Thu. May 2nd, 2024

Answer: You can do whatever the f%ck you want.

It’s your practice. You can give as much charity care out as you want. You can give none and still feel good that you are giving great care at an affordable price. That’s the beauty of DPC.

I gave away about 10% free care in my practice. That means people were getting free memberships. They still had to pay for labs.

Is that the number you should use? I have no idea. I would NOT advertise this so that other patients come out of the woodwork.

How will you know who to give free care to? This is not an easy answer. For me, the patients who I ended up helping out just “appeared”. It was a wife struggling with breast cancer. A recent widow with five kids. And on and on. I had no guidelines because I didn’t have to appease and beg some asshole administrator to give that free care. That is the beauty of direct primary care. YOU ARE THE BOSS.

Do you have to give out some free care? No. This is America. Again, you can do whatever you want. Don’t start feeling guilty if you don’t. Some people can’t afford that because their membership prices are so low. Others use “scholarships” with scaled pricing so that patients have skin in the game.

I am open to others’ ideas here because there are no wrong answers. I do love the fact that most DPC docs do some charity care which shows how good we are as humans as well as answers those critics who believe we cherry-pick patients. They can go ______ themselves.

121110cookie-checkCan You Give Charity Care in Your Direct Primary Care Practice?
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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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