Posted on 06/15/2013 6:25:26 PM PDT by grundle
"The paperwork, the hassles, it just got to be overwhelming," Nunamaker said. "We knew that we had to find a better way to practice."
So Nunamaker and his partner set up a membership-based practice called Atlas M.D. -- a nod to free-market champion Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged.
By cutting out the middleman, Nunamaker said he can get a cholesterol test done for $3, versus the $90 the lab company he works with once billed to insurance carriers. An MRI can be had for $400, compared to a typical billed rate of $2,000 or more.
Nunamaker encourages his patients to carry some type of high-deductible health insurance plan in case of an emergency or serious illness. But for the everyday stuff, he said his plan works better for both doctor and patient.
"It would be like if car insurance paid for gas, oil and tires," he said. "It would be very expensive, and you'd have to get pre-approval for a trip out of town."
Kevin Petersen, a Las Vegas-based general surgeon, stopped taking insurance in 2005. Petersen named the same reasons as Nunamaker: too much paperwork and overhead, declining payments from insurance companies, and a general loss of control.
"The insurance industry took over my practice," he said. "They were telling me what procedures I could do, who I could treat -- I basically became their employee."
Now Petersen does hernia operations for $5,000 a pop, which includes anesthesia, operating room time and follow-up visits. He negotiates special rates for the anesthesiologist and the operating room, and is able to provide the service for about a third of what a patient might pay otherwise.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
We need to have street corner doctors and dentists like they have in India and other places.
Doesn’t Obama-care outlaw high deductible insurance next year?
Or does it trigger the fines?
Eventually state boards will yank their license to practice.
How ironic! Obamacare was touted as the solution to lower costs and get everyone insured; now it’s back to fee for service just like in the 50’s before anyone got insurance at work.
Doc in the Box (Urgent Care) is the way to go.
“Kaiser started this, right? “
No Roosevelt and the unions. They saw it as a way to make unionizing easier. Then it spread and became the defacto way folks get health insurance.
RE: “I wish there were a national registry of some sort for these guys so we could find them more easily. Optometrists and dentists, too.”
Just search ‘concierge doctors’ in whatever your area is and a list should come up. There are numerous organizations they belong to. One of them is MidVIP. I’ve never known a dentist or optometrist to discount for cash but many specialists do and certainly GP/internists.
I’ve gotten good discounts from Orthopedists, Internists and Dermatologists; also Opthalmologists. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know. Most docs I’ve discussed this with (and their staffs) are pleased to accept your cash (or credit cards). No co-pays, no billbacks, no hassles. It’s so EASY.
I do carry a (lousy and overpriced, partly due to upcoming BO ‘care’) — hospitalization policy because those are the costs that really wipe you out. But even hospitals discount for cash and take payments; often very little per month.
My doctor told me that he treats his long-time Medicaid patients for free in his office because it costs his practice less to provide care for free than deal with the bureaucratic requirements. He is no longer taking new Medicaid patients.
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I agree. If this starts to become a trend, it will not be allowed. Too much money lost by the “system”. All the state boards have to do is make an administrative rule and ...”viola”.
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