Is Concierge Medicine the Future of Health Care?

 A very interesting article about the future of health care in the United States.

Photograph by Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg Businessweek

Shelagh Fraser, Craig Veatch, and the other doctors at Priority Physicians see about 200 patients each

An anxious woman in her mid-40s showed up last winter at Atlas MD, a family doctor’s office in Wichita. She had lost her job as a restaurant cook, and along with it her health insurance and her home. She needed to see a doctor. 

Atlas MD isn’t a free clinic. It’s a concierge medical practice, which means you can’t get an appointment unless you pay cash. Atlas MD’s two physicians, Josh Umbehr and Doug Nunamaker, don’t accept insurance. Instead, they charge most of their adult patients $50 a month for unlimited visits. They also offer free EKGs and biopsies and cut-rate prices on prescription drugs. Two-thirds of their patients have insurance but feel the fee is well worth it for personalized service, including house calls, the doctor’s cell-phone number, and quick responses to e-mails and Twitter messages. The rest of Umbehr and Nunamaker’s clientele are uninsured. For those patients, Atlas is the only way of seeing a family doctor regularly. Contrary to those who say concierge doctors like themselves are getting rich by focusing on personalized care at a high price, Nunamaker and Umbehr, who are in their early 30s, contend that they can grow their practice by appealing to a broader clientele. 

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