcare Keeps Tripping On The Red Tape

Posted by: AtlasMD

March 21, 2014

Five Failures of the American Healthcare System

First part in a series.

We started practicing direct care because we knew there were major problems with American Healthcare. So what’s wrong with our profit-maximizing system. For starters, here’s five startling realities of our healthcare model:

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Posted by: AtlasMD

March 20, 2014

Direct Care Outsmarts The “Big Three” Financial Barriers To Opening A Private Practice.

Traditionally, there are three financial barriers to starting your practice — the office, the technology and the management. But Atlas Md-style of direct care addresses each of them.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

March 20, 2014

Still Think Health Coverage Is Health Care? Ask Obamacare Enrollees Who Can’t Find A Doctor.

philosoraptor

Terri Durheim and her family now have health insurance, courtesy of Obamacare. But what they don’t have are local doctors and hospitals who will take it.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

March 19, 2014

ICD-10 Billing Codes Cover Everything That Happens On And Off The Silver Screen

You know this guy, right? Rapper-turned-actor Will Smith is also the only person who's tried to kill himself with a jellyfish.

You know this guy, right? Rapper-turned-actor Will Smith is also the only person who’s tried to kill himself with a jellyfish.

You’ve heard the stories about ICD-10 billing codes covering everything under the sun — suicide via jellyfish included. Well, in case you’re wondering where the idea came to kill yourself with a tentacular sea creature, look no further, we found the inspiration — Hollywood.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

March 18, 2014

Fee-For-Service Private Practices Face Dark Times.

Dr. Tracy Ragland, 46, an independent primary care physician, is anxious about the future of her small practice. The law is bringing new regulations and payment rates that she says squeeze self-employed doctors out of even practicing medicine. She cherishes the autonomy of private practice and speaks darkly of the rush of independent physicians into hospital networks, which she sees as growing monopolies.

“The possibility of not being able to survive in a private practice, especially primary care, is very real,” she said.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

March 14, 2014

Denial, Deception, And Health Insurance’s High Premiums.

We all know insurance companies like to insert themselves into just about every aspect of health care. Many insurance plans make you go to an approved doctor at an approved hospital for approved procedures and take approved drugs. Fee-for-service docs don’t have much say here. They’ve handed all this control to insurance companies and the insurance companies use it, they say, to control their own costs. But is that all they use it for?

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Posted by: AtlasMD

March 13, 2014

Myth Buster, Cash-Only Medicine Edition

Some people have a knee-jerk reaction when asked about direct primary care: “Only the rich can afford direct primary care” and the end result will be “fewer doctors seeing fewer patients”. These statements are true but ironically only in context with the current dysfunctional system that impairs quality by reducing actual patient care time. It’s this patient mill mentality that drives doctors away from a career in primary care, and further exacerbates the problem. Its leads to efficiency delusions like Meaningful Use Stage 2, and ICD-10 billing codes and fast-talking EMR vendors which all to the red tape that makes healthcare so needlessly expensive.

The current insurance-driven primary care system is underfunded and overburdened and gives poorer quality care than a direct care system would. The top 9 conniptions about direct care are as follows:

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