Eryn Brown of the LA Times posted an article yesterday claiming that physicians are concerned about skyrocketing healthcare costs. However, according to survey results released earlier in the week, most doctors don’t believe they have a “major responsibility” for reducing those costs.
Tag Archives: direct primary care
July 24, 2013
July 23, 2013
Six In 10 Physicians Believe Many Doctors Will Retire Earlier Than Predicted
A Deloitte survey reports that a majority of physicians believe many doctors will retire earlier than planned in the next one to three years. The same percentage think medical experts losing control of their clinics will jeopardize the healthcare administration. This group also believes strongly that implementation of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or Obamacare, will push doctors out of the primary care industry altogether.
A spokeswoman for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Jane Orient, was not surprised by the results at all. In a recent WND article, it was reported that she said doctors already have started leaving the profession through early retirement. Of course, some will instead seek alternatives to what they see coming in the federal government’s takeover of health care. And that’s why we’ve been championing our model of direct care. Because the worst outcome is a doctor not practicing at all. And if that’s what an overregulated market will encourage, then we have a serious problem.
July 23, 2013
LINKS: Will “Federal Data Services Hub” Pose An Obamacare Privacy Risk?
We came across an opinionated article on Rare.us asking, “Would you trust thousands of low-level Federal bureaucrats and contractors with one-touch access to your private financial and medical information?” Our immediate answer was of course not. But with Obamacare’s enactment, we might not have a choice. That’s because of something called the Federal Data Services Hub. This Data Hub will supposedly be a comprehensive database of personal information established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to help with the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges.
To paraphrase, with Obamacare, each state will need to have a transparent state insurance market (currently not every state has one). If a state creates and operates one themselves, then great. But if they don’t, the government will “run” one for them. And to help “run” this state insurance market, the Obama administration is planning to hire “tens of thousands” of “navigators” earning “$20 an hour or more” to help guide buyers to their taxpayer-funded coverage, according to the Washington Examiner.
Here’s a round-up of articles to give you a more complete picture of the Federal Data Services Hub:
July 22, 2013
LISTEN: Episode 2 of Atlas MD Podcast Now On iTunes
Drs. Josh and Doug huddled up for a second taping of the Atlas MD podcast. You can stream it on iTunes. The duo took a moment to discuss HIPAA compliance, HSA spending and Meaningful Use in context with direct care, as well as our new EMR that’s launching next month. And the team announced phenomenal news: Michael Palomino has reached 150 patients in only a couple months, vastly exceeding the predicted 10 patients per month increase.
July 18, 2013
Personal Injury Lawyer Takes Interest in “Cash-Only” Medicine
This came as a surprise, but Console & Hollawell P.C., personal injury attorneys based in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York have taken interest in cash-only medicine. They posted an optimistic essay after interviewing three successful doctors who’ve left the insurance-based pay-for-service system. This included our own Dr. Doug Nunamaker, who had a chance to share his motivations for practicing Atlas MD-style of primary care. If you’re looking for a personal essay laying out the possibilities made possible by exiting insurance-based medicine, this is it. It’s definitely worth sharing with your online network.
July 18, 2013
Are Health Plans REALLY Going To Fall 50% in New York?
Many outlets are reporting on a New York Times article claiming that “health plan costs for New Yorkers are set to fall 50%” as changes under the federal health care law take effect. This was announced by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday, July 17. He is quoted as saying, “New York’s health benefits exchange will offer the type of real competition that helps drive down health insurance costs for consumers and businesses.”
One problem with the article is that it actually says, “While the rates will fall over all, apples-to-apples comparisons are impossible from this year to next because all of the plans are essentially new insurance products.” This immediately got us thinking, well where did a 50% price drop come into play?
July 17, 2013
Dave Chase Examines DPC Provider, Purchaser and Payer Perspective
Dave Chase published an excellent post recently on Forbes.com, claiming that DPC is the Rorschach test for insurance providers. He insisted that in the interest of business, insurance providers should provide wrap-around plans, and encourage people to enter into the insurance-free market, because it would save time and money collectively. Now he’s written a follow-up post that goes into more detail about current DPC perspectives. Give this post your full attention as it provides a 360°-view of DPC in context with low-income people utilizing Medicare and Medicaid, unions, self-insured employers, Cigna (the first major carrier to partner with DPC providers), and more.
July 17, 2013
Have You Found Direct Care Success? Tell Us More About It
So we came across yet another article documenting direct care success. It’s practically overwhelming hearing all this good news, especially considering that our grassroots movement is producing practically no published stories of outright failure. Granted, running a business is challenging. And it doesn’t always work out. But, in the case of Dr. Usher, a former Mayo Clinic primary care physician, he left the insurance trap and found plenty of upsides. Dr. Usher is satisfied because he can keep his prices and overhead low and spend more time with patients. “We don’t have to mill them through,” he says. He also believes a retainer-based model, rather than strictly direct pay, might possibly earn his practice a more steady stream of income.
July 17, 2013
Direct Care IS The Rare Bipartisan Idea
We came across an article called “The Rare Bipartisan Health Idea: Affordable Concierge Medicine” over on New Atlantic Ventures (navfund.com), a website promoting entrepreneurial endeavors. It makes sense that our Atlas MD style of direct care would be featured there, being as we believe healthcare can administered more effectively when coupled with free-market principles. To us it makes sense to run a business where WE are responsible for our profits and losses, WE interact with our customers directly, and WE succeed by giving them top-notch service. It so happens that in our case, doing our job well means we ensure healthy patients, something we take great pride in.
June 28, 2013
AAFP CREATES POLICY ON DIRECT PRIMARY CARE
The AAFP released an official statement on DPC. It’s going to bat for practices like ours. We especially like their word choice in their support for both doctors’ AND patients’ choice to embark on direct care. In our opinion, the free market principle of choice is what behooves our healthcare system, offering competitive options that eliminate red tape and incentivize innovation (like we’re doing with atlas.md). Couple that with increased public awareness of unfair, exorbitant costs associated with greedy pill makers and we might continue to see falling healthcare costs in the upcoming years.
“The AAFP supports the physician and patient choice to, respectively, provide and receive health care in any ethical health care delivery system mode, including the DPC practice setting,” says the policy. It notes that the model is structured to “emphasize and prioritize” the physician/patient relationship to improve health outcomes and lower costs
As Gandhi once said, Be the change you want to see. We are that change in primary care. But we’re human, too. We prefer receiving support, instead of resistance.
View the AAFP’s policy on Direct Primary Care here.