why you should consider concierge medicine
Thursday, February 11th, 2010concierge medicine often gets a lot of negative comments from people who chose not to follow their doctor as it converted to this kind of service. this person’s commentary from a patient’s perspective is refreshing and indicative of why i wanted to join primary care in the first place. to help people, marcus welby style.
but, that is not possible with 15 minute visits, day in and day out. especially for patients who are very sick and need more care! concierge medicine, ideal medical practice, and hello health are all trying to bring back the good days of medicine. i can’t wait to participate.
thank you to the person who posted their positive experience with personalized medicine.
I’ve read very negative responses to this issue. People are not wrong in their very generalized assessment in saying no to MDVIP. Money is a problem. But allow me to give you my scenario.
I have multiple sclerosis and I also have a myriad of other conditions that need tending to. I am running from one doc to another all week long. I am quite ill and disabled.
I am not a rich person. I am not part of the elite which was tagged in the other question.
My problem here is that most who asses MDVIP as a possibility are not assessing it from a patient’s standpoint, a very ill patient with many problems. These are not doctors who take on just anyone who has the money. My first visit lasted about 1 1/2 hours for me to interview him and likewise. We had to find out if I met his criteria and if he met mine. Then by mutual consent, I decided to sign up.
Here is his story. He worked in a large practice. He barely had time to think straight between his visits with different patients. He loved his work, but he wasn’t able to dig in with the patients and spend the time he wanted to spend and enjoy the fruits of his extensive education and the satisfaction of having resolved and helped his patients. Instead, he treated symptoms. Carrying his RX pad, he met each person, listened to their story again, and then write an RX and refer them for tests or to the next doctor. He was not able to treat the whole person. That is key here with MDVIP. Treating the whole patient.
Back to my story. Sore toe, see an toe doc; eyes hurt, see an eye doc; elbows hurt, see an elbow doc or phys therapy; chest hurts, lung doc; heart flutters, heart doc; female problems, gyne doc. You get my drift.
I was sick, but I was also sick and tired of feeling like I was in line at a meat counter, given a #, and then going in when my number was called. Only to get in there and in the span of 5 minutes, was given my RX and my referral for tests or other docs. I ran around constantly week after week, year after year. I was sick and tired of having every piece of my anatomy piece-mealed out and then having the internist not know what was happening with the results. I literally watched many doctors whom I had seen just the week before, looking and reading through my chart in front of me when I was there for a follow-up and the results of whatever test I had that he issued in the first place.
I heard about MDVIP from a friend. She told me about a brilliant diagnostician who got disgusted with his practice and signed up with MDVIP. A skeptic, I was all over the internet researching this program particularly if I had to come up $1500.00 for the service. Would I get enough bang for my buck?
I did. I have watched my doctor literally crawling around the floor to get at a file cabinet where he knows there is literature printed out about this or that problem. If he couldn’t find it there he would whip out his pda and find it or have it printed out for me. He wanted me to be informed about each and every symptom I had. He became my quarterback. Every little thing that happens to me goes through him. He is the one who oversees everything about my care. That’s what internal med docs do whether with MDVIP or not. But with MDVIP my doctor knows me. He doesn’t have to go digging around in my files to reacquaint himself with me.
I have access to his MDVIP email, his personal email, his professional phones, his personal phones, and I have my records on CD so that if hospitalized, I just hand over the CD and the hospital has all the information they need to get me signed in including my meds and any allergies. I can contact him through the website or through all of the other venues.
Recently, I had a question that I wanted answered. It wasn’t an emergency issue. I emailed him through the MDVIP email. In about an hour, I had my answer but what was incredible to me was that I had forgotten that he was going to be away on vacation for a week. So when I received his return email, he said that he was out in Africa or South America, I don’t remember which, and then proceeded to answer my question in depth.
I was recently ill with the H1N1 flu and came down with Pertussis (whooping cough). I was hospitalized for two weeks. But prior to that, when I was struggling with should I go to the hospital or not (not knowing I had H1N1), I called my doctor. He asked me if I wanted a house call. He said, “Do you need me to come out to you?”
So before you go slamming MDVIP, look at it from a very sick person’s standpoint. Sure, if you have medical conditions that does not require your doctor to know you very well and if you are one of the lucky ones who have found a doctor where you can see him in a timely manner, not waiting an hour or more to get in, and one who can greet you without the glassy-eyed look of someone who is overworked, then go for it. They are great doctors and do precisely what their practi
I guess I went over my limit.
Do I get enough bang for my Buck? I do!!!
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