These Doctors Got Fed Up With Insurance. Now They Treat Their Patients Like Valued Customers.
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2017
- The Affordable Care Act drove thousands of independent doctors to throw in the towel and join large hospital networks. However, a growing movement of doctors are fighting back against the bureaucratic system.
Subscribe to our TH-cam channel: / reasontv
Like us on Facebook: / reason.magazine
Follow us on Twitter: / reason
Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: goo.gl/az3a7a
Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
----------------
One of the most profound changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act is that it drove thousands of independent doctors to throw in the towel and join large hospital networks. This is particularly true of primary care doctors. As the rules involving medical records, billing codes, and prior authorizations have gotten more complex, physicians find they can't survive without joining large health care networks. And they're becoming increasingly demoralized.
Today there's a small but growing movement of doctors who are opting out of the traditional health care system by no longer accepting insurance. This new approach is is called "direct primary care," but it's essentially a throwback to an era before insurance companies were responsible for covering routine services like ear infections or strep cultures.
When companies like Aetna, Blue Cross, and Oxford started signing the checks for even minor health care expense, it had a destructive impact on the doctor-patient relationship. The direct primary care movement is an attempt to reverse the damage.
Dr. Ryan Neuhofel, who's been running his own direct primary care practice in Lawrence, Kansas since 2011, has a page on his website that lists the cost of each procedure, which the patient, not the insurance company, actually pays.
Need an x-ray? That's $25 to 40, along with a monthly subscription fee that runs from $35 for minors to $130 for a family of four.
Most direct primary care practices charge a monthly subscription fee. It allows them to offer other services, like answering patient phone calls, text messages, or even having appointments over Skype-services that our insurance-dominated system doesn't allow for.
"Because I'm membership supported if someone calls me and says, 'hey, I have a rash,' they can send a picture," Neuhofel says.
Removing the interference of third parties changes the dynamic between patients and their doctors.
"We're able to be creative in meeting their needs," Neuhofel says. "[We are] able to give them transparency in pricing, and redesign the entire health care experience around what patients really need."
Direct primary care physicians are able to charge less than traditional practices because the lack of coding and billing means they don't need to hire support staff.
The direct primary care movement is a way of opting out of an industry that's dominated by a cartel of hospital and insurance companies, thus insulating doctors and patients from policies crafted on Capitol Hill.
But there are some changes to the tax code that could speed adoption. The IRS doesn't allow patients to use their tax-deductible Health Savings Accounts to pay direct primary care doctors. In fact, just having a direct primary care subscription disqualifies individuals from contributing to an HSA at all. Dr. Neu and others have been meeting with lawmakers and proposing legislation that would change this.
"We're not living off the reservation just because we're cowboys," Neuhofel says. "We're doing it so we can provide great care, but at the same time we need to figure out how we integrate with the larger health care system."
Shot and produced by Mark McDaniel. Music by Candlegravity, Podington Bear, and Nine Inch Nails. Ghosts I-IV, Tomies Bubbles, and Bell Club are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license.
This is exactly how it should be. Insurance companies have had a monopoly on this type of thing for 40 years.
No, they don't have a monopoly on this sort of thing. Did you watch the video? Show me a single doctor's office that doesn't accept cash, check, or credit card for services.
@sandy: While I don't totally agree w/ you, here's an observation: Health insurance companies lobbied states (and this started to get out of control in the 1970s) to add mandates for X,Y,Z & many states (ObamaCare's "essential health benefits" package basically homogenized it) went along with it.
No surprise, health care insurance started increasing rapidly.
John Andrew ya but if you read about the History of health insurance going back to the 1920s you’ll understand why I said they have a monopoly. The thing about the cost of healthcare in the United States is that it’s highly inflated. In Europe the cost of private health insurance is one seventh the cost of health insurance in the United States and that is because there are only 3 companies in the that control all of the healthcare industry in the United States.
@Sandra: One possible fix to that is (and this depends on a lot at the state level, as some states such as Iowa were not nearly as bad as say New Jersey, prior to ObamaCare) states getting rid of a lot of the premium-hikig mandates. In addition, if we are to give out a tax credit for health insurance, give that to the INDIVIDUAL, not their employer.
That would mitigate a lot of the costs associated with health care insurance.
John Andrew the only reason Insurance got more expensive after Obamacare is because before ObamaCare insurance companies could refuse to pay for care but now they cannot do that and when you spend more then you have to also charge more in order to keep your investors happy. Also healthcare is more expensive too so insurances have to pay more.
Absolutely love this.
Power to the people.
✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼
Power to the persons!
Dr. John Muney is the first Physician to introduce this model to the tristate area. State of the art facilities located in New York City with offices also in Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx. visit www.amgmedicalgroup.com for more information
“Where there is too much power, it is the responsibility of the people to take it away.”
Spider Man Noir.
Freedom is the answer to almost anything.
Is "freedom" going to pay your hospital bill when you're diagnosed with cancer and the hospital sends you a bill in excess of $100K for treatment? Catastrophic medical care isn't the same as going into your local Jiffy Lube for an oil change. I hate insurance companies as much as the next guy, but they are a symptom of a problem created by doctors and hospitals in the first place -- pure, utter, GREED.
Citizen Se7en Well I would hope if we had a truly free market economy, which we don't, competition and innovation would bring down prices.
Who knows...maybe if we didn't have such a rigged crony capitalist system and a true free market, it could possibly hasten the process to find cures for our deadliest diseases and illnesses.
I'm an optimist when it comes to freedom but also recognizing the risks and dangers that's comes with it.
Freedom isn't free. It's and illusion.
Is that supposed to mean something?
Multi Verse a million thumbs up to you :-)
The way we treat health insurance is like car insurance covering oil changes.
@Not That Guy: If you mean medical insurance is being used/abused to cover routine and minor things; agreed. I want medical insurance only for major accidents and diseases.
@@lawrencemiller3829
That's what I hear most Americans say, and that's exactly what most Americans don't get.
The US spends a higher proportion of GDP on healthcare than any other nation on Earth (and more tax funds on healthcare than all but a couple).
Yet "medical emergency" is still one of the county's leading causes of bankruptcy.
It's not that you guys don't have the money. It's not that you guys aren't spending the money.
It's that the money is being funneled through a bunch of for-profit companies. Companies whose business model is to keep customers paying (which is why they're happy to take over the minor stuff that you could have paid out of pocket) while avoiding big payouts (which is why they suddenly become a lot less helpful when you actually _need_ them).
@@nickwilliams8302 I oppose socialized medical treatments (so-called health care). If the money was all funneled through the government with bureaucrats making the decisions that would be worse. The government needs to get out of the medical treatment business and funding. Limited regulations, that is a purpose of a legit government.
@@lawrencemiller3829
"Worse" in what way?
@@nickwilliams8302 Government run medical treatments (so-called healthcare) would be worse in the following ways.
1. Government monopoly.
Senator Bernie Sander's medicare for all prevents the selling of similar insurance. This can only expected to grow and monopolize more. There is also a conflict between being a regulator and producer. Similar to the bureaucrats who make regulations to favor some companies, then go work for those companies. Just like the vaccine manufacturers getting indemnification under the law during the Reagan administration. It will be worse when the regulator and the producer are the government.
2. Government waste and corruption.
Look at the State of Illinois, lots of debt from ridiculous pensions. Some could work the system and get multiple pensions unfairly. Expect much greater overhead with government run.
3. Government bureaucrats making medical treatment decisions.
Some claim that insurance companies don't payout fairly. Ha, wait until it government run. Even former president Obama said for grandma it may just be a pill. Look at the VA corruption and incompetence.
4. Privacy?
As the NRA reported, some doctors ask patients about their guns to report to the government, and they asked children about their parent's guns. Given the NSA spying, are they building a database of each person?
5. Forced treatments? More medical tyranny?
The limited mandated vaccinations would seem to be a harbinger for more types of forced treatments. Vaccinations? Mandated medical checkups? Declaring that certain beliefs are mental illness and the person must be institutionalized regardless of no criminal history and being a functional member of society?
Support a limited republic government, say no to senator B.S.
Oh my god only $24.50 for an x-ray??? Damn. That is amazing.
can i get 10 for the price of 8 ?
Dr. John Muney is the first Physician to introduce this model to the tristate area. State of the art facilities located in New York City with offices also in Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx. visit www.amgmedicalgroup.com for more information
$25-40.....not $24.50
My doctor couldn't even give me an x-ray because the deductible would've been $500. He just prescribed me a "catch-all" and we crossed our fingers that it would be the right thing.
Wow thats almost as low as the price in India. And we are know for our inexpensive medical care.
I have been promoting this business model for several years now. Why should a bureaucrat come between a doctor and their patient? They shouldn't. Cutting out the middleman is always good business. It reduces costs and puts the customer for front in the business's mind. Healthcare is a business. And patients are the customers.
Yes, that all sounds good, and in many ways, I agree. However, there has to be a gatekeeper, otherwise fraud would run rampant. You don't need an expensive MRI every time you have a headache. But if the MD has a piece of the imaging corporation, he'll do everything he can to send you for one. Medicare fraud runs probably into the hundreds of millions every year, especially in the elderly. They test the hell of them simply to make money.
True example: an eye surgeon was caught billing for a patient's eye surgery done on both eyes. It turned the patient didn't even have one surgery. What tripped him up? The patient only had one eye.
Joseph1NJ
So are you promoting the government being the GateKeeper when the government is already the gatekeeper for Medicare and fraud is rampant?
"Healthcare is a business." Don't look now, Timothy, but you just inadvertently defined the root of the problem.
Dr. John Muney is the first Physician to introduce this model to the tristate area. State of the art facilities located in New York City with offices also in Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx. visit www.amgmedicalgroup.com for more information
I think in a lot of cases, they miss a lot of things on all those test too, because no one even bothers to look at them, either.
Right on!
Its movements like Direct Primary Care that really gives me hope for our future.
Dr. John Muney is the first Physician to introduce this model to the tristate area. State of the art facilities located in New York City with offices also in Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx. visit www.amgmedicalgroup.com for more information
If it works the federal government will likely quash it. Better enjoy it while it lasts.
This is what I had as a kid (I'm 63), my doctor made HOUSE CALLS! (Gasp!) He saw you, Nurse Polly gave you a shot, I got a sucker and mom wrote a check. It was that simple.
This is GREAT. The entire health care system in the country needs to be blown up, including health insurance companies.
Dr. John Muney is the first Physician to introduce this model to the tristate area. State of the art facilities located in New York City with offices also in Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx. visit www.amgmedicalgroup.com for more information
Govt getting involved just made premiums skyrocket.Everytime govt gets involved with anything the price gets out of control
That's because the government is made up of politicians that care a whole lot more about receiving campaign donations from a big Health Insurance Company, than whether or not the people they are elected to represent can afford Healthcare
Canaan Their lifetime Cadillac health plan,paid by us,takes the reality of how bad and expensive health care really is.Mine health care thru work is too expensive to use and covers nothing because the deductible is so high
caeser 194 if the politicians actually represented the people All American citizens would be covered under the same government health insurance plan like every other developed Nation does but our politicians would rather get big campaign donations from health insurance companies pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists
Canaan I agree.heres an example my mom is from Ireland,my grandmother broke her hip at 85,she checked into the hospital with bedding and pajamas,when she was discharged she took her belongings,that's it.Countrys like Cuba make it work,but it'll never work here,to many special interests,lobbyists and pockets to be lined.
ThisnThatPackRat Your right,the conditioning starts the moment a child steps into school.Since 9/11 people have given up one right after the other,now most people don't question any of it
I WISH I could give this 1,000,000 thumbs up. I’d pay for this kind of care. It’s WAY more affordable than the health plan OFFERED THROUGH MY EMPLOYER.
some of don't have the money to pay for doctor services, sadly.
I love this. This is why the individual mandate must be repealed
Could you still have catastrophic insurance though? That's what confuses me. Paying out of pocket for some antibiotics and a strep test is great, but what about when you are in a car wreck and you need 3 wounds stitched and an arm set and cast? How do we reduce THOSE costs?
Yes they would recommend you still get a catastrophic plan.
But keep in mind the incentive structure this creates for patients. It disincentives people from getting basic care. Especially if you are poor. Parents would stop bringing their kids for strep tests and x-rays because they are paying out of pocket.
>How do we reduce THOSE costs?
Those costs have been rising precisely *because* the "insurance" payment model has expanded into the role of paying for routine stuff.
If insurance returns to the position of only paying for extreme and unexpected payments, premiums will fall. That's basically guaranteed.
Alex Pasch I think "good or not" depends on alot of things. Market externalities need to be controlled for with good economics. Sometimes regulation is the effecient control. Outright subsidies have drawbacks as well. This is not as simple as this video makes it out to be. While in general I consider myself to be a libertarian, I recognize that outright free market economics does not work in all circumstances. Heathcare and double sided markets (broadband) primarily.
it disincentives the drastically poor from getting basic care in much the same way they are disincentivized from buying food or any other basic necessity. Fortunately we have welfare programs to assist those in these positions. (Ill leave welfare policy for a different discussion)
I really don't think parents will quit bringing their child to the doctor because they have to pay a minimal fee out of pocket for the visit. They will have saved more than enough in the insurance premiums they wouldn't be paying.
One of the best things about Direct Primary care is that you avoid drug formularies.
Give us the same health care plans that members of Congress has.
This is probably going to be illegal in a few years. Goddammit
Dr. John Muney is the first Physician to introduce this model to the tristate area. State of the art facilities located in New York City with offices also in Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx. visit www.amgmedicalgroup.com for more information
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Guess who the two largest lobbies are by industry segment?
1) pharma / health products
2) insurance
Thank you, and well done.
This is perfect! I’m so happy that people are fighting back !
Curious: How does this work when we're forced to have health insurance?
Fuck yeah! Price discovery is beautiful. It's just and true.
Thank you all, I support 100%
Anytime you get between the customer (patient) and the provider( doctor ) you are asking for trouble. People aren't spending money anymore but "benefits".
Not only that but insurance isn't supposed to cover expected occurrences like checkup, strep throat, etc. Does your car insurance cover oil changes and tires?
The best solution (which will never happen ) is insurance only sold to individuals which has defined benefit payouts. Eg, if you get diabetes then you get 3000k per year (or whatever the number is) while you are diagnosed with the condition. You can spend the money wherever, and spend more if you like to get better care.
A much worse solution which is better than socialized medicine is government provided catastrophic coverage (100%) which kicks in after 2000 individual or 5000 per family.
I would love to see insurance companies taken out of the picture in my life time please make it happen
Looks like Obamacare messed things up more than I realised o.o
Obamacare just through gasoline on an already big problem -- insurance companies.
The IRS should not be able to interfere who your Health Savings Account goes to, it should go to pay for your direct primary care doctor, at the moment the insurance industry has too much influence over this.
This is the way healthcare should be. I have a DPC membership and it has completely changed how I look at treatment. I love my doctor.
Government - makes Healthcare mandatory
Doctors - yeah we're not taking insurance anymore
This is great!
I see a doctor that is primary care and on the first visit he gave me his cell phone number and email so I can contact him directly if I ever had any issues or questions. He told me if I was ever not feeling well that I could contact him and been seen that day without having to go to the local urgent care. I agree 100% that this type of doctor is more focused on the patient compared to the doctors in the large offices that wouldn’t even know the patients name if their assistant did not tell them.
Excellent work from these doctors. I wish I had one of these around.
Hell I would pay for this just for the convenience and confusion free peace of mind for this style of primary care system!
I don't understand why they're still billing for specific procedures. Why not just bill by time + consumables?
Makes it easier on the consumer's end. I would guess that time+consumables are still the primary drivers of the cost, but a consumer trying to decide if they want to pay for a procedure won't necessarily know the time+consumables cost of the procedure in advance.
This way the consumer can just ask themselves "can I afford this procedure?"
Imaging a sub shop that charged by the consumables... it's a hassle if all you want is a meatball sub and a coke.
It's the same when you get your car fixed, your legal issues dealt with, or your plumbing fixed. You get an estimate. A practitioner that wants repeat business will under promise and over deliver.
Fixed revenues to cover fixed costs, variable revenues to cover variable costs. It's the most reliable business model.
The medical equipment is not free. If you need a specific piece of equipment you have to pay your share of it's cost.
What a breath of fresh air.
This is the way out!!!
Loud applause!!!
There is nothing affordable about the affordable care act
Mine is affordable, $5 for primary care, $30 for a specialist. It saved my life, and I'm costing taxpayers a lot less than I was uninsured.
@@jessicah3450 great happy its working out for you. For the "majority" of Americans it isn't working out
This is the change we need in this country!
now they need to live up to their oath of health, and not the cut and pill people
This would work so much better if it wasn't just PCP's and included specialist like ENT's, because $130 a month plus office fees for just a PCP is a little much. I mean they can't really do much. If you need a procedure you need to go to another doctor.
Not only that, you need health records from your PCP. Which these guys refuse to provide because they don't like doing the necessary paperwork.
1970-1980s pcp used to be trained to do all outpatient procedures; why refer to another doctor's office when you can keep money in your office? But insurances and malpractice got in the way, majority of new PCP doctors today are not trained or comfortable with many procedures like the old retiring PCPs.
SinsofIgnorance divide and specialize- they even do this at fast food places where one person is only trained on one section so they can’t go to other areas.
If Bernie had his way, he'd outlaw these kind of small private practices.
If he had his way, health care would be free for patients.
@@HunterShows Impossible, unless you make doctors slave laborers. FYI, paying healthcare costs indirectly through higher taxes is not "free". Further, "universal healthcare" is essentially this same plan "membership fees" just being paid through taxes, but also WITH a middleman "government" still being involved. Government cannot provide services more efficiently than the private sector, I know that is hard for a liberal to understand.
That's why I said "for patients." Every country decides how to spend its budget. Some countries give their people free health care and education. Other countries wag their dicks around with aircraft carriers. There are multiple ways to run society.
@@HunterShows If those patients pay for healthcare through their taxes it isn't "free for patients". That's like saying people in this video who pay for subscriptions get "free" healthcare because they don't pay anything at the visit. I don't agree with large military forces and unnecessary intervention either. But it doesn't have to be "either" eliminate all federal welfare and reduce the defense budget. Let the people keep their money. Welfare can be run at the state/local level.
Guess what, many states and localities don't want to run such programs, meaning if you live there, too bad. And as far as being free, well if you want to be fucking penantic about it, nothing's free, but even in this country people who fall beneath a specific income don't pay taxes anyway, but they don't renounce any rights or privileges by being poor.
Also, many states and localities can't afford to run social programs by themselves. States can't borrow or print money. It all has to come from taxes for them. I don't care who fulfills the rights of citizens, but if the need is unfulfilled, the system is broken.
Love this! Giving "the man" the boot and getting back to what a doctor does best- treating patients 😍
We have universal public healthcare here in Hong Kong, and these kind of small private clinics all over the place too. They give us choices and are relatively quick and cheap ($40 USD for check up and all the meidcation for soemthing like the flu; $5 USD if you go to a government clinic and need to wait an hour).
You don't use your car insurance for oil changes. Same principal here.
Chad Pyle You mean free birth control isn't really free?!?
J Shepard Birth control was never free wth
This is insurance too. It’s just with one particular doctor. Actually a good model for preventative care imo. However, gets tricky when you have to undergo major procedures.
The reality is, there are treatments that can cost millions of dollars. A person with a regular job throughout their life, often won’t even earn that amount of money in their entire career. Does that mean they don’t get to have health care? Ofcourse they should have health care. That’s were universal health care comes into play. Being a capitalist, I want their to be private insurance, side by side with public insurance. However, as someone’s who fathers medical bill was well into millions and being blessed with the ability to pay for it all out of pocket, I can’t comprehend what people who are not as fortunate do.
Zayeed Hakim
You are American no? Everyrhing here regarfing medical is severely over priced.
The Law Yes I agree with that. I understand that often leads to the finance of breakthrough research. At the same time, I also understand that most breakthrough research happens due to public funding of universities and military funding of research. Private companies acts like a body that helps to upgrade breakthrough researches.
I think we as Americans first need to come to the understanding that everyone deserves the best healthcare.once that is settled, we can figure out funding and costs.
Zayeed Hakim
Having everyone with the best medical care requires incentives that push doctors towards that direction. This is difficult when you have a government that messes up every market they touch outside of anti trust laws and the like. I think if you are hoping for a fix on this in the not too distant future you will be disappointed.
Dispite rising costs the only issue being addressed legistrelatively is medical insurance and the republicans are trying to defund the existing program without addresing the pricing issues.
Which is the point. Preventative/routine/common care SHOULDN'T be insured -- it should be paid out of pocket. Remove that coverage from insurance premiums so the price can drop.
there is no treatment out there that should cost millions of dollars ever. if it does its cause someone is getting greedy.
"Now They Treat Their Patients Like Valued Customers"
NOW? how many people have to suffer before they tried to care?
My dr does this and charges based on age , for me (34yr old) its 100$ for 2 visits and any follow up for 30 days, he does house calls as well as met us at his office at 11pm to stitch up my wifes knee , & he did so for free because she paid 70$ (shes 26) for a visit 15 days earlier , its way cheaper than insurance.
What do the patients of these doctors do when they have to go to the hospital or see a specialist, though? They couldn't get a referral for either of those from a doctor who is not in their insurance network.
Buy catastrophic health insurance(Obama care made it illegal), you can always get a referral to someone. You can always find a specialist by calling your insurance. You can also ask specialist for cash price discount.
A lot of insurance plans don't allow you to see a specialist unless you have a referral from one of the primary care doctors the insurance company makes you go to. If somebody's stuck with a plan like that because that's all their employer provides, and they want to use one of these direct primary care doctors, they might have to go to some other random doctor they don't know just to get a referral. That would be absolutely ridiculous.
Melissa0774 it isn't easy. Laws need to be change. Do you want your car insurance to pay for gas, flat tire, oil change? That is how it is now with health care insurance. And healthcare insurance now is like they will only pay for Ford repair guy for your Honda.
That's true, but they're not going to change any more laws. We were lucky to even be able to get the ACA, as bad as that still is. Abolish networks? Yeah, good luck with that.
@@Melissa0774 Lucky to get the ACA?! The ACA is worse than what we had before it! ACA is high premium, high deductible insurance.
ey yo Mister white! I'm gona stop makin meth and goto school to be a doctor!
That dude does look like Jesse...ha!
reason thank you for covering this sort of story. us libertarians and centrists need to work harder, this channel should have millions of subscribers
I still remember when Rep Bachus said on record that Washington is there to serve Wallstreet and the Corporations.
As a physician, this concept has been batted around for years. It seems great, but does not really work as well in practice. Very few are really willing to do this. You would still need insurance for specialists and advanced studies and hospitalization. I just cannot see this as viable in a large scale.
Dr. John Muney is the first Physician to introduce this model to the tristate area. State of the art facilities located in New York City with offices also in Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx. visit www.amgmedicalgroup.com for more information
ThisnThatPackRat . I agree with some of your premise. There is a tremendous amount of power and money within health care. I worked for Kaiser personally and saw this personally. I am not converted and maybe too jaded. I think that this is an option for some doctors, but not all. “Big healthcare” will lobby for protection against this. The call for a single payer will dampen this. I think the future for medicine (being as objective as possible) is single payer. Maybe some concierge treatments but the staple would be single payer. Looking at the election and the mood of the people. This is fun to discuss in theory though. Thank you for your statements and i will truly ponder them. Best wishes,
justinjex1
Yeah unfortunately I see that too. I imagine our politicians will screw that up as well.
Insurance would need to be adjusted appropriately, so you can buy catastrophic insurance that doesn't cover PCP anymore since you are covered by being subscribed.
"You would still need insurance for specialists and advanced studies and hospitalization."
...You know, the kinds of things insurance is actually meant to cover. Emergencies and outlier situations.
Can we get a directory of these docs? I live in Los Angeles and would love to support a local doc who works under this model.
Dr. John Muney is the first Physician to introduce this model to the tristate area. State of the art facilities located in New York City with offices also in Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx. visit www.amgmedicalgroup.com for more information
www.iwantdirectcare.com and www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper
FINALLY!!!! BRAVO
I'm a member of one of these Direct pay primary care organizations and I love it. My doc has time for me to cover whatever I need to discuss and it makes it easier to do preventive care.
So instead of paying a insurance premium, you have to pay a subscription fee. This is literally health insurance with a different name. The difference is that you have to pay a subscription fee for each direct group as to where insurance only has one premium regardless of who the Dr is associated with.
This is how it used to be done with lodges... your membership fee covered these costs and the lodge would hire the doctor(s). The big difference between these systems and the ones we have now is there is no third party (government, insurance companies) to either burden the system with bureaucracy or act as a middleman who takes a cut... both of which drive up costs for consumers.
Indeed, it removes the need for "insurance" for that type of doctor.
I have a chiropractor that only takes cash, 60 for the first visit and 30 for all subsequent visits. He's awesome
You're wasting money on releasing gas between joints lol.
Chiropractors are the biggest scam artists. They aren't even real doctors. You are better off doing yoga or doing stretching exercises than paying a quack to crack your back.
Not a waste of money for me. I've always had back problems and doing stretches and yoga did nothing for me in these areas. Once he popped a few of my vertebrae back in place, back pain gone. I'd rather be actually healed than go to a doctor and get prescribed pain meds.
My chiropractor is awesome too, and you are insufficiently informed (translate---stupid).
Chiropractors are quacks, it doesnt work and has been debunked many times in real studies. They actually kill many patients with their manipulation, very dangerous people. Placebo effect is strong.
I work for a hospital and we are buying up more and more independent practices by the minute. The ACA has made it much harder for these specialists and PCP's to operate independently. This is a great idea.
I think this would work really well for upper middle class families, but I don’t think this would be sustainable for a large portion of Americans. Granted, these Doctors should absolutely be able to control their own buisness and recieve fair legal representation without being discriminated against.
I am curious, do these people also have insurance to cover big things like surgeries or extended hospital stays?
My doctors recommends Marlboro cigarettes because i'm not getting enough tar.
Cut the filters off! Who needs a tongue anyway?!
A great Steve Martin joke from about 36 years ago.
This is nothing new here. 3rd world countries have this system as well. Pay cash to get checked. I always have said this. Libertarian dream country already exist in third world countries.
I completely agree!
Brilliant!
The WORST thing about insurance is you are limited to which doctors you can see. And recently, the doctors I and my family have seen have refused us as patients or ignored us.
My mother went to her only option for a cardiologist after having blood clots, twice walking, once with a walker and once in a chair. He said "what happened" when she was telling him for months that she wasn't getting better and his reply was "you have to wait a year for the blood clots to dissolve". She stopped seeing him. When she went to a pain specialist for nerve damage/pain they'd changed what insurance they accept after one visit. Our second to last PCD refused to prescribe us our pain medication because he didn't want to do the paper work and our current PCD doesn't prescribe pain meds at all. I've waited 6 years to see a cardiologist about possible arrhythmia but no one would see me without a PCD referral. We have the money but NO ONE in our area will see us without insurance and a referral from a PCD.
For the record, Dr. Pamela Wible has been a direct care primary doctor through community designed ideal medical clinics (where the community in which the healthcare provider serves shares their experience with healthcare as a part of the development of their clinic) since 2005. I'm just putting it out there since I notice that when women are the only ones doing something "no one" is doing it, or it's not taken seriously until men do it.
:o
This is amazing very great to hear about this new wave of change
Fantastic!! Please bring this to Australia!!
There are customers for direct primary care physicians. I'm one of them. We need more doctors to opt out of government and insurance managed healthcare. We need to put patients and doctors back in control.
Excellent !
Heck yeah! Let’s do it!
I prefer nationalized health insurance over private health insurance, but I certainly prefer completely free-market healthcare to ANY insurance monopoly. Insurance companies have dominated the industry for too long, and now it's time we come up with a better solution!
Godspeed, you are fighting pure evil. I'll be on the lookout for a doctor who practices this way near me.
I work for BCN and they tell people “oh in this mri your muscle isn’t torn” we deny your surgery. But the doctor just wants the auth in case he gets in there and the mri didn’t show the tear.
Now I'm curious about direct primary care doctors.
Give the power back to the people!
YES! This is great!
I like the idea. But the subscription model is still very expensive. $130 a month? Wow
In Germany you're forced to pay insurance. I got a nice letter from them saying that I owe them 1500 bucks after I got out of school. I rather pay for a doctor's visit and medication, which I do most of the time anyway, than being forced to pay a monthly sum for going to the doctor maybe once or twice a year for a little check up.
My father who was a Doctor of Chiropractic was so proud when insurance companies started covering visits. After less than two years he stoped takeing insurance primarily because they controled how much he could charge his patients. He wanted to charge much less.
This was in the mid to late 80's.
Incredible MESS the government has created, and an interesting turn away by doctors from that MEDICAL/INSURANCE Industrial Complex. As a man from Poland who lived for nine years in Denmark - and had himself experienced "single-payer" medicine - recently told me, "The best medicine us the one YOU pay for"!
Hearing this is restoring my faith in the American dream.
how could u not like this
Seeing these doctors without insurance is prohibitively expensive for most people, especially those of us with chronic illnesses.
In mexico, you can just consult a doctor for free (or very low cost) in a private pharmacy and then just buy medicine if needed
WOW! That is great.
YES THANKYOU
Actually being able to have a relationship with your primary care physician? What a crazy concept, right?
1:50 Listening to a ipad screen shows you that they know what they do 😂
I like this idea a lot. It cuts out the middle man your directly dealing with your docter. We need to see more of this.
There are doctors near me doing this. They charge like 1500.00 per year for this concierge service. HOWEVER you still need insurance to pay for hospital care, etc if you are in the hospital. It wont cover that. So unless you are seeing , calling your doctor all the time AND paying for hospital coverage...not sure this winds up being a good deal. You still pay extra for their tests whether to them or a facility. How many of these doctors have their own MRI? They cost about a million dollars a machine. The doctors make out well usually taking only 500 patients or so. They are then guaranteed a yearly income of 750,000. WAY more than they would normally make as a Primary care. Be careful about all this. Look into everything!
This is so awesome!
So glad I live in the UK and not the United States. General taxation is a much better way to cover the cost of healthcare. When you are actually sick you never have the question of whether you can afford treatment. Still, with our current government we're always at risk that our NHS will be dismantled and replaced with private insurance and healthcare models like the USA.
OK Yeah! For direct care and just your normal physician this makes total sense!
Awesome!
Simple, logical. Some one is going to try and stop this.
Free enterprise in the USA! What a change!
I would LOVE this type of service.
I love this ideal. I remember when a doctor came to my house and gave me a shot as a child. Now I have great insurance almost no co-pay and the doctors start referring me and sending me for scans and test and I feel like they are treating the insurance as an ATM and I am just a card. Government and their regulations just screw up every thing.
Great idea. Hope they reach out to sensible folks like Rand Paul. Keep it up!