We humans can’t help but shove as much as possible into one minute, one hour, one day. We’re rewarded for doing it, too. Society says that the more you check off your list, the more productive you are. And by default, then, the more productive you are, the more successful you are. So, we rush. We search for ways to skip steps and still get the same result. We fill …
Gain time by slowing down with your patients
“The road to success isn’t productivity, it’s differentiation.”
– Tony Crabbe
That statement is invaluably true — especially for direct primary care (DPC) professionals. Your patients aren’t coming to you because you’re the same as everybody else. In fact, they’ve chosen you for the exact opposite reason. You’re gloriously different. The other guys force patients into the mold they’ve created: restrained by long waits, life-sucking insurance battles, and reduction to nothing more than a chart to be …
Direct primary care: Being different is the biggest asset of all
Recently, someone asked me on Twitter, “Has the change in classification of obesity as a disease affected how you treat patients presenting w/ the disease?”
The classification change in question is regarding the American Medical Association’s declaration that obesity is a disease rather than a comorbidity factor.
This change in classification affected 78 million American adults and 12 million children. The new status for obesity means that this is now considered a medical condition …
Obesity is a disease: Does that change the way doctors practice?
I’m not sure if you’ve heard the parable of the tall man and the cat.
Maybe not, since I had to make it up in light of health care’s unending cost increase.
In this allegorical village, there was a group of citizens who were very upset with a man who lived there. This man was very, very tall, and he made all the villagers feel uneasy (they were insecure about the crowns of their heads, …
Today’s high deductibles are tomorrow’s bad debt
“Nine of 10 doctors discourage others from joining the profession,” writes Daniela Drake on the Daily Beast.
And stats say that by the end of 2014, about 300 physicians will commit suicide.
What is going on?
A few years back, practicing medicine was named the second-most suicidal occupation. Yet, it hasn’t stopped. The level of sheer unhappiness among physicians is on the rise.
Being a doctor has become a humiliating undertaking. There …
Status quo primary care: How did things get this bad?
This post deserves a caveat — health care shouldn’t be a political issue. When someone comes into my office because they have chest pain, I don’t ask them, “What’s your political leaning?” before administering care. And now after reading about the recent delay of ICD-10 in Congress, I realized that my choice in practicing direct care was the most political and least political thing I could have done.
According to Read more…
Health care shouldn’t be a political issue
Yes, it really is time to revoke the health care mandates issued by bureaucrats who are not in the profession of actual healing.
Daniel F. Craviotto Jr. writes in the Wall Street Journal, “In my 23 years as a practicing physician, I’ve learned that the only thing that matters is the doctor-patient relationship.”
Craviotto, Jr. is a doctor who embodies the fight of …
Say no to bureaucrats and yes to direct care
In 2010, I started practicing direct care in Wichita, KS. I steadily built a full roster of subscribers who pay between $10 and $100 per month to see me whenever they need to, for as long as they need to, however they want to (at their home, in my office, or via the Internet), all with zero co-pay.
Recently, a patient of mine developed ongoing shoulder pain. He’s middle-aged, insured, in …
Affordable direct care doctors are the long-term health care solution
Emergency departments in U.S. hospitals see copious patients who aren’t terribly ill, but don’t have insurance and need somewhere to go. I see some of these patients when I moonlight on nights and weekends at a local county hospital. Sadly, these patients run through a gantlet of expensive tests — I’m required by protocol to administer them. The reality is that 80% of what I see in the ER is “family …
A solution to ER overcrowding: Direct care
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