Why All Ages Osteopathy Utilizes a Direct Primary Care Model
It’s no secret that the medical system that is broken.
Rather than go into the mountain of statistics of how grim the current situation is, I’m going to tell my story about how I formed my business, All Ages Osteopathy, a Direct Primary Care clinic in Jackson, WY and why I feel grateful I made the decision to structure my practice as a monthly membership model rather than fee for service every single day.
My Residency Experience in the System
On the first day of residency, our director told us that since 95% of Family Medicine physicians work in a major medical center - where the expectation is to see 18-25 patients a day and you are graded by RVUs (relative value units) - this is how we would train us. And they would train us to be efficient as possible so we wouldn’t get burned out. Physician burn out rate is at an all time high and continuing on the upward trend, and they didn’t want to contribute to that. It’s not their fault because they are doing their best to help physician survive in the current system, but the system is inherently and deeply broken so despite their best efforts, they are bound to fail.
In residency, I did start to feel burned out. Not horrible, because there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but I knew I wasn’t living my most authentic life. Being burned out is like a badge of honor in residency. In fact, I wouldn’t have had it any other way, for that period, but that way of working was not something I wanted to continue for longer than I had to.
Navigating Being a Doctor Authentically
I knew wholeheartedly that I wanted to be a doctor, and I really did enjoy practicing good old Family Medicine. I love working with entire families, getting to know them over the years and truly value being able to help people under a wide net. For example, I may see a newborn for reflux in the morning, followed by an older male with cardiovascular disease, and the afternoon may be helping someone with multiple autoimmune disorders before rounding out the day with a pregnant patient.
I just couldn’t see a way that I was going to be able to practice medicine and live a fully authentic life. There is so much indoctrination that doctors must suffer, work a ton and, for family medicine physicians, not make a ton of money, that I had to wade through. I knew that I would start my own business, or join another private practice because corporate medicine was definitely not my cup of tea.
However, even in private practices, they are still up many of the same hurdles as the physicians in corporate medicine, such as insurance companies dictating how they practice medicine. This is done in many subtle and other not-so-subtle ways, such as denying certain services and medicines, documentation being more for billing than pertinent health information, and the need to continuously be learning about the art of coding to stay somewhat sane.
Discovering Direct Primary Care
Then I learned about Direct Primary Care. I was in a recruiting session in my last year of residency and there was a physician whose partner had just retired, and they were looking for someone to join their practice. She explained her business model and I instantly knew that Direct Primary Care was going to be my future business model. It was brilliant – comparable to the change from Blockbuster to Netflix – and is going to dominate the future of medicine.
Most medicine is still practiced in a traditional model, like that of Blockbuster. For example, you must go to the office to speak with the doctor (must go to the store to rent the movie), and you pay per visit (pay per movie). I’m not sure if Blockbuster had a limit on how many movies you could rent, but the other major problem with current day traditional offices visits is how short they are leaving people often unsatisfied because they weren’t able to address all of their concerns in one visit.
In a Direct Primary Care (DPC) model, the physician creates an offering that is only available through a monthly membership (like Netflix). This includes unlimited visits to the office when needed (unlimited streaming), and the ability to call/text your physician for a quick question rather than spending hours Googling your symptoms (don’t have to go to a physical Blockbuster). It is simply a better way to receive health care. Its better because it is a win-win situation for both patients and physicians.
The Better Way to Health Care
Thousands of doctors and private practices around the country and changing to this model because it works. The physician is happy because they get to cut insurance companies out of how they are paid for the services that they provide. The patient is happy because they get direct easy communication and access to their medical team.
In a world where there is too much information, it’s incredibly helpful to have access to high quality information as well as an advocate in the difficult to navigate healthcare system.
I started my practice utilizing this model and never for a day have I regretted the decision.
