Can Marcus Welby Make A Comeback? by Dave Chase
The following was originally posted on KevinMD but I think that the information is so important that it needs to be shared again. I find David’s thoughts very compelling and supportive of us grunts.
The insurance middleman has taken a toll on the family doctor. New practice models plan to change that. Physicians in Seattle, Silicon Valley and Boston are proving what the rest of the world already knows. When you have a high function primary care system, there’s less money spent and better health outcomes.
Before House, M.D., there was Marcus Welby, M.D. who epitomized the glory days of healthcare. Dr. Welby knew every one of his patients. If you got sick, he took care of you right away, always spending whatever time necessary.
Unfortunately, there’s a radically differently model today that can only be described as a Gordian Knot designed by Rube Goldberg.
Click to enlargeConsider the following scenario:
It can take patients days to get in for an appointment, they arrive for an appointment, wait 45 minutes in the crowded waiting room, wait again in the exam room, and then get 10 minutes with their doctor, 15 if they’re lucky. Of course, it’s difficult for him to remember much except for those few notes he scribbled last time. How much can anyone remember about 2,000-4,000 people? If a doctor doesn’t see 30 patients over the course of the day, he’s likely going to be penalized by not hitting his insurance-driven productivity goals. In a typical 10 minute appointment, there’s often no time to go beyond the presenting symptoms and then give the patient a prescription as a way of closing the appointment. Does this sound familiar?
What happened to the old family doctor so wonderfully represented by Marcus Welby? Insurance killed him.
Today’s insurance reimbursement process severely impedes the delivery of affordable, patient-centered primary care. Whether a doctor is using a paper-based or electronic medical record, much of their time is spent ensuring they properly code billing forms. In many cases, those claims will be denied and the process starts all over again. That doesn’t address a patient needing tests or prescriptions. Is it any wonder that more than 50% of primary care physicians say they would leave practice if they could.
Having spent years in Patient Accounting departments as a consultant, it was easy to see why there’s a 40% “insurance bureaucracy tax.” That is money not being spent on care itself. It also doesn’t take into account time and frustration by the patient who is ultimately responsible for care as they have to wade through Explanation of Benefits and other forms mere mortals have difficulty interpreting (perhaps by design).
Click to enlargeDoes one really need insurance for routine primary and preventive care? No. But somehow health care has become synonymous with health insurance. “Insuring primary care is like insuring lunch,” says Nick Hanauer of Second Avenue Partners, a Seattle venture-capital fund that backs one of the new “Direct Primary Care” models. “You know you’re going to need it. You know you can afford it. Why on earth would you pay a third party to pay the restaurant on your behalf, adding overhead and taking a big chunk out of the money you pay—and because of the process, have to wait a week to get a table and then have only 10 minutes to eat?”
Organizations such as MedLion, Qliance and Iora Health are demonstrating that they can cut out the fat that insurance reimbursement adds at the same time primary-care doctors can spend more time with fewer patients and still charge low fees. Doctors operating in these models universally proclaim that they are back to practicing medicine the way they were trained. It’s not hard to imagine that more medical students would choose to enter primary care, reversing a disturbing 10-year decline. They have moved beyond the theoretical by setting up these models. Qliance, for example, has shown they are dramatically reducing the most expensive facets of healthcare (Emergency Department, Specialist & Surgical visits) by 40-80% with a panel that mirrors the population as a whole.
Benjamin Franklin was right. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The savings demonstrated in direct primary models extend to the public sector. By having a proactive primary care physician relationship coupled with a pharmacist, a group of Medicaid patients in Ohio with diabetes met monthly with their doctor monthly to monitor blood pressure, cholesterol and blood-sugar levels. They have found that having a proactive relationship with their primary care physician is resulting in an average savings of $5,500 per year. If this is extrapolated to Ohio’s entire Medicaid population that has Diabetes, that would account for $500MM in savings. In these budget constrained times, there’s not a state out there that wouldn’t benefit from these kinds of savings.
How it works
At Qliance’s launch event, Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire told an audience of patients and others: “I see someone like Dr. Bliss and I say many of our physicians in this country and in this state went to school because they wanted to practice medicine, not because they wanted to deal with insurance. Not because they wanted to deal with bureaucracy. In fact, they don’t want to deal with any of that; they want to deal with their patients and that’s what they are really good at. And what Qliance has as a vision and a model is to allow doctors to do what they love and what they feel passionate about, to give patients… what they so richly deserve at an affordable cost and with high quality. It is patient safety. It is driving down costs… This is exactly what we and the patients in the state of Washington need.”
Marcus Welby had it right. Primary care physicians are at their best when their primary focus is their patient. Unfortunately, immense amounts of time dealing with insurance burdens have essentially eliminated the Marcus Welby model but modern day Marcus Welbys are fighting back and having great success. It’s exciting to see the spark return to the primary care physicians I’ve met who’ve removed the insurance yoke and are practicing the way they know is best for their patients (and themselves). You might call it “Do it Yourself Health Reform” driven not by politicos but by physicians.
Dave Chase is CEO of Avado.com and previously founded Microsoft’s Health business and was a senior consultant with Accenture’s Healthcare Practice. He can be found on Twitter @chasedave.
The above new system does sound a lot better, but agree that FPs are on the way out. Most patients really do want to empower themselves, but when the FP is offering nothing more than PPIs, steroids, narcs, benzos, ABX, etc they are gravitating to true prevention and doing the diet/exercise/homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture on their own, and the only patients winding up in the PCP office are those who want the pill to wake them up because they are taking the pill to make them sleep etc etc. Those patients are very frustrating to treat.
Like I said in the first post, the handwriting is on the wall folks. I see in the FP throw-aways that parents are more likely to take their kids to a “baby” doctor nowadays and like I said, OB is out as far as FP is concerned. The hospital is where we will next be thrown out to make way for the “hospitalist”. Well gee, now the institution can bill for more money and recover more bucks. There goes the continuity of care thing. I fortunately can forget about work when home, sleep well (when not on call) and face the next disasters the following day.
I don’t need a hug but get testy when folks try to diss us trench fighters. I really think the AAFP should start planning for when they need to take their shingle down and stop duping medical students with this idealistic “cradle to grave care crap”. There is no way a young doc can do that these days unless they relocate to outer Mongolia. Oh BTW there’s no backup there. 🙂 Marcus Welby is going to stay dead I’m afraid as the people in power are too stupid to consider possibilities like expressed by the author above. I like what I see but in 10 years I’ll be out. (retired)
The nearest Qliance clinic is 25 miles away, or I’d join immediately, abandoning my good FM doc whom I’ve worked with for 25 years, and even though at 77 I’d pay the highest rate. I’m healthy, with mild hypertension and mild arthritis, and probably pay more for my Medicare supplement than Qliance would cost. I don’t know just how they do it, but they should be the model. I wouldn’t mind paying for a Big Deal policy for stuff like last year’s motorcycle accident or for whatever the final act is.
FP is going to die. The AAFP better get a grip on that. Primary care doctors are being pushed out of the hospital and relegated to the office. Oh, but wait, Nurse Practitioners can do approximately 85 to 90% of what the Doc can do in the office and no call. I know bacause I work with them and they are very well qualified. I tell young people to shoot for a specialty. If they like OB, do OB and get paid for it. Be an FP who delivers babies and one will need to go out in the boondocks and be the OB doc for all the public aid moms. Try to go to a geographically desirable place to live and the OB docs will shut you out. Like ER? Do an ER residency as the new docs can’t write orders to tide a patient over for 12 hours anymore. Like the hospital? Be a hospitalist and train for that. Family Practice will be dead in 10 to 15 years as a specialty and the “ancillary” personnel are going to take it over. Needless to say, despite cuts the specialties will ALWAYS be better compensated. Health maintence is shot out the window with 10 minute visits. I can go on about inadequate education for diabetics and the fact that doctors are expected to be nursemaids for stupid patients who can’t take care of themselves. It’s our fault that they smoke, eat s–t and don’t exercise. Tell ’em to get a colonoscopy and they look at you like “yeah right”. I bet 80 to 90% of the middle age FP’s would quit if they could. The bright thing is sometimes a patient will work with you and a desired outcome is seen. Heck sometimes good things happen when it’s not expected. That can make it a little more tolerable. Oh did I also mention that because I try to maintain quality care (ie. take more time) I also get paid less than starting contract physicians. That is a stickler, the new people get “tickler” salaries to start out and when they can’t make their salary after the contract is out, they move on. It should be AAFNP.
AKS
Ouch. Someone needs a hug.
well said brother. i take at least 20minutes for all patient’s, and worry about the money later. thankfully, us country docs can do well with that, and the patient’s love it. as for a hug, we all need a hug…..