Wed. Apr 24th, 2024

DPC practices did awesome in surviving the pandemic but it also showed we have at least one weakness. Very few got allotted CV vaccines for our patients. This article in Healthcare Drive does a great job explaining the issue but we want to highlight two DPC doctors quoted in the piece, Jeff Gold, MD and Michael Ciampi, MD. We have featured both of them before in DPC News. Here are some snippets from the article:

  • Michael Ciampi, who operates a family practice in South Portland, Maine, has seen a lot of interest in his DPC office, which currently has about 675 members. “My waiting list is four to six months,” said Ciampi, who’s been spacing out in-person visits for patient peace of mind and filling in the extra time with telehealth.
  • Jeff Gold, who operates a primary care practice in Marblehead, Massachusetts, said he signed up with the state’s public health agency to be an immunization site in December. But “we still haven’t heard a damn thing. It’s just a complete debacle,” Gold said.
  • “It’s like instead of the first resort, which is what we should be, we end up being the last resort,” Gold said.
  • “Unless a patient tells us, we don’t know who’s been vaccinated, which is really unfortunate,” Ciampi said, noting he estimates about 10% to 20% of his patients have been vaccinated — but just isn’t sure. “You’d think they could have one more person send us an email or fax to the primary care provider’s office, but that hasn’t been part of their modus operandi at this point,” he said.​​

DPC docs continue to get themselves heard and this can only help the movement. Great job, guys.

9630cookie-checkHow the Small Independent DPC Practices Got Screwed Over the Vaccine
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By Douglas Farrago, MD

Douglas Farrago MD is board certified in the specialty of Family Practice. He is the inventor of a product called the Knee Saver which is currently in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Knee Saver and its knock-offs are worn by many major league baseball catchers. He is also the inventor of the CryoHelmet used by athletes for head injuries as well as migraine sufferers. From 2001 – 2011, Dr. Farrago was the editor and creator of the Placebo Journal which ran for 10 full years. Described as the Mad Magazine for doctors, he and the Placebo Journal were featured in the Washington Post, US News and World Report, the AP, and the NY Times. Douglas Farrago, MD received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Virginia in 1987, his Masters of Education degree in the area of Exercise Science from the University of Houston in 1990, and his Medical Degree from the University of Texas at Houston in 1994. His residency training occurred way up north at the Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine. In his final year, he was elected Chief Resident by his peers. Dr. Farrago has practiced family medicine for twenty-three years, first in Auburn, Maine and now in Forest, Virginia. He founded Forest Direct Primary Care in 2014, which quickly filled in 18 months. Dr. Farrago still blogs every day on his website Authenticmedicine.com and lectures worldwide about the present crisis in our healthcare system and the effect it has on the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Farrago’s has written three books on direct primary care: The Official Guide to Starting Your Own Direct Primary Care Practice, The Direct Primary Care Doctor’s Daily Motivational Journal and Slowing the Churn in Direct Primary Care (While Also Keeping Your Sanity) are all best sellers in this genre. He is a leading expert in direct primary care model and lectures medical students, residents, and doctors on how to start their own DPC practice. He retired from clinical medicine in October, 2020.

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