3 Reasons Doctors Are Ditching Insurance And Offering Care For Cash

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Moving away from public healthcare and towards private models

[By Jessica Socheski]

jsWith the new healthcare system in effect, many doctors are moving away from public healthcare and towards private models. Instead of taking insurance, programs like the corporate wellness plans from MDVIP and other direct primary care doctors are choosing to deal in cash only with their patients. And in essence, they are cutting out the expense of a middleman insurance company.

Many doctors have taken it upon themselves to create a model that helps more than it hinders. Here are three reasons why doctors are choosing private healthcare over public.

1. The Patient Comes First

For many people, the new healthcare insurance price has skyrocketed, making it difficult to pay for healthcare let alone use it when needing a doctor. Direct primary care doctors provide their basic or preventative care that their patients can afford without using their insurance and meeting high deductibles.

Doctors who have embraced this model find they are able to offer their patients a variety of services for less money. This offers people the chance to receive quality care without paying an exorbitant amount. Without this model, many people would avoid the doctor all together, which could lead to serious undiscovered health problems.

2. Waiting Game

Since the Affordable Care Act, hospitals, urgent care, and public healthcare offices have noticed an increase in patients, leaving both waiting rooms and doctors inundated with patients. Unfortunately, this leaves doctors and nurses trying to juggle too many patients without enough help to accommodate them. Doctors are overworked and rushed, unable to spend a proper amount of time with a patient.

Consequently, the current healthcare model has pushed many public healthcare doctors towards privatized hair, leaving an even larger doctor deficit and nurse shortage in the public sector. But since these doctors have turned to private healthcare as their new business model, doctors have the time and availability to meet with their patients and build a relationship with them.

Under private healthcare, patients can schedule appointments with their doctors to have a proper visit where both the physician and patient feels they been given an adequate amount of time—the doctor for diagnosing and the patient for quality care.

3. Doctor Freedom

The direct primary healthcare model is not something entirely new. But it is just now growing in popularity as doctors and patients search for relief from a problematic system. Before congress passed legislation in 1973 that led to the expansion of prepaid health plans, the majority of physicians operated in a fee-for-service model.

Under insured health plans, physicians had little flexibility in determining what services they could provide and how to cut costs for their practices. Some insurance companies even dictate the hours during which doctors can be paid.

 Three Reasons Doctors Are Ditching Insurance And Offering Care For Cash

Image Source: http://www.newyorkmedicalservices.com

Assessment

By moving away from insured health, doctors are able to remove the shackles and dictate how they believe their patients should be cared for. Dr. Villarreal, a doctor in Laredo, Texas, states in regards to his direct primary business model, “To me, there’s no other way I would practice medicine. You feel like you’re a doctor again.”

Conclusion

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