What do you think about this?

[TRAMD]

---

Members do not see this ad.

This guy has an internet boutique practice:

http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/54996/the-real-life-web-md

 

[Re3iRtH]

If people are idiotic enough to pay this doctor and get their medical
care in this way, then I think that guy is doing a fine job.

 

[TRAMD]

If people are idiotic enough to pay this doctor and get their medical
care in this way, then I think that guy is doing a fine job.

I agree. I find it amusing that he limits to seeing people aged 18 to 40 years.

 

[Blade28]

Well, I guess if people are willing to pay for it...

 

[Slide]

It's certainly unorthodox, but if his patients receive the same amount of care they would have if he were in a traditional clinic, I don't see this necessarily as a bad thing. Hey, you get to save overhead from renting out a place and hiring staff.

 

[NewAndImproved]

Darn! Dr. Nayfack beat me to it:

"Really what this is called is boutique medicine," says Dr. Aaron Nayfack.

This is what I was thinking halfway through the article before coming across this quote. Not that I would have any idea what boutique medicine was were it not for a news piece I recently saw on it. That report covered more high end medical procedures, though, while the doc in this article seems to be focused on primary care.

Am I naive? Why is this a bad idea? If I have a rash, why do I have to take off of work and sit in a doc's waiting room for half a day to get a prescription? Wouldn't it be more convenient to snap a photo, email it to my doc, have it diagnosed, and have my prescription waiting for me at the drug store on the way home? And if my "rash" requires a closer look, the article says that your $500 annual fee includes two house calls.

Somebody straighten me out on this one.

 

[phantom limb]

During his medical residency in Baltimore, he created a series of portraits of aspiring models that seem to expose both their subjects' dreams and the improbable distance they will have to travel to achieve them. There's a tattooed, red-haired woman sitting on a floral couch, naked except for a pet hamster she holds in front of her.

Parkinson practiced photography during medical school
Another woman sits on the corner of a bed in her attic bedroom, arching walls in the background missing patches of green paint.

The pictures are both starkly sad and beautiful.


That was the best/funniest part, for me.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

It's funny his name is a disease.
Too bad he didn't name it.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I agree it's a creative, functional idea.

The key here is that 18-39 year olds are rather healthy. The chance of anything serious being wrong with them is very low. They can usually describe their symptoms well (unlike peds patients). Most of my male patients aged 18-39 I see once every 3-5 years unless they develop an acute problem. Physicals are probably useless in this population. Same for females, except for the need for PAP smears.

I would personally find this practice boring. Everyone is healthy, and there wouldn't be much intellectual challenge to it. But that's me.

 

[collegefootball]

I've been thinking of doing my private practice (in an allied health care field) in this fashion for over a year now. I don't want to give a diagnosis from a test result over the phone, but I plan on marketing myself for doing family history interpretations world-wide via the internet. I market myself letting people know that I will do a family history interpretation for them for only 20 or 30 dollars. This can easily be done online or over the phone- there are already programs set up for this- but a health care professional trained in pedigree analysis needs to be assisting the person filling the pedigree out to know what is medically important and what isn't. If I recognize a potential medical problem via their family history, I will then advise them to see their doctor.

My goal is to do a family history interpretation for every family in the community I will eventually work in. I feel that knowing your family history information is the most important information you can have for disease prevention.

I will be marketing myself world-wide. I don't want to do this because I want to be rich, I want to do this because it's the most important information you can possibly have for your medical care. So after doing a family history interpretation, I will then send the report off to their doctor to have it put in their medical records or leave the costumer keep a copy and then give it to their doctor.

I have been brain storming for two years now for ways to reach the uninsured, minorities, and underserved. I feel that developing a clinic in this fashion is the best way to go.

I will even allow payment plans for families that would struggle to even pay 20 dollars.

If a costumer doesn't want to discuss their family history via the Internet, I would be more then happy to do a home visit. Heck, I'm thinking of doing home visits for the company I would eventually work for anyways.

This private practice would be my side job. I would even like to work with people around the world on this because it's I feel it's very important to do this.

I have no problem with this doctor doing this. It's actually very smart of him to do this.

Sometimes the best way to serve your patients needs, you need to get away from the clinic.