I’m Your “Car Guy”

It’s only a few days into February and my husband sends me this link about the potential of direct primary care to gain more traction under new federal policies. Frankly, it’s a great solution for the healthcare cost crisis Americans are currently facing. It’s incredibly affordable. As I’ve said many times with the car analogy— keep health insurance for the emergencies and the catastrophic illness. Leave the maintenance and small repairs to a direct relationship with your doctor. It’s better for both sides.

I mean let’s look at this analogy a little more— you pay someone directly to check the tires, change the oil, repair a broken window, fix a flat, or change fluids and filters. Goodness, I see plenty of people pay direct to a car wash for their ride to “look pretty.” Would you trust your vehicle to the local car guy who spent a fraction of the time necessary to appropriately do the job? Of course not!

So why would you do the same with your health? Current care in an insurance-based system is just that—rushed, incomplete, without the time necessary to do the job right. Just as you wouldn’t want your vehicle falling apart going 70 mph down the highway, you probably don’t want your health crashing because your doctor didn’t have enough time with you to properly address concerns. And it isn’t their fault; it’s a system failure. Traditional insurance-based healthcare mandates corporate employed clinicians to see 20-25 patients a day. And even in private practices— the payments from commercial insurances, Medicaid, and Medicare are getting smaller every year, creating a need to see more patients every day just to cover the overhead cost. And part of that overhead is ironically the person in charge of overseeing billing/coding!

I just shake my head at health insurance. As a colleague recently told me, “it’s like highway robbery.” It’s profit over patient. C’mon now— health insurance shouldn’t be a publicly traded company— seems like quite the conflict of interest in my opinion. But, hey, I digress!

Looking forward to physician life “on the other side!” Until next time…