In South Portland, Maine — Roxanne Pettigrow chooses not to buy health insurance. She visits her doctor in South Portland every few weeks, though, paying $50 up front, once per month for regular checkups, office visits and preventive health screenings. It’s care that those who lack health coverage often skip.
Tag Archives: benefits
April 14, 2014
March 12, 2014
August 23, 2013
You’re Going To Love Direct Care Even More
We’ve heralded the Atlas MD-style of direct care for years now. Mostly for its simplicity — you get rid of the most aggravating part of practicing medicine, the insurance billing; you start spending more time with patients, who actually pay you; you make more money, doing the enjoyable part of your job. Then add on the benefits to your local community, such as decreased ER visits. This means emergency staff can focus on legitimate trauma, and not be burdened by cases that yes, might be painful, but can be quickly remedied by your on-call physician. Oh, and by providing 24/7 access to a doctor for a yearly fee of around $600 patients actually make appointments (by the way, $600 equals less than two months of a typical full coverage, PPO health insurance plan, an expensive plan you won’t need since your doctor visits are now free, along with copious other procedures). And, to top it off, things like MRIs and other costly procedures have been negotiated at reduced costs. Don’t forget downstream benefits of proactive care for insurance companies who won’t dole out payments to treat preventable conditions like high blood pressure and type II Diabetes.
Oh, right, but we had something to add to the snowballing benefits of direct care. Practicing physicians can also cut their malpractice insurance premium in half *. Yep, that’s right. Even the insurance agencies know that when patients come in to see a direct care physician, their doctor has time to make proper diagnoses, and provides more reliable care. Therefore, the chances of something being overlooked or mistreated are reduced.
August 16, 2013
LISTEN: Atlas MD Podcast, Ep. 5
Tune in to the next installment of our Atlas MD podcast. You can stream episode 5 for free on iTunes.
July 19, 2013
Congress’ Actions Speak Louder Than Words
So we came across some share-worthy news today. Here’s a quote from CMT, referencing Congressional healthcare benefits:
“One of the most unusual perks may come from the Office of the Attending Physician of the United States Congress. For an annual fee of $503, House and Senate members can designate the official congressional physician to be their primary care doctor — meaning they never have to leave Capitol Hill, deal with crowded doctor’s offices or be subject to the same type of care from a doctor as the rest of us.”
This sounds kind of like their own personal doctor, that’s available 24/7, for a fixed yearly price (that’s about a third of what we charge hard working Americans), who provides primary care, same day, with no waits, who fields calls directly… which sounds a lot like what we offer at Atlas MD.