Rare Props for the AAFP
I rarely mention the AAFP in a positive way. I will give props, however, to their letter Nov. 28 letter(3 page PDF), provided for a committee hearing titled “Reducing Health Care Costs Through Innovation,”(www.help.senate.gov) that “expressed continued support for direct primary care (DPC) practices”. It was signed by AAFP Board Chair Michael Munger, M.D., of Overland Park, Kan., and prepared for the fifth in a series of committee hearings examining health care costs.
The other stuff mentioned (social determinants of health, advanced primary care, independence at home) is just more of the same that probably won’t go anywhere.
I do appreciate the “written” support by the AAFP but I am not that easily won over. They see something in us and are wanting to capitalize on it. DPC is the hope for the future of family medicine. The real voice for the Direct Primary Care movement is ONLY the Direct Primary Care Alliance, of which I am a part. It has the biggest movers and shakers, who started this movement, not only involved but heavily active in pushing the DPC boulder uphill.
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When my solo practice was being strangulated by Blue Care Network, I turned to my Michigan Academy of Family Practice, the officers of which I’d just spent part of a week at the annual conference talking to about my situation. The new president of the national was there, too, and she and the new head of the state organization promised they’d move quickly to help me! Hurrah! But in subsequent e-mails, not phone calls, not meeting with me, the fire soon went out of their political promises. They could do nothing, but didn’t want to talk about it to admit their powerlessness, the fact they were pandering to hope insurance would like what they made us do to constantly prove ourselves worthy to be called certified. Little tasks to add to our life were supposed to convince insurers they might pay us more. But the solo doc? Insurance wanted them gone. They understood that. So I got meaningless glad-handed responses for awhile. But in the end, they just wanted me to go away. After years of $2,000 a month, I had a year up to November of not getting paid. My national? My local? Well, I wasn’t a huge practice, you know.