Concierge Medicine Taking Off
New data from a national survey of nearly 14,000 physicians conducted by physician staffing firm Merritt Hawkins for The Physicians Foundation, analyzing 2012 practice patterns, found that 9.6 percent of “practice owners” were planning to convert to concierge practices in the next one to three years.
The movement is across all medical disciplines with 6.8 percent of all physicians planning to stop taking insurance in favor of concierge-style medicine or so-called “direct primary care.”
I think links to the dozens of JCG blogs and ncpa pubs predicting this would be appropriate here.
More physicians transitioning to concierge care will surely mean more congestion and longer lines for the rest of Americans who cannot afford these premium services, particularly low-income individuals. In the doctors’ defense, they are only responding to the stimuli, changes in the health care system brought on by the PPACA, which change how much doctors will be paid. This points to a shortage in doctors which leads me to a serious problem that needs to be addressed:a shortage of medical schools and a shortage of training positions.
Im a big fan of the concierge model. I hope it continues to expand.
More physicians transitioning to concierge care will surely mean more congestion and longer lines for the rest of Americans who cannot afford these premium services, particularly low-income individuals. In the doctors’ defense, they are only responding to the stimuli, changes in the health care system brought on by the PPACA, which change how much doctors will be paid. This points to a shortage in doctors which leads me to a serious problem that needs to be addressed:a shortage of medical schools and a shortage of training positions.
This “direct primary care” is a welcome change. In such a system there are more transparency regarding prices, which would also imply that doctors will be competing their services by being more price sensitive. This phenomena has been observed in the plastic surgery segment of health care.
If Medicare fees are ultimately reduced by 25%, and as more states expand Medicaid, doctors will increasingly find retainer-based practice models desirable.
Given the option to pay the new $150 per month ACA-induced health insurance premium or pay my doctor (who I actually like by the way) $50, I’ll take the concierge care.
It’ll certainly be interesting to see how an increase in concierge care pans out during the ACA period.
I look forward to an increase of doctors following the concierge model.
With more and more docs opting to work for hospitals or group practices, it may be that the concierge model will capture all the remaining solo practitioners.
Governmental and insurance company controls keep many physicians from practicing the kind of medicine they want to practice–prevention and wellness care. For that and many other reasons, Concierge and Direct Care practices are taking hold, and they’re growing exponentially.
These relatively new models are enabling doctors to spend enough time to treat the causes, not just the symptoms, of the issues their patients bring to them. And doctors are finding that many patients are more than willing to pay out of pocket to keep themselves healthy and prevent disease.