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.
Can’t say I blame him....
“Get low cost catastrophic insurance.”
Obamacare has made that illegal come 1/1/2014.
I have met the opposite too.
A pediatrician who became just a billing operation for Medicaid. He would see anyone who walked through the door, completely fanciful diagnosis of mostly harmless stuff - flu, allergies, etc...
The entire community of general practice physicians should simply shut their doors and tell the American public they’ll open for business again after Congress passes the defeat of Obamacare and the “prez” signs it.
The rich always have their health avenues.
But these low cost concierge service primarily help the middle class and even the poor. I don't really see how the socialists are going to be able to make hay over this one.
Got a source for that?
If you can afford it you might be pleasantly surprised at how affordable is cash-for-service
I take my kids to their doc for cash and we end up better than if we used TRICARE with all the deductible and paperwork for the doctor. His fee for cash is much lower so it is win-win
It was a great idea, worked very well and was an American tradition.
My youngest (a son born in 1984) was delivered by an O.B. that wanted two dozen freshly-killed and field-dressed quail for payment, which I gladly provided.
So did ours. He had a nurse practitioner take over his patients, but our insurance wouldn’t cover expenses with her, so we’re still looking for a GP.
My brother pays $300 a month extra for this so called “Cadillac Service.” He is very satisfied with service. He is on Medicare.
” Get low cost catastrophic insurance.”
You can do that if you can find it. Under 0-care, even if you get catastrophic insurance, you will still have to pay the tax/ penalty.
Once you strip away all of the bureaucratic costs of co pays and deductibles and forms and filing and delays in payment, it is amazing how affordable medical care can be. We have a society addicted to 20 dollar co pays for 100 dollar scrips, when the damned scrips would only be 30 dollars total if you took all the paperwork out of them.
I think those of us who know the magic of high deductible plans will challenge this provision - and win. High deducts are the way to go.
I too have joined MDVIP and have been VERY, VERY satisfied with the experience.
Concierge Medicine also known as Retainer Fee Medicine has been alive and well in the Pacific Northwest for years because the State Insurance Commissioner lost the State’s case against such doctors on a complaint that such doctors were running their own insurance.
Boeing also found it was more affordable to self-insure its employees and at the same time increase and improve health coverage.
Many in the left wing press try to create the impression of retainer fee medicine as only for the rich. This is a false impression. Washington State law allows an employee to opt out of an employer sponsored health insurance plan and pocket the difference. Many employees take the difference to Health Savings Accounts and then to retainer fee physicians.
Retainer fee medicine is even better than pay-as-you-go services because the doctor is devoted to your health at all times 24/7, allowing for coverage by another physician when not on duty or on vacation.
And it benefits the doctor immensely. They have so much more time to really get to know their patients and need not see 36 patients a day to stay in business; more like they can see half of the patients to cover overhead.
A general practitioner needs at a minimum a receptionist and an assistant. Salaries for all run about $250,000 per year and other overhead and expenses runs roughly $300,000. Adding an operating margin of 10% yields required revenue to be about $600,000 annually or $50,000 per month, or $300 per hour.
At an average 18 patients per day, or roughly two patients per hour, and an average of one patient seeing the doctor three times a year a patient panel of about 1500 patients can sustain a basic clinic.
How much on average per year to charge 1500 patients to satisfy an annual budget of $600,000? Only $400 per year or $34 per month. This is the low end but it can work.
And with that $34 per month, one can see their physician at any time, as much as needed to preserve general health. Retainer fee physicians even make house calls. In fact retainer fee physicians are nothing more than a throwback to the way physicians operated before FDR slapped a wage freeze on employers, thereby creating employer sponsored health plans and a health insurance industry run by government political interference.
Usually physicians can handle patient panels of 2500 to 3000 without a problem. So they can afford to hire more clinical staff and pay better salaries. They can also use a sliding scale to charge patients according to income level. This allows the doctor to live comfortably; they deserve it given how hard it was for them to get through so many years of living in near poverty in order to obtain a medical license.
It takes a surgeon 14 or more years after high school to become licensed. And during those years they are living from stipend to stipend with barely enough left over for much else other than basic living.
“Got a source for that? “
I guess you haven’t been paying attention. Except for “grandfathered” plans, which don’t STAY grandfathered if ANY change at all is made to the plan (in which case they become null and void forever), there will be only ONE, government-approved plan which covers EVERYTHING, and which the IRS estimates will cost a family of five $20,000 per year.
Welcome to Obamacare.
BTW, don’t worry. You don’t need to actually BUY medical insurance until you’re actually really sick and need the insurance. In the mean time, the fine for not having medical insurance is miniscule and the IRS has no way to collect the fine if you choose not to pay it, unless you’re foolish enough to over withhold, in which case they can seize the overage.
Of course, given the above, the system will collapse and there won’t BE any actual medical care to be had, but then again, that was the whole point of Obamacare: collapse the system so the Feds can step in and seize total control of all of it.
Oh, and after they seize the health care system, there STILL won’t be any medical care to be had because most doctors are going to refuse to work as slaves to the Federal government. Unless you’re rich of course, and then you can buy anything you want, including actual medical care.
How does a doctor operating outside of Obamacare and/or the normal insurance bureaucracy gain access to high tech equipment?
You make some great points....all pointing to the free market as the best way to allocate these services. Whether its high deductible plans, concierge doctors, retainer fee, all are the result of doctors and patients (and sometimes companies) getting together and figuring out - without interference from idiotic governmetn bureaucrats - the best way to do business together.
This is the best way to allocate any good or service there is, period.
They buy it? Or rent it? Fee usage?
Look for concierge hospitals to spring up.
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