consierge medicine

[zeeyo987]

i know this isn't the right place to post this but I'm doing my rotations right now and thought hey why not. I'm doing IM in arizona right now and my doctor is one of the few that doesn't use consierge medicine. I know theres a lot of docs moving away from traditional insurance for good reason but had this thought today.

If more and more people adopt consierge medicine and large insurance companies adopt this model wouldn't that mean eventually everyone will use a large insurance companies consierge medicine program and doctors would just end up getting paid less than they already do? If a doctor right now charges you 5 bucks instead of 175 for a prostate exam wouldnt insurance companies eventually just pay doctors 5 bucks?

thanks!

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[Silent Cool]

One of the advantages of concierge medicine is that costs are lower for the patient because of the absence of billing-related overhead. In other words, a lot of the money currently coming into medical practices goes to pay the overhead related to billing the insurance company. Without that overhead, the costs drop precipitously. That means doctors who don't take insurance can charge lower fees (in your example, 5 vs 175).

 

[CleverThought]

This is something dentistry is starting to see too. Interestingly enough, the Dr. functions as the insurance agency. For a yearly or monthly fee the patient gets free biannual cleanings and x-ray's as needed. Patients also get reduced fees for procedures. I've also heard of "tiers" to the fees. If you pay higher fees for a better "plan" you can get benefits such as guaranteed same day appointment, access to Saturday or evening hours, free whitening, etc. From the few dentists I've heard do this, patients seem pretty receptive. Now, it could be because given the recent recession - dental was one of the first insurances people would cut, so in the past few years it's been largely an out of pocket/cash business.

I'd be interested to hear the differences seen between dental and medical concierge practice