Another MD takes the low road

[overthehorizen]

http://www.midvalleydpc.com/what-is-direct-primary-care/

 

From the good doctor's website, I've quoted the paragraph from his website. My remarks follow the quoted section. 

 

"Perhaps the biggest benefit of DPC is that YOU are the one that determines what is “medically necessary”. You should be free to obtain the advice of the physician of your choice (only board certified MD’s practice here, no “mid level providers”). No bureaucrat reviewing / approving / denying your care. There is no “pay for performance” contract that pays me behind your back to be an obstacle to your care, in order to save money for the 3rd party"

 

We can learn a lot from this gentleman. Most importantly, he recognizes the overwhelming growth and competencies in the Physician Assistant profession. Thus, he can no longer merely advertise on the merits of being a doctor because the public recognizes that there is little if any difference in the quality of primary care delivered by PAs vs MDs. The difference is in cost. What the good doctor realized is that he spent far too many wasted years in residency training only to discover that PAs are smarter and more competent than MD's. Since this fellow cannot advertise his strengths that patients value, he has resorted to trash talking those he most fears. He sounds like an empty suit politician running for high office. If you read Norman Gevitz' work entitled "The D.O.'s, you see many examples of actual advertisements that MDs placed in newspapers fifty years ago attacking DO's in the same way they are attacking PA's today. The MDs just haven't learned how to focus on delivering excellent care.

[rev ronin]

I've been really up front in saying that you should prefer a PA over an MD as your primary care provider, because residency intentionally beats the "milk of human kindness" out of physicians and fundamentally damages their compassion in ways to which PAs are not subjected.

 

(There's other reasons to pick PAs, but that's the one I focus on)

[SHU-CH]

Looks like they might have changed the language already - I didn't see that statement on their website.

 

This business model has always been interesting to me. In this case, patients are paying a monthly fee amounting to a minimum of $650 a year per the website. Then they pay $20 per visit to cover only basic primary care.  From a patient's perspective, what makes this better than an insurance plan? Doesn't this model incentivize the practice to do as little as possible for the patient? Money you spend on the patient is coming out of your finite income.

[Guest Paula]

This delivery system allows you to cover routine primary care for a reasonable cost. Most small business owners are struggling to figure out how to afford healthcare benefits for their employees. More and more patients now have high deductible insurance. Problem is, now these patients have to pay costly fees for routine visits. Additionally, to save the clinic (not you) money, many of these visits are now with a midlevel provider having a fraction of the education and training. Yet still at high cost.

 

​This was under another tab under Why DPC

[overthehorizen]

Looks like they might have changed the language already - I didn't see that statement on their website.

 

This business model has always been interesting to me. In this case, patients are paying a monthly fee amounting to a minimum of $650 a year per the website. Then they pay $20 per visit to cover only basic primary care.  From a patient's perspective, what makes this better than an insurance plan? Doesn't this model incentivize the practice to do as little as possible for the patient? Money you spend on the patient is coming out of your finite income.

Still there. It's the fifth paragraph down.

[GetMeOuttaThisMess]

I've been really up front in saying that you should prefer a PA over an MD as your primary care provider, because residency intentionally beats the "milk of human kindness" out of physicians and fundamentally damages their compassion in ways to which PAs are not subjected.

 

(There's other reasons to pick PAs, but that's the one I focus on)

Speak for yourself sir! I resent any statement implying that I have any compassion left in me. :-)

[rev ronin]

Speak for yourself sir! I resent any statement implying that I have any compassion left in me. :-)

Heh.  Many fine physicians recover their compassion, and many PAs are just buttheads from the get go (or were separately damaged as EMTs/Medics or some other pre-PA field), but I'd still put my money on PA education as superior to MD, DO, or NP preparation in terms of actually being a caring provider.  I may be biased, though. I have yet to think of a way to test my hypothesis.

[Reality Check 2]

The website must be under construction or destruction.

Appears to be in Oregon somewhere.

 

When you click About Us - a pic of a guy, ?wife and about 4 kids shows up but nothing else. No names, no descriptors, nothing.

 

Many of the tabs have zero in them or they won't show up on my Mac.

 

I am very curious to know if the doc has a board certification in ANYTHING or had to open a practice this way because insurances won't credential him.

 

Or, the doc is a turd who can't handle PA/NP and has a beef with society.

 

I can't find the quote about midlevels either. It appears to be gone.

 

Anyway - what a jerk. 

[mgriffiths]

The midlevel comment is on the page "What is Direct Primary Care?" in the 5th paragraph, so still there as of 2:39pm 9/11.  He even states that his approach is more "blue collar" and not overly expensive like concierge care.  Absolute bologna, he suggests having insurance and then paying him an extra $650+ per year.  That is a far cry from a blue collar approach, which I find to be a derogatory term in the way that he used it.

 

It may be that he has the best of intentions and is just jaded against "midlevels," but in reading his website it sounds like more of a money-making scam than anything else.  I'm sure he provides healthcare, and it is probably good, but this is concierge healthcare and that is anything but blue collar.

[Reality Check 2]

I would love to know who the doc is and whether or not board certified.

 

No address, no phone number, no bio of staff.

 

I think you have to fill out an online form to get a response.

 

Maybe he works out of hotels like the "medical pot" docs.....

[PAS2014]

This whole thing is dumb.  Most doctors are very derogatory about PAs where I live. PAs are still not common in my area, and my market is saturated by NPs with a NP/PA ratio of roughly 20:1.  Case in point: I started to apply to an urgent care in my area this week.  As I was filling in my "title" as Physician Assistant, a pop-up appeared and stopped my application.  It read:

 

"IMPORTANT MESSAGE:  At Urgent Care of _______________________, we take your health care very seriously.  This is why we do not employ Physician Assistants or Nurse Practitioners in our clinics.  At Urgent Care of _______________________, you will always be treated by an experienced physician so we can get you feeling better much sooner."

 

 

There was no list of physicians or credentials of those experienced physicians working in the clinics.  Big surprise there.  BUT, at least they capitalized our title!

[mgriffiths]

Reality Check, I think something is screwy with your computer because all of the pages loaded for me and nothing was missing.  It does state on the website that he is board certified, but nothing I could find beyond that.

 

The clinic is located somewhere in Oregon if I remember correctly.

[rev ronin]

Reality Check, I think something is screwy with your computer because all of the pages loaded for me and nothing was missing.  It does state on the website that he is board certified, but nothing I could find beyond that.

 

The clinic is located somewhere in Oregon if I remember correctly.

Note that a lot of sites use potentially dangerous content--I routinely use ad blockers, pop-up blockers, and JavaScript disabling when browsing, and it will prevent me from seeing poorly designed (or just maliciously designed) website content.

[Reality Check 2]

I tried loading the website at work where everything is a PC.

I still don't get much if anything on many screens.

We must have massive filters at work and I bet the website doesn't like Apple - everything I have at home is an Apple.

 

Oh well.

 

I think this is a money making scheme and a narrow style of practice - maybe to fill a niche - but I don't think so.

It is rude and unprofessional to diss complementary professions on your business website and certainly wouldn't sit well with many specialists I know and have worked with where the PA/NP IS the patient's doorway to the specialty.

 

Too bad - this guy is missing out on all we have to offer.

 

Now, back to my Monday