Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire This guy understands health care.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/11/news/economy/cash-only-doctors/index.html


Also some paragraphs from another interview. Worth reading. Apparently this Dr's method is getting a lot of attention. $50 a month gets you primary care as much and often as you need, then carry separate insurance for catastrophic or urgent care cases. Everybody wins including the insurance companies. There is all kinds of links about it. Why can't our lawmakers figure some of this out??


But in our system, we started with the idea that we have insurance for the wrong things. We don’t have car insurance for gasoline or homeowner’s insurance for lawn care; why have health insurance for family medicine, the bulk of what most people need?

And we were able to remove that middleman, the third-party payer; we structured it a little differently on the billing side, so it’s a flat rate per month based on age, just like a gym membership, and for that membership, you get unlimited home visits, work visits, office visits, technology visits – like email, cell phone, texting, Twitter, Facebook, Skype – basically whatever we want, because now we’re not limited to what insurance will allow or pay for. Then we have no copays in our office. Any procedure we can do in the office is included free of charge, because that’s what the membership is covering, just like any equipment in the gym is included at the base membership price – so stitches, biopsies, joint injections, ultrasounds, bone scans, lung scans, urine testing, strep throat testing, minor surgical procedures – all included for free.

Then something else we do that makes us very unique and valuable is wholesale medications, labs, imaging, and pathology. We had a perfect example recently. We ordered some blood work – we have our negotiated cash discounts of usually 95 percent – and a patient’s blood work was accidentally billed through the insurance rate, because of a computer mistake at the lab. The price that they were quoted was $1,028. We ran that back through our system, and it cost $39 – a 97 percent savings just by cutting out the middleman. And it’s an amazing opportunity; it’s far past the 10x improvement that most entrepreneurs are looking for.

We can do the same things with medications. We out-compete the Walmarts, the CVSs, the Targets of the world, because we have a different business model. We can dispense medications in Kansas just like a pharmacist. Forty-four states allow physicians to function like this, and so I can order the medications wholesale from the same places the pharmacies do, but I can get 1,000 blood pressure pills for $8.33. Even after my 10 percent markup, they’re under a penny a pill. Walmart would literally have to give them away to out-compete us, and if they do, great; we still win. It’s not a value that’s a revenue generator for us; we’re adding to the value of the membership, very Costco-esque.

So we could drastically reduce the costs of people’s health care by 80 to 90 percent. We can take all of the value; we can go to your employer; we can restructure their insurance plan, decrease the premiums by 30 to 60 percent, year one. We had an example of a company here in Wichita, Kansas, 18 employees. Long story short: from 2013 to the end of 2014, they decreased their out-of-pocket costs for insurance from $98,000 to $47,000, year one. Now, employees had unlimited access 24/7 to their doctor – call, text, email, visits, hour-long appointments if necessary, free stitches instead of going to the ER – but none of that was claimed toward the insurance. Even the insurance company loves us now, because they realize they’re in the business of insuring rare, catastrophic events, not the daily things.

Another more in depth link.

https://www.theobjectivestandard.co...umbehr-on-concierge-medicine-revolution/

They really don't want to & are too vested in special interests & for the most part, have little to no integrity & want to keep .gov's hand in play instead of returning health insurance to the free market.

And the 2 parties simply are not really interested in a joint solution.

The best that can be hoped for is a series of half-azzed fixes; there will be no complete plan that will ever get approved.

MM

Obamacare was just another way to tax people that can pay, that is why they won't get rid of it.

Period.

That $50 a month plan was discussed in 2013. I wonder if those doctors are still in business?

Who do you think provides their paychecks?

Dam republicans need to get butt and provide us with a decent health care.

Second thoughts: gov needs to out of the health care business.

Likely as they have a steady stream of cash coming in without having to hire a room full of administrators trying to collect from insurance companies. We have docs here that do this. They are about $1000 a year for a set number of visits and a few labs. I havent seen any that are $50 or as comprehensive as the plan mention. I am self employed and I dont have any serious on going health concerns so I prefer a pay as you go system for myself for doc visits and screening and then a hospitalization or catastropic policy to cover major medical expenses. Insurance shouldnt be the same as buying a healthcare plan.

I found a primary care doctor that practices for a lumber company . When the lumber company had to cut back their employees they started allowing the doc to see outside patients.
He charges me $75 a office visit if I pay him directly. I turn left for plywood and right for an ear infection. Works great for me and allows the lumber yard to keep this doc on for their employees. He has one nurse that works the front desk and thats the extent of his operation.

As I age I would be open to the membership route that covers more labs and screenings and minor proceedures.

Perfectly stated - and spot on...

Our law makers are not talking about reducing the cost of health care, they are talking about who is going to pay for it. There is no concern whatsoever about controlling costs.

Even though that's the low hanging fruit.

It's all about control. The gov wants to control us from the cradle to the grave, and healthcare provides a perfect vehicle for that ride.

A simple google search would answer that for you. There are all kinds of links about this doctor and his practice. Right at the top of the list is an article from March 2017. The Wichita Business Journal has recognized Umbehr for his work on multiple occasions, including the 2016 Health Care Heroes awards. According to this doctor the plan continues to gain momentum, and why wouldn't it? Everybody wins.

This is exactly the problem. What I am seeing in the pharmacy world is that I can save patients money by not using their insurance. An example from yesterday. $15.00 for a 90 day supply through insurance. $5.33 without.

Then my boss is wondering why my business is growing. I focus on taking care of patient in the most cost effective treatment possible.

Last week, eye drops for a child. $186.00! A simple call to the provider resulted in cleared up conjunctivitis for $8.00.

Do not even get me started on pharmaceutical companies, even though they are my bread and butter so to speak.

We have expected insurance to cover everything in healthcare. That is not the right mindset.

It's not just the pharmacy world. Around here a lot of people fall into 2 groups. Those who don't have insurance because they can't afford it, and those that do have insurance but don't use it because they can't afford it. The latter is paying for insurance that covers all kinds of things, but in reality their premiums going out the door every month are ONLY in case something catastrophic happens because they cannot afford to use it for normal healthcare. The high deductible's that need met keep them from doing so.

We have 1 clinic here that is open 24 hrs no appointment needed, just walk in. They take in a lot of "freebie" insurance holders, but they also have a flat rate fee of $130.00 for non insurance holders. Both the non insured and the insured that are footing their own insurance bills, use this flat rate up front fee service. So both the uninsured and those paying $600-$1200 a month in premiums, get the exact same service for the exact same cost, because those paying the premiums cannot afford to turn in their insurance card.

In Europe.. the cost for EVERTYHING is paid by taxes, both personal and company taxes.

You get cancer... Zero cost.. Everything covered

You get pregnant.. Zero cost.. Everything covered

You get into an accident... Zero cost.. Everything is covered.

You amputate a leg due to diabetes... Zero cost.. Everything is covered.

You get into car accident and need physiotherapy... Zero cost.. Everything is covered.


Or, average 11% per year of GDP in OECD. The US, 17%.



How much would a completely "free market healthcare system" cost each year per person in the US?

Man, you are dense. EVer BOTHER to check their tax brackets? And how long does it take to get an MRI, etc. That is why all of them that can afford it are coming over here for treatment. And FYI, STUPID, we have FAR from a free market system here thanks to democrats. THe fix is SIMPLE.

We already have socialized medicine - Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
Hospital fees are beyond absurd.
The new money factories are hospitals and instead of making steel or automobiles, the modern American industry is manufacturing diagnoses and sucking money from the population with the efficiency of Henry Ford's assembly lines.

Bingo. Nobody ever asks WHY healthcare costs so much, they just talk about shifting the costs around. As with most other things in life if you follow the money you'll likely find the problem. It's not the doctors and nurses getting rich, I know quite a few & that's not where the money's going. I don't think it's the hospitals themselves. However, I do seem to see plenty of health insurance companies putting up $200 million office buildings in high dollar areas along with pharmaceutical companies. Insurance companies don't produce anything, they just move money around and take their skim off the top while hospitals cut back on nursing staff to save pennies.

If you want to know why it's so expensive ask yourself why we need a multi billion dollar industry to manage what should be a simple transaction between doctors and patients while buying off 95% of the politicians in the country. Look at who's getting rich off this scam & you'll find the problem.

Yes, cut out the middleman.