Posted on 04/16/2013 3:15:05 PM PDT by rstrahan
Got a survey on behalf of my physician. Now, I've been a patient for over 25 years. But from the sound of the questioning, he is considering closing his primary care operation and going to a concierge, cash-only physician operation ("Royal Pains" style, if you're familiar with the tv show). So, if he does, he'll have the cream of the local populace, and us who rely on private insurance and Medicare will be looking for another doctor.
Just another thank-you to Obama-care.
Good for him. I am looking for one of those.
My GP “retired” not long after Obamacare reared its ugly head. He was only in his 50’s. Not a good thing for me but I totally understand his decision and would have done the same thing.
The competition will lower private sector health care costs.
Wait till it really hits next year.
I think its a great idea
You have 50 patient/families, and you charge them yearly what HALF the cost of insurance is, they agree not to sue you, and everyone is happy (except the lawholes)
Interesting tidbit, though the mainstream healthcare industry in slightly more socialized countries like Britain are a sewer, ancillary services like plastic surgery and chiropractics see boom times. The obvious reason being.g gubmint control makes things crappy.
Two years ago I was really sick on Christmas Day. I called the MDVIP emergency number and asked to leave a message for Dr._____. The voice on the other end said, "This is Dr. ______" He called every pharmacy in town until he found one that was open on Christmas.
On my last doctor visit, I needed them to contact the Medicare Advantage plan about a prescription the MA now wants pre-authorized. I have been taking the prescript about 6 years and the MA has paid the last 3 years with no problem.
Anyway, mention of the need for pre-authorization set my doctor into a rant. He complained about the insurance co’s and drug co’s frequently changing their procedures and policies. He said it was enough to make him think about early retirement.
I am apprehensive that when more Obamacare policies and procedures go into effect next year, more doctors will opt for earlier retirement. And the patients will be left at the mercy of the Obamacare bureaucracy.
Never fear. Won’t take the Marxists long to close him down. Can’t control the healthcare industry unless ALL of it is run by the goobermint.
Opens up so many options for docs and patients. I heard of one who would charge 2 thousand bucks a year - first 500 patients who pay him get in - and he’ll go everything they need. When their care requires more than he can provide, he’ll hook them up with specialist. He knows he gets a million a year to run his office - no paperwork - and patients get what they need.
Damn, the free market. Who’d a thunk it?
Of course. Mark Steyn forecast this movement a couple of years ago.
Government can clamp down on people as much as they want, but people will innovate. One is reminded of a scene from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago in which he witnessed a man and a woman successfully engaging in an intimate act through the barbed wire that separated their two prison camps.
I sure hope it catches on.
I’ll bet your dr loves you as a patient, just because you weren’t presumptuous that he’d be answering calls personally on Chrsitmas Day!
I’ve been paying cash to see my dr for decades now, so I’m not “in the system” anyway.
Of course, it will be used to stir up class resentment in a push for yet more healthcare socialism. Imagine, richies paying pet doctors to cater to their every whim, treating them for gout and designer drug addiction while malnourished children die waiting for the care that were the more fortunate in it with the rest of us would be subsidized.
If you can't afford it, ask him if you can pay what you can, he probably isn't heartless and you could get some if not all of his services pro-bono. It maybe a win-win, you both think Obamacare is a pile of Suckage, and he is willing to have you in his merry gang to metaphorically thumb your nose at lear deader...
I got the survey. It sounded great until at the end it asked if I was will to pay 900 a month. :(
Forbes had an article on these concierge services a couple weeks ago. People pay as little as $60/mo. for all basic services...most are a bit higher. The danger to the socialists is that middle income and young people will start to flock to these if they catch on.
It seems they are particularly popular in the Pacific Northwest which is interesting because that's where Kaiser has a strong presence. Competition for their business perhaps?
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