With the rising cost of healthcare and tightening budgets for families everywhere, getting the most for your money is important to everone. If you are like most families, you have a primary care physician who carries a patient load as high as 4,000 patients every year, which means even with insurance you may only get to spend a few minutes with your family doctor every year. If you are looking for more personalized care, consider the benefits that private medicine can offer.
Personal Time with Your Doctor
In a typical physician practice model, doctors must see as many patients as possible to meet the demand for appointments and earn enough money to pay for rising overhead costs like staff to process insurance paperwork, or malpractice insurance. Most patients get an average of about 10-15 minutes with the physician, which is often not enough time to adequately diagnose and treat your family.
With private medicine, also called concierge medicine, the doctor limits the total number of patients to just a few hundred, which means that the doctor has more time to spend with you when you do come in for an appointment. These practices generally charge a monthly, quarterly, or annual fee for unlimited access, so you can get as much time with the doctor as you need.
Same-Day or Next-Day Access
With a patient load that is about 10 to 20 percent of the typical primary care physician, concierge medicine offices can often guarantee your family will be able to get same-day or next-day access when you call for an appointment. This is a far cry from the typical primary care doctor, who is often scheduled out for several weeks, or even months. When it’s difficult to schedule an appointment with your physician, you may have to resort to more costly options such as urgent care or emergency room visits.
A Healthcare Advocate
In addition to better access, a primary care physician that has only a few hundred patients is able to get to know those patients on an individual basis. Many concierge physicians are available even when a patient’s care requires that they go beyond the doctors office, with physicians going to the hospital to ensure quality care and be there as a healthcare advocate when your family needs specialty care.
Immediate Answers
Another benefit of joining a private medicine practice is the immediate, and often round-the-clock access to your physician. Most physicians give patients their personal cell phone number and email address, so you can get in touch with them to ask basic questions day or night, and get the answers you need. When the alternative is searching online for answers to your questions, visiting the emergency room, or just waiting until regular business hours, instant access and immediate answers can make a big difference in the quality of your care.
Better Preventive Care
One of the best ways you can improve your overall health is with quality preventive care. Unfortunately with a huge shortage in the number of primary care physicians, and a growing number of people who will be added to the healthcare rolls through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), proper preventive care is difficult and can be expensive, so people wait until they have urgent medical needs before seeing a doctor, which can lead to serious conditions that may have been prevented.
Physicians who have a small private medicine practice often guarantee patients will get a comprehensive annual physical that lasts as much as 60 minutes, and other appointments that last at least 30 minutes, so your family gets the care they need to identify unique concerns based on health history and current symptoms, which might help prevent the development of more serious conditions.
If you are looking for a better way to address the needs of your family’s healthcare, consider how private medicine could give you the access, care, and attention that you deserve for optimal health.