John C. Goodman recently wrote an article in Forbes called Let Patients Manage More Of Their Own Health Care Dollars. It’s very good and we highly recommend you use it in your DPC newsletter or link to it on FB. The author talks about the benefit of self-directed care and goes on to mention Dr. Josh Umbehr’s Atlas MD DPC office:
Special Accounts for Primary Care. The ability to talk with a doctor by phone or email or Skype – day or night and on weekends – used to be a privilege only the rich could afford. We used to call it “concierge care.” The benefits are obvious. The coronavirus and other medical problems don’t just crop up during working hours. And a trip to the emergency room is not only expensive, these days it has health risks as well.
Today, Atlas MD in Wichita offers all primary care – round the clock and by means of phone, email, Skype, Zoom and Facebook if needed – for $50 a month for a mother and $10 for a child. This “direct primary care,” or DPC, not only offers patients the entire range of primary care services, it helps patients make appointments with specialists, helps them get discount prices on MRI scans and other medical tests and (in the case of Atlas) provides generic drugs for less than Medicaid pays in some instances.
This type of care needs to be an option for people spending from an HSA. Under current law it is not.
We agree with Goodman about the HSA option, obviously, but we also want to point out that another DPC practice is being highlighted in the mainstream media. The snowball continues.