A coffee a day kept the doctor away. Well, that might now be how the saying goes, but if you spend money on Starbuck every day, you’re probably not getting the kind of treatment you should. At least, not the vip treatment. It’s funny how the topic always turns to coffee and Starbucks when concierge medicine is being discussed. With the No Insurance Club, imagine getting to buy your coffee and afford the vip treatment!
Family physicians are struggling, looking for new ways to keep their practice open. Leaving paychecks and reimbursements in the hands of the big insurance companies hasn’t worked too well for family doctors. Many of them are using different avenues to keep their doors open, serve their patients, and keep their mortgage paid. Many of them are turning to patients with no insurance.
Opting for cash only payments from patients allows concierge physicians some room to negotiate. They can reduce their stress by shortening their workload and word days, spend more time with the patients they care for, and basically do what they went to school to do; treat their patients to the best of their abilities. When relying on the big insurance companies to reimburse them, doctors are filling up their schedules to the brim in order to assure at least some insurance money will come their way.
Not too many years ago, there were only about 250 concierge physicians around the nation, serving 100,000 patients. Today, that number has grown to over 5,000 serving 500,000 patients. It’s a trend that is exponentially taking over family practices.
Many times, it’s not even the money insurance reimbursement that causes doctors to transition to concierge medicine; it’s the entire health care system. Check this out from a recent MSNBC article on concierge medicine:
…it was the grueling pace of insurance-dominated care, where high demand and low reimbursements had her seeing 40 patients a day and reviewing charts until 2 a.m.
Worse, it was barely possible to assess illness, let alone prevent it, which attracted Debin to primary care in the first place.
“I was passionate to do this and to practice a certain kind of medicine.” Now, she says, she can.”
But, when the talk turns to vip medicine it almost always promotes the doctor’s side of things and rarely the patient’s. The patient is the one forking out the cash every year to stay in the capable hands of the doctor who has transitioned to concierge medicine. The patient is the one who has to decide if they want to pay the yearly fee, or continue to trust in their insurance company and stick with premiums and deductibles.
What’s the pay-off for patients with vip medicine? I think the statement from Dr. Debin above says it all. With vip practices, and No Insurance Club doctors, it’s all about the patient. No more of this system of meeting with your doctor for ten minutes before they race off to the next patient. Concierge patients are truly given the vip treatment, offered longer appointments and preferred scheduling, as compared to insurance patients who get shorter appointments yet a longer wait.
There is always two sides to every story, however with the high cost of deductibles, co-pays, prescription drugs, and the constant fear that your insurance won’t even cover the half of it, the No Insurance Club doesn’t seem like a bad option.
Looking to transition over to a vip practice? Thinking of becoming a No Insurance Club member? Check out http://www.noinsuranceclub.com.
