FEE: If direct pay models became commonplace, they would empower and liberate both patients and doctors and do more to bring down costs than other healthcare reforms.
love Montana for reasons that draw me to the state at least once a year: friends, mountains, wildlife, dry air, and fishing, to name a few. Now I have a new reason to love it: Healthcare freedom.
Earlier this year, Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill that promises to expand a health care model known as Direct Patient Care (DPC). Increasingly fed up with red tape, paperwork and meddlesome third-party rules—especially since passage of Obamacare—a growing number of physicians are opting to bypass both government and insurance companies. Under a DPC arrangement, patients pay doctors directly through monthly membership fees or for specific services rendered.
(Note: In other states, where this delivery model is more limited than it now is in Montana, it is commonly referred to as “Direct Primary Care.”)
Monthly fees for membership-based DPC practices average well under $100 and they typically cover all in-office appointments, services, tests, and online consultations. In the July 2021 issue of Reason magazine, Dr. Lee Gross of Epiphany Health DPC in Florida remarks that “About 85 percent of all health care delivery in the country can be managed at a primary care level, so that is really the bulk of health care delivery in our country.” MORE
The Biden administration will figure out a way to destroy it.
Health insurance industry executives heads begin exploding in 3..2..1..1..
(sounds like the movie popcorn popper)
In 10 years there will be enough dem lib LGBQRFYGHTIE communists from California that they will be in control and this will be outlawed.
If there isn’t an actual lead reckoning before then.
But it sounds like a great way to handle medical care, and I would do it here if I had the opportunity.
You pau your Dr. bills, I’ll pay mine.
I have no obligation to pay for your hypochondria.
If you can’t afford your hobby, find another way to entertain yourself.
The way medical care used to be done was everyone payed for their minor medical problems themselves. Dr. office visits, minor procedures, elective surgeries & meds were payed out of pocket. This served two purposes. It kept costs for most procedures low, and helped to keep the hypochondriacs somewhat under control. Insurance was there just to prevent massive financial damage if a major medical problem were to happen. Where things started going sideways was when the state governments started mandating what procedures insurance policies had to cover. This was in part, caused by fly by night insurance companies that sold policies that didn’t actually cover anything and the policy holders didn’t know that until it was too late. But as usual, once the bureaucrats got involved, they just kept mandating more and more coverage until there were no catastrophic care policies any more, and a basic insurance policy costs so much that no one can afford to pay for it on their own. Now, people expect their insurance to cover EVERYTHING and bitch when they have to fork out even a few dollars for anything.
Please pardon my apparent pessimism, but there’s NO guarantee that Montana (d)s won’t immediately eliminate this worthy experiment as soon as they recapture the Governor’s Office here. I hope Gianforte can get it well established before then! FWIW, I live in Montana in the capital, Nolackaloonies.
IU offer a DPC in my dental office. About 25% of the patients are on it. I love it, they love it. My costs are lower so I can pass on the savings. Everyone wins.