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.