For a PRICE!
"More doctors gravitate toward boutique practice; Fed up with long hours and limits on fees, they aim to offer a more personal approach — at a price April 17, 2011|By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff
Concierge medicine is expanding as more doctors — and patients — tire of assembly-line primary care, opting for something more personal, and pricey.
The numbers are still very small, but even a tiny number of doctors leaving traditional offices for boutique practices — out of thousands of primary care physicians — is enough to make some health care industry leaders nervous.
Wow, what a piece of corporate crap my morning paper has become.
They worry that more doctors will follow as insurers and government payers cut fees and hem in providers with regulations. And when even one doctor makes the switch, there are substantial side effects, leaving hundreds of patients to scramble for a new physician.
I notice patients are often last in the conversation.
Concierge doctors care for a small number of patients who agree to pay an annual fee on top of insurance — $1,500 to $1,800 in MDVIP’s case — in return for fast, unlimited access to the physician and to extra services like a comprehensive wellness plan. Patients also enjoy more leisurely appointments than the 15-minute visits that are now standard for most primary care doctors....
All we wanted was a good, decent, single-payer system like the rest of the industrialized world -- and we couldn't even get that.
--more--"
Looks like the doctor won't be coming to my house.
