Congrats to Josh at Atlas.MD
Here is an article about Josh and “Concierge Care” in Business Week:
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 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.
Josh is a friend and I think his model is the true answer to fix our primary care shortage and make health care more affordable. Please go to the link to read more and leave him some positive feedback here!
from the full article :
“Health insurance should work more like car insurance,” says Umbehr. “We have car insurance for all the big stuff, but we pay for gas, tires, and oil changes ourselves.”
OMG! I have been saying that EXACT thing for the last 10 years! The problem with health care, for the most part, is NOT with the providers of healthcare, or our delivery of healthcare, its with the INSURANCE companies! We needed insurance reform, not healthcare reform.
I keep thinking about how I can make something like this work, but I’m so far behind from last attempt to make money in Medicine that I don’t think I could afford to even try.