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It would be great if you could hire your own doctor. A doctor who gave you their personal phone number and actually returned your calls. A doctor you could get to know. A doctor who would make house calls and come to you when you were sick. With a concierge doctor, you can do just that.
Doctors are getting tired of health insurance companies telling them how to practice medicine, not being fully paid, not being able to treat patients properly and tired of the drive-thru medicine. Seeing 20 to 40 patients per day and only being able to see patients for 5 or 10 minutes per appointment. Doctors who become a concierge doctor usually drop their patient load from 3,000 to about 500 patients.
The Benefits of a Concierge Doctor
It never fails, just as soon as you get comfortable with a doctor, you have to change doctors because your current health insurance changes the plan. Now you can hire your own concierge doctor to be at your call when you need a doctor. Each plan can have differences; here are the usual benefits of a personal concierge doctor.
· Not having to wait weeks just for an appointment, usually seeing your doctor the same day. This could also include weekends.
· 24 hour telephone numbers and access to your personal doctor.
· Your doctor coming to you in your own home and sometimes accompanying you to an appointment with another doctor.
· Telephone consultations.
· Preventative care.
· Access to your online medical records.
· Screening for many diseases and conditions.
· Actually sitting down with a patient and thoroughly going over everything.
The Cost of a concierge Doctor
When a doctor becomes a concierge doctor, they might accept insurance plans for certain sicknesses or drops all ties to insurance companies. There are different levels of plans with some top plans costing $5,000 per year; these plans would include 20 appointments at their office or your home, vaccinations and medical tests.
Another doctor’s web site says that the annual fee includes your yearly physical, routine appointments, tests performed in the doctors office, vaccinations and the doctors care at the hospital he works at. His annual fee is $2,500 per year. Additional family adult is a 20% discount and for children ages 16 to 21, there is no fee.
Doctors can also join a concierge medical company like the nationwide company, MDVIP, which is based in Florida. The concierge doctors with this company have a limit of 600 patients. The annual fee for a MDVIP concierge doctor ranges between $1,500 and $1,800 per patient. With MDVIP, this fee will provide a wellness plan that includes a risk factor analysis, extensive laboratory tests and an EKG. You can also use this plan when traveling. If you need medical or emergency care while traveling, another MDVIP doctor will take care of you.
There are numerous concierge medical plans throughout the United States. And other doctors have started their own concierge medical practices on their own.
Do You Still Need Health Insurance
At first this sounds like an option or a replacement for health insurance. It is not; you still need to have health insurance. Your health insurance is still needed for third party medical bills like hospital bills, laboratory tests, radiology work, prescription costs, hospitalization, X-rays, CAT scans, MRI’s and specialist as needed. Though some concierge plans differ in what they offer and could cover X-rays and laboratory tests.
Losing Your Current Doctor
The other side of the coin to these concierge doctors is that you could lose your current primary care doctor if they decide to leave that practice and become a concierge doctor. And then once again you would have to find another doctor or pay the annual concierge fee to keep that doctor.
Different Ways to Pay
You might be able to use your HSA (health savings account), FSA (flexible spending accounts), MSA (medical savings accounts) and your company’s section 125 plans. Check with your company human resources department and an accountant to make sure. Especially the way IRS laws are constantly changing [1].
Read The Fine Print
After reading many concierge medical plans, it is clear you need to know all the facts before signing up. Many say that you can have physicals and a certain amount of office visits per year. One doctor’s concierge plan I read stated that he would bill your health insurance company for office visits other than your annual wellness physical. I am seeing what sounds like real concierge doctors and also an odd mixture of concierge doctor plans accepting health insurance and collecting the annual fee. Make sure you read and understand exactly what you can expect with a certain concierge medical plan.
Conclusion
With more doctors turning away Medicare patients, senior citizens are looking towards the concierge doctor plans. And keep in mind, that a doctor being a concierge doctor certainly doesn’t mean he is any better practicing medicine than any other doctor. Finding a new doctor should still require some research.
It seems to me that what we have with a personal concierge doctor is your personal doctor who will see you within two days at most, make house calls and personally return your calls, and you still need your health insurance to cover hospital bills and many other procedures. It sounds exactly like the medical care we used to have in the United States before 1980, yet now we need to pay for both of these services to have what we used to have.
Having your own concierge doctor or family doctor would give many people and families piece of mind, just knowing that their own doctor would be there for them when needed and they could get in to see them. Other names are boutique, concierge and retainer medical practices.
© 2010 Sam Montana
Resources
[1] HSA information
Find a Concierge Doctor - Society For Innovative Medical Practice Design / American Academy of Private Physicians
Very interesting.....
sounds like a good idea to me.. it used to be a little like this in the old days in the uk
Interesting... I doubt that most people could pay for the convenience of having that kind of doc. I have Medicare... I can see my doc usually the the next day or be worked in the same day I call... she is very busy also.
It is hard to say Charlene, there are a lot fed up people waiting for a doctors appointment. I've known people who had to wait weeks. Is this the future though. Seems unfair to pay twice for what we used to have about 30 years ago as normal.
Canada needs doctors
Getting health care is getting harder in the US. Health insurance is supposed to help us be able to sleep at night; that is what insurance is all about. A new trend I heard about on the local news last night is even more troubling. Some doctor’s offices are now requiring that you have a credit card before treating you. You have to give them your credit card just in case your health insurance doesn’t pay all it is supposed to pay. We have all seen our health insurance companies either take forever to pay or have to fight with them to pay the simplest amounts. With this new system, you are stuck with the bill on your credit card. And that causes many problems.
Very interesting. The Healthcare and medical insurance industry in South Africa (where I grew up) bares many similarities. Reading this and thinking back on the prohibitive cost of medical aid, which often didn't cover all (or sometimes any) costs of treatment I am eternally grateful for the National Health Service in the UK. It certainly isn't perfect, but on the balance it's an incredible system.
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I actually have a doctor that comes in, shakes my hand, sits down in a seat and we talk to each other. He acts like he is never rushed. He goes back over my chart several times to make sure he is doing the right thing with me. He never gives me extra medication if he feels he needs to see me again in a certain time so I have to make sure I come and see him on a certain date. He is always giving me free medication that my insurance doesn't pay on. My doctor has saved me hundreds of dollars and he also gives me coupons that I can use every month for a year. It saves on medication at the pharmacy. I just don't know what I would do without him. I wish everyone had this kind of doctor. He even sees me on the day I call for an appointment, they work me in somehow and this is a very busy doctor. Voted and buzzed you up on this article.
Sounds like an interesting concept. Means you would probably go to the doctor more ofter in order to make the plan cost effective. You're right older patients who are retired and might have medical conditions might want to take advantage of such services.
You could be right Pat, people would go more often and not feel so bad about that. But that is why I wrote that you have to read the fine print of these agreements. I read a number of them, and some are confusing as to how many office visits each plan allows under the annual fee. Everyone needs to make sure they completely understand what they can expect for the annual fee.
Being a patient of Dr David C. Rosenberg for a few years, it has to be said that the care one receives from him and his staff is unmatched to any medical care a patient can receive anywhere else. VIP doctors such as Dr. Rosenberg concentrates on preventive care, which means he takes measures to prevent illness. Rather than treating an illness that you might already have, he tries to prevent you from getting sick in the first place! The extra costs associated with having a private or a VIP concierge doctor is well worth the benefits received. One always feels secure having him as your doctor, because he is always available when you need him via cell phone or e-mail, day and night. You can find Dr David C. Rosenberg at his office at 2141 Alternate A1A South, Suite 200 Jupiter, Florida. The office is located near the Calle Vija shopping center at the corner of Old Dixie Highway and East Indian Town Road in Jupiter. To get in touch with him visit his website at www.jupiterfamilypractice.com or call his office at 561-743-0005.
Being a patient of Dr David C. Rosenberg for a few years, it has to be said that the care one receives from him and his staff is unmatched to any medical care a patient can receive anywhere else. VIP doctors such as Dr. Rosenberg concentrates on preventive care, which means he takes measures to prevent illness. Rather than treating an illness that you might already have, he tries to prevent you from getting sick in the first place! The extra costs associated with having a private or a VIP concierge doctor is well worth the benefits received. One always feels secure having him as your doctor, because he is always available when you need him via cell phone or e-mail, day and night. You can find Dr David C. Rosenberg at his office at 2141 Alternate A1A South, Suite 200 Jupiter, Florida. The office is located near the Calle Vija shopping center at the corner of Old Dixie Highway and East Indian Town Road in Jupiter. To get in touch with him visit his website at www.jupiterfamilypractice.com or call his office at 561-743-0005.
Excellent article! When you consider that 20% - 40% of a typical insurance premium never leaves the insurance company and doctors are unhappy with being paid $20 per office visit from some carriers, it is not hard to imagine a better way would be to go direct.
In fact, we can report on our site doctors are paid faster and better than insurance companies pay and people save thousands. Our national roll-out is underway in the first truly open health care network ever. If you want to bring fairness to your community or just want to get care for a fair price, we welcome you to join us today.
Don't find what you need? Make a request and our Patient Advocates will search for great care for a reasonable fee. In 9 out of 10 cases we can. We also have a few national contracts for lab tests and health screenings that are in every zip code already!
Concierge is one good answer to the problems in healthcare pricing but not everyone is willing to put down the large up front fee. FairCareMD allows you to shop around for the best doctors, regardless of the what practice model they are following. There are thousands of offers on FairCareMD from great doctors. It is free to patients, almost free for docs!
Excellent topic. I've RT'd this via @nostate on Twitter...even though it's not showing I did.