A Two Tier Healthcare System is Coming Are you ready for the coming two tier healthcare system? A look toward Europe and Canada provides insight. In the top tier, patients can typically schedule same day appointments. In the lower tier, patients may wait weeks or months. Stories in the news about delayed medical services brings reality to the inevitable. Having to depending solely on the insurance based system can put you in the lower tier where delayed services are in essence a form of rationed medical service. To put that in perspective, for many Medicare patients, an appointment with their doctor is looking more like a trip to the Emergency Room (ER) than a thoughtful and caring family doctor appointment. Increasingly physicians will be looking for a way out of a system moving toward “narrow networks” that increases the number of patients covered but reduce the number of doctors. The net effect is doctors spending less time listening, less time making good medical decision and less time teaching patients what they need. Doctors see more problems coming: A. Patients who quit paying premiums have a 90 day grace period during which they continue to be “insured”– for the first 30 days, the insurer is liable; but for the next 60 days the provider is at risk for the insurer’s share of the bill. B. Fees paid by the plans are often set at or close to Medicaid rates. In some cases they pay less than Medicaid. For most it’s less reimbursement than cost of running a medical office. C. With ever-increasing deductibles, insurance isn’t paying most of the bills. Doctors try to collect from patients whose insurance may never pay. D. More paperwork problems means more overhead to run a medical office. E. Increasingly impersonal relationships where doctors seldom see the same patient twice. Already, many family practice doctors and internist are moving to urgent care practices that differ little from the experience provided by the typical hospital’s emergency room. Getting quality medical service will increasingly require selecting a doctor that offers a more personalized service. For a fee, seniors can contract with a personal care/concierge doctor that offers prompt access, adequate time for appointments, options for calling them directly, time to make good medical decisions, and advocacy when seeking quality care beyond the primary care doctor’s office. In Huntsville, Alabama, many view the opportunity to access personal care as a positive since it provides their doctor time to listen, make good medical decisions and teach patients what they need to know rather than 5-7 minute appointments where healthcare needs get kicked down the road. By providing adequate appointment time and care, this new type of personal care doctor helps keep their patients maintain the best quality of life, stay out of the hospital and avoid unnecessary procedures. Tell Me More about Concierge Physicians in Huntsville, Alabama. Tell Me More about Concierge Physicians in Huntsville, Alabama. Exit |