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Make it too long: There should be a really good reason why it lasts more than 30 minutes.
Fill it with slides that don't have to do with the topic: People can't read and listen to what you are saying at the same time.
Tell instead of show: I don't want high level, theoretical babble about what you do. I want examples of customers you've helped.
Intersperse polls and then don't reveal the results or discuss their implications: What do I care if 30% of the audience has blue eyes?
Don't accept questions or go over the functionality of the webinar site: Take 1 minute to discuss how the software works, how to submit questions, and how to mute. I don't want to hear barking dogs in the background.
Don't practice the presentation before you broadcast it: Don't waste my time with technical glitches, incorrect statements, or an amateur presentation
Make it difficult or impossible to retrieve from the archives of your website: Remember the limited attention span of your audience. I'd like to go back to your website and review the presentation some other time, but don't want to have to give you my life story to do it.
Don't follow up with participants or leads: I expect a follow up email from your BD person. Once. I'll let you know if I want more.
Don't stop annoying participants who are not interested in your product: See above. When I say no, I mean no.
Focus on features, not benefits: I don't care about functionality, flow charts, algorithms and your secret sauce. I want to know how your product will help me.
Webinars are great business development and educational tools. But, like everything else, there's a right way and a wrong way to do them.
Perhaps you'd like to write a column in your local newspaper, or start a medical web site, or get an interview on the evening news. How do you get started?
If you want to do anything in medical journalism, no matter what the medium, a fundamental first is to write well. To write well, you need to "read" well. In other words, observe pieces in the medium you're interested in to get a feel for what's standard. Read articles in the publication you'd like to write for, watch news packages and pay attention to flow and phrasing and video elements, peruse web sites and identify what draws you there.
To try on your own, school is an excellent way to get some practice and feedback. Writing for news is a different style that takes practice. Take a class at your local university. Check with the journalism or communication departments. Many schools offer courses, such as "Writing in the Journalistic Style," and "Desktop Publishing." "Writing in the Broadcast Style" or a television production class will help you understand how TV news packages come together. If the school offers an interviewing class, take it. It will give you practice as an interviewer and as the interviewed.
As the interview subject, you aren't the journalist. But the news is more likely to come to you looking for a comment, rather than a piece you put together yourself. An interviewing class will help you anticipate questions, and help you feel more comfortable and conversational when being interviewed. This is not automatic! Doctors are notorious for using big words that they don't realize are big. What's conversational for doctors isn't always conversational to the rest of the world, and it's important to make one syllable words second nature in an interview setting where anxiety can make you utter words like "efficacy," "deleterious," and "armamentarium."
There's no one way to get started in medical journalism. And unfortunately, it's a lot of trial and error and rejection. As with any new activity, sometimes it helps to do it with supervision before launching on your own.
With all the concern over the economy and the changes in health care, I thought it would be a good idea to write just a quick post about financial assets.
Most physicians do not understand the concept of financial assets and wonder why they feel like they are working harder and faster for less and less reward.
Now, I want to be clear, I am not a financial expert or a wealth manager. However, I have found a few principles that have really helped me personally, so I though I would pass them along to the readers of Freelance MD.
First, it needs to be said loudly and clearly that when a physician first graduates from his or her residency program, they have not "made it" in the financial sense. Yes, graduating from residency is a great achievement and does signify the completion of a long, difficult training period. It also usually is accompanied by a significant increase in salary and the ability to live better and spend more.
However, in the financial sense, a newly minted physician is in a horrible financial place.
Most physicians finish residency with significant debt, debt that is made worse due to the young physician's new salary, a salary that places the physician in a tax bracket that precludes the interest on student loans from being tax deductible.
Next, most physicians have little financial training so they immediately "reward" themselves for all the years of focus and discipline with a "few" nice things. I clearly remember many resident friends of mine who bought expensive luxury cars and nice homes immediately after graduation. Since few residents have significant savings, these new physicians simply added to their significant student loans even more debt in the form of car loans and large mortgages.
The problem with all this is that the new physician is suddenly saddled with enormous overhead. His or her lifestyle looks nice, but at the end of each month very little money goes to savings or retirement or investing in other financial assets that could help increase their overall net worth. Even those physicians who are aggressive about paying down debt and funding retirement often do not rise as high as they could financially because they make the mistake of pouring their disposable income into items that they believe are assets but actually are liabilities.
Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, has produced a couple of very short informational videos (around 2 minutes each) that summarize the issue of assets. The true definition of an asset is something that makes you money. While this seems obvious, it is often misunderstood. For instance, many physicians consider their homes and their cars "assets." Strictly speaking, these items are not assets since for the most part they take money out of your pocket.
Here's a short video of Robert defining a true asset:
Make sense?
For an item to be a true asset it needs to produce cash for you.
Physicians work very hard and make a good salary, but most take their disposable income and instead of using it to buy assets, they pour it into items that actually increase the outflow of money from their pockets. If the physician hits a snag in his/her career-- illness, salary decrease, burnout-- they suddenly realize how fragile their financial world really is. Without true assets putting money each month back into their pockets, these physicians realize they are simply highly-paid hourly workers who are forced to exchange time for money indefinitely if they are to survive. This realization is a very depressing concept, and one that I believe significantly contributes to the frustration of many physicians today.
To break out of this cycle, a physician absolutely must understand the principle of investing in true assets with their disposable income so that they begin to slowly wean themselves off of the dependence of their physician salaries. In the end, a wise physician will have lived frugally, paid down debt, placed money in retirement, and instead of buying "toys" with their disposable income, instead slowly built up a collection of assets that put money back into their pocket and made their physician salary superfluous. Ideally, a physician will eventually reach a point where their living expenses are covered by the income from their assets and their salary as a physician becomes simply the "icing on the cake" so to speak. Perfectly executed, this freedom from the time-money continuum allows a physician to see their careers as something they choose to do for whatever reason-- desire, interest, altruism, curiosity, etc...-- not something they are forced to do to continue surviving. It truly is a life-empowering shift in perspective.
So what are some examples of assets?
Again, Robert Kiyosaki succinctly describes the three broad categories of assets in the following video:
I hope this all makes sense and you're beginning to get a vision about how you can begin breaking free from the time-money grind through the purchasing and development of true financial assets. In future posts we'll go deeper into this subject, and at our Medical Fusion Conference we'll also be explaining these concepts in more detail.
Dissatisfied with assembly-line medicine?Dreaming of life off the hamster wheel?
Don't wait for politician-saviors. Convene with your neighbors.
Physicians nationwide are taking a novel approach to healthcare reform: They're listening to citizens. All across America doctors and patients are joining together to create ideal clinics, hospitals, and regional healthcare systems based on the real needs and wishes of the communities they serve. Could the future of American health care begin in your own backyard?
Physician as Public Servant
Americans typically rely on elected officials to uphold the will of the people, and for decades partisan struggles have prevented meaningful healthcare reform. Given current repeal efforts, outcomes are never guaranteed. But now physicians—traditionally confined to our exam rooms—are taking direct action to fulfill community needs.
In 2004 an epiphany led me into neighborhoods to meet face to face with citizens in my hometown of Eugene, OR. I thought, "Why wait for legislation? Why wait for another election? I'm an MD, fully licensed, board-certified in family medicine. What's stopping me from serving the public?"
I began by hosting town hall meetings and inviting ordinary citizens to help me create the clinic of their dreams.
From living rooms and Main Street cafes to neighborhood centers and yoga studios, I met directly with people and listened to their wisdom. Bus drivers and businessmen, housewives and healthcare workers, teachers, college students and folks of all ages gathered to design a new model, a template for the nation.
I asked each participant to imagine walking into an ideal clinic in an optimal healthcare system. Community-members shared their visions; most submitted written testimony. My job was to implement their ideas where feasible.
From nine town hall meetings over six weeks, I collected one hundred pages of written testimony, adopted 90% of the feedback, and opened our clinic one month later. For the first time my job description was written by my patients, not administrators.
A Community Prescription
What do people really want from their healthcare givers? Surprisingly, it’s nothing too extravagant. Here are their top ten recommendations, many in their own words:
1. Real relationships: People want practitioners who are fully present and willing to touch them emotionally, spiritually, and physically. One woman's simple request: "Hug me!"
2. Physician role models: Happy, healthy doctors inspire patients to live happy, healthy lives.
3. Integrative healing: People want all healing arts professionals to be working in concert for their wellbeing. They also want easily accessible, on-site complementary therapies such as massage, yoga, and acupuncture.
4. Sacred space: An ideal clinic is "a sanctuary, a safe place, a place of wisdom . . . a place where we rediscover our priorities."
5. Easy access: Same day appointments offered and everyone receives care when they need it.
6. Relaxed appointments: Visits are, at minimum, thirty minutes. Patients want to be able to speak uninterrupted and "feel heard, understood, and cared for."
7. Patient-centered care: One citizen's advice: "Abolish cookie cutter medicine—everybody does not need the same thing."
8. Community orientation: Patients want a doctor who is part of the community and "knows everyone by their first name . . . knows patients in a social context."
9. Creative financing: Offer your patients an array of different payment options: Consider monthly stipends for services. Offer sliding scale discounts. Accept donations, bartering, and insurance when possible.
10. Heath education: "Transition from an acute care delivery system based on intervention to one of continuing education of all possibilities of health and wellbeing."
What Ideal Healthcare Looks Like
By soliciting community input, I was able to design my clinic to best serve my patients' needs. My practice model enables me to spend time getting to know the people I serve.
By following my community’s instructions and indications, I now work in an ideal clinic. Our cozy office is housed in a wellness center tucked into a wooded residential area. Yoga, massage therapy, counseling, and a solar-heated therapy pool with hot tub are available on-site. Before appointments, patients may relax in the hot tub instead of a waiting room. Then a short stroll along a walkway leads to a living-room-style office with overstuffed chairs and pillows.
With no administrators or staff, patients enjoy direct 24/7access to their doctor by phone and email. Appointments are thirty to sixty minutes long, scheduled on weekday afternoons and evenings. Sessions begin on time—guaranteed—or patients get to choose a present from the gift basket. I do accept most insurance plans. Uninsured patients receive a 30% discount for payment-in-full at time of service. Alternatively, patients may trade skills such as massage or donate handmade items to the gift basket. Nobody is turned away for lack of money.
A Populist Movement
Open since 2005, our model has inspired many other physicians to recapture their dreams and reinvent their careers by collaborating with citizens to design innovative clinics. Hundreds of ideal practices are now open nationwide.
Inspired citizens and loyal patients rally around these novel community-designed practices: Volunteers donate hand-sewn flannel gowns; Citizens mail unsolicited checks; Patients assist with billing and office work. It’s quite amazing what happens when patients and physicians actually work together!
Now hospitals are joining the movement. In October 2010, a hospital system in western Wisconsin—inspired by our clinic—invited citizens to design their dream hospitals. The desires of disenfranchised groups—from school kids and the elderly, to the Amish community and Hmong immigrants—were specifically sought and embraced.
Over one thousand people attended events, sharing heartfelt visions through written and verbal testimony. The hospital even had children submit drawings. Implementation is now underway, and as America's first dream hospital becomes reality, more and more hospitals will follow its lead.
What's they key to delivering ideal health care? Put patients--not politicians or corporations--in charge! Why wait for Washington? Follow Wisconsin.
A Cure for Frustrated Physicians
My parents—both physicians—warned me not to pursue medicine. Today, my colleagues continue to steer young people away from a career in medicine. Why? Here's a partial list of grievances: low reimbursement, loss of autonomy, patient overload, loss of respect, the malpractice crisis, bureaucratic red tape, corruption. At a time when America is in greatest need of primary care physicians, our numbers are decreasing (See Escape From McMedicine)
According to a survey by the Physicians’ Foundation, half of all primary care docs have considered leaving medicine (The Physicians' Foundation Survey, Merritt Hawkins & Associates. November 2008.). Some transition into pharmaceutical or insurance company positions. Others opt for administration or early retirement. In my last employed position at a five-physician practice, four female physicians left medicine to pursue teaching, homemaking, waitressing, and other "more meaningful" careers.
Most who don't escape become victims. Three quarters now believe medicine is less rewarding or no longer rewarding, and claim they are overextended, overworked, or at full capacity. Many physicians—having lost their dreams, their inspiration for practicing medicine—simply function in survival mode.
So what's the solution?
Singer Joan Baez once said: "Action is the antidote to despair." Physicians are in a unique position to bypass partisan discord and enact real change. I believe it's time to step out of our offices and embrace our communities. I realize doctors don't usually ask for help, but sensible solutions are literally right next-door. I looked everywhere for answers, but it was ordinary citizens in my hometown who came to my rescue. They designed our clinic, saved my career, and helped me find a way out of my misery.
I invite you to talk with your neighbors, to engage with your community, and most importantly, to act on what they tell you!
About: Pamela L. Wible, MD is a pioneer of community-designed medical practice. Her model has sparked a populist movement that has inspired the creation of Ideal Clinics & Hospitals nationwide. Her community-designed model is featured in the Harvard School of Public Health’s newest edition of Renegotiating Health Care: Resolving Conflict to Build Collaboration. Dr. Wible's site is at http://www.idealmedicalcare.org
Earlier this week I was in Chicago for a meeting of well known health care organizations to address a nagging and persistent issue in health care: dealing effectively with patient safety and quality issues. Like many meetings that involve important issues in health care, the first group of professionals singled out for criticism was physicians. More specifically disruptive, hostile, arrogant, and intimidating physicians.
A few brave souls mentioned that the problem is not confined to physicians - senior nurses can be far worse than physicians in treating other nurses. Other health care professionals also exhibit these behaviors. But there's no question that as physicians, we're often at the center of these issues, whether as the perpetrator, or in trying to deal with the organizational issues that arise from these unpleasant, uncomfortable, and dangerous situations.
How would we deal with a Charlie Sheen on the medical staff? Everyone in the organization, from the board on down to the front line professionals involved with patient care, should feel responsibility and accountability to improve the situation.
According to attendees at the meeting, every time this issue is brought up, the lines at the microphones become huge. The emotion and frustration of those commenting and questioning is noticeable. Though the issue may be getting attention, it's hard to see improvement across the industry.
The overt behaviors described above are only the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the surface are behaviors that are passive and insidious. If physicians and others behave this way toward colleagues, how do they treat patients? It may be the more subtle actions and behaviors of professionals that ought to be addressed more forcefully.
How many times have you heard a hospital or health system CEO say something like, "I hope we can count on your loyalty here", or "Whose team are you on, anyway?", when discussing a quality or safety issue that involves the inevitable big admitter, or friend of the board chair? If patients are being harmed, and the facts are unassailable, these behaviors from the leaders of the organization may be the worst possible kind of intimidation! Never out of control, always stated calmly, and spoken with full knowledge of the power gradient of the speaker, leaders who choose to behave this way set examples for the entire organization. These are not safe places for patients, and are not safe places to work.
Professionals who find themselves caught in organizational situations like this have a gigantic ethical issue to deal with - often with no one else there to support their struggle to do the right thing. As physicians, I hope we can join their struggle, and insist that the organization do the right thing, and not try to sweep embarrasing or unpleasant events under the rug.
My oldest son is a commercial pilot. He taught me, along with Jeff Skiles (co-pilot on the Miracle on the Hudson flight), that we should seek to make our mistakes visible, rather than hide them. We can't fix what we don't acknowledge to be a problem. We can't prevent events of harm from happening to someone else if we hide our failures.
I saw a great quote about loyalty recently.
"If your boss asks for your loyalty, give him/her integrity. If your boss asks for integrity, give him/her loyalty."
As a leader, I will never ask for loyalty. Why? Because loyalty must be granted - willingly and without coercion by others in the organization. All too often, organizations ask for loyalty from employees, but do nothing to show loyalty in return.
As professionals, I hope we ask those who work with us for integrity - not loyalty.
Some of my medical colleagues who champion the cause of “social justice” bristle when they learn that I practice concierge medicine.
They fervently believe that it is somehow more noble to practice Soviet-style medicine in America than it is to take professional responsibility for delivering excellent, individualized medical care to their patients. One of the benefits of being sanctimonious about private doctors who practice in a capitalist model is that you can blame some of the crappy medicine you deliver on your benevolent, utopian system, which claims to be “fair” to everyone. How convenient. But what are the consequences of focusing on clinical algorithms, electronic medical records, and the forced “fairness” that comes down from the Politburo?
Today I saw a 99-year-old patient in my office who is on my indigent medical care program. She pays me $5 per visit, just so that she’s got some skin in the game. (Quiet…I don’t want my social justice critics to know that I actually see people who can’t afford to pay my concierge fees.) This elderly woman has diabetes and has been in the ICU twice over the past year with urosepsis, on the sepsis protocol. Last week she was taken to a local ER at a hospital where I do not practice. She had a recurrent kidney infection, despite receiving rotating prophylactic antibiotics and intravesicular gentamycin given to her by an expert urologist. I was never called by the ER physician, because I am merely the patient’s attending physician – a point that is irrelevant to most ER physicians, given that virtually every patient in the ER is now admitted to the “hospitalist team.”
Instead of admitting this frail, 99-year-old diabetic for IV antibiotics and careful monitoring, the ER physician opted to treat her as an outpatient with generic Keflex. This would not have been my approach, but I have to agree that it certainly was “cost effective.” Fortunately, my patient survived this “UTI algorithm.” The doctor also opted to treat her hyperkalemia with equal efficiency, giving her a single dose of oral Kayexalate, which she promptly vomited after arriving at home. Luckily, she did not have a cardiac arrest from her hyperkalemia, especially in light of the fact that they did not bother to hold her ACE-inhibitor, which was contributing to her elevated potassium.
As my patient left the ER, the medical team dutifully handed her the ubiquitous, and always helpful, discharge instruction sheet. This document no doubt met all hospital and governmental regulations for educating people about pyelonephritis and hyperkalemia. Although my patient is legally blind and cannot read standard print, I’m sure she found this 4 page document very comforting. More importantly, the purveyors of social justice can rest assured that they followed all of the guidelines set forth by the Politburo and did their duty to deliver the same level of care to everyone, regardless of income, ethnicity or social standing.
Had my 99-year-old patient been able to read this information sheet, I’m sure she would have found it helpful to know that she should “refrain from having sexual intercourse until after all of her kidney infection symptoms had resolved.” I don’t know about you, but there is nothing that irritates me more than seeing a non-compliant, centenarian who continues to have sex while being treated for an active pyelonephritis. The only way to prevent these elderly nymphomaniacs from reseeding their genitourinary tracts is to put it in writing!
What we are now seeing is just the beginning of medicine by administrative committee. If you think I am misusing the term “Politburo”, just wait until you see what happens under the Department of Health and Human Services in the name of ObamaCare.
Steve spoke at our 2010 Medical Fusion Conference, but before that event we had never met. I had seen his book and read excerpts and believed he would be a good person to plug into what we're doing with Medical Fusion, but I really didn't know much about Concierge Medicine and I didn't know any Concierge Medicine physicians personally.
For those who aren't familiar with the terminology, "Concierge Medicine" refers to the medical practice design where patients pay a retainer fee in exchange for exceptional access to their personal physicians. Physicians agree to limit their practice size to a few hundred patients and give their patients their cell phones, pagers, email addresses, and often make house calls in addition to yearly executive physicals and preventative medicine counseling. Concierge Medicine is sometimes called "Retainer Medicine" or "Direct Medicine."
Concierge Medicine has been growing over the last few years due to the frustrations associated with primary care-- for both patients and clinicians-- and the development of franchise models like MDVIP. However, whenever Concierge Medicine is discussed, critics are quick to point out it's weaknesses and cast Concierge Medicine physicians as unethical extortionists. As an example, in Steve's Concierge Medicine office in Tucson, Arizona, one of the newspaper clips hung on his wall is an article describing his medical practice, and a quote from a local academic physician describing Concierge Medicine as "medicine at its mercenary worst."
Interesting.
So is Concierge Medicine "mercenary" as its critics suggest or a new practice model that is saving primary-care medicine? Let's look at some of the major issues regarding Concierge Medicine and go from there...
1. Is it ethical for a patient to pay extra money for extra time with their physician?
Most discussions on Concierge Medicine are framed by asking whether it is ethical for physicians to charge "exorbitant" fees in order for their patients to see them. This is the political equivalent of those squirley political poll questions like, "Do you, as a voter, believe it would be good to have a tax-evading, draft-dodging, ignorant, narcissist as your next governor?" When the voter answers "no," the polling company reports that voters overwhelmingly are against the candidacy of politician X. The question frames the debate.
The problem when the discussion of Concierge Medicine begins this way is that physicians are automatically cast as villains. The "greedy" doctors are simply too money-obsessed to take care of anyone not willing or able to pay these incredibly high fees.
Bu what if the debate is turned around? What if it's not a "greedy doctor" who is demanding the fee? What if it's a patient with multiple chronic medical conditions that cannot be solved in the typical 10 minute primary-care visit who is pushing for the change? What if it's the patient requesting extra time with their physician and to ensure this extra time is willing to pay for the equivalent of 2-3 regular visits a month?
The fact is that Concierge Medicine is a market response to a very broken primary-care system in this country. Patients are driving this change as much as burned-out physicians. These patients are frustrated and dissatisfied with the current model, and are making their health a priority by investing money and time into their patient-physician relationship. Many of these patients have multiple medical issues and they need more time with their physician. They also need someone to help them coordinate their medical care, and have found Concierge Medicine to be a reasonable way to help them improve the healthcare system for themselves.
What's fascinating about this aspect of the debate is that the resource these patients are requesting-- time with their physician-- is the very resource that so many ethicists, consulting groups, and administrators stress is so important to patient satisfaction scores, proper diagnostics, reduced malpractice risk, reduced unnecessary testing, and overall improved clinical medicine. It's as if the patients read the research and simply got tired of waiting for the system to fix itself. The patients that gravitate to a Concierge Medicine practice are simply willing to put their money where there mouth is and pay for the extra time they know they need with their physician. The Concierge Medicine model is actually correcting one of-- if not the-- most glaring problem with modern medicine in the United States: a lack of significant time between patient and physician.
2. Isn't it more ethical for a physician to stay in the system instead of "opting out" with Concierge Medicine?
This question assumes that the basic primary-care model in the United States is working and those who choose Concierge Medicine practices are messing it all up for everyone else.
The unfortunate truth is that primary-care medicine as it is currently practiced in the United States is not working, not for those who opt out and choose Concierge Medicine or for anyone else. Those physicians and patients who have chosen Concierge Medicine aren't the cause of this problem, they're a response to the brokenness of the typical primary-care practice model. In fact, Concierge Medicine could not exist in a market where individuals were getting exceptional healthcare through third-party payers and the standard primary-care system. The fact that Concierge Medicine has gotten traction is evidence that there are plenty of physicians and patients (ie- willing payers) who are dissatisfied with the status quo.
Here's a very interesting twist to the debate about Concierge Medicine: if an individual wishes to condemn Concierge Medicine as unethical, does that same individual then defend the current primary-care system where patients are pushed through clinics like cattle and physicians are beholden to third-party payers? What is more ethical, a patient and physician agreeing on a set fee or a physician who is compromised by the cost-curtailing focus of a third-party payer? Which physician is the better advocate for the patient?
3. Isn't Concierge Medicine only for the rich?
The answer to this question really boils down to your definition of "rich."
Of course, there are individuals who have zero disposable income and are truly destitute. Concierge Medicine does not address this very real need. However, for most people, the issue is not that they lack the funds to afford a Concierge Medicine physician, it simply is that their priority system places greater emphasis on things like cigarettes, alcohol, entertainment, fashion, and luxury than health, and they spend their income in a manner consistent with their priorities.
During my last night’s shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B; tune for a ring tone.
Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.
She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer. And our President expects me to pay for this woman’s health care?
Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture – a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.
A culture that thinks I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me.
Regardless of what you think of Dr. Jones' letter, the point is that individuals make choices regarding the use of their disposable income, and many in our culture choose to place other priorities above healthcare.
Let's break this down...
MDVIP is the dominant franchise model for Concierge Medicine. Patients who are members of these practices pay $1500 per year for the privilege of being members of this practice model. Here's the math:
$1500 per year = $125 per month
$125 per month = $4.17 per day
$4.17 per day = current price of a Starbucks expresso or a pack of cigarettes
So for what most people spend a day on such extraneous things as a cup of premiere coffee or an unhealthy indulgence like cigarettes, these same individuals could have their own personal Concierge Medicine physician.
Yes, there are individuals who cannot afford even this amount per month, and Concierge Medicine does not address this issue (although some are experimenting with a retainer-type practice coupled with indigent care and many Concierge Medicine physicians, including Dr. Knope, spend significant time providing free care to non-paying patients), but no practice model is perfect. Concierge Medicine could improve access to healthcare of a significant number of working people, if they would only choose to buy into the model.
Additionally, if a patient opens a Health Savings Account that is coupled with a high-deductible insurance plan, pre-tax dollars can be set aside to use towards the costs of a Concierge Medicine physician, making the retainer costs much less expensive for the average consumer.
In sum, Concierge Medicine is a growing trend that some consumers are using to maximize their healthcare experience. It is not a system that solves every problem, but I believe it is ethical and it is a solution for some patients. Instead of criticizing the patients and physicians involved with Concierge Medicine, we should work together to continue to find additional ways to solve the problems with the current healthcare system.
In future posts we'll be looking more into Concierge Medicine and other non-traditional practice models and explaining how you can incorporate these models into your current practice.
The cure for the common physician. Freelance MD provides information and resources doctors who want more freedom and control of their career, medical practice, income and lifestyle.
Julie Silver MD
Greg Bledsoe MD
Steven Knope MD
Gary Taff MD
Ashley Wendel
Franz WiesBauer
Setu Mazumdar MD
Arlen Meyers MD
Ken Cohn MD
Mike Woo-Ming MD
Jeff Barson
Joe Halcomb MD
Fred Tobis MD
Maria Simbra MD
Lisa Tener
Mark Kroll PhD
Gautam Gulati MD
Barry Silbaugh MD
Craig Koniver, MD
Michelle Mudge-Riley DO
Zubin Damania MD
Michael VanRooyen MD
Bob Uslander MD
Pamela Wible MD
Ryan Flesher MD
Hatem Abou-Sayed
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