More Patients Moving to Direct Pay
An article in USA Today dated November 16th, 2015 discusses the newest trend in healthcare treatment. With more patients being insured today, physician’s offices are becoming quite busy with wait-times extending and treatment time diminishing. This has generated a further interest in the “concierge” or “direct pay” programs offered by medical providers nationwide.
This program gives patients better access to see their doctor as the concierge services are growing but certainly allow for faster response and longer visits (seeing less participants in this program than those that are insured). A patient would pay between $800 and $1,000 per year (it can be broken up monthly) and receive an annual physical, and a set number of visits included into the price. Similarly, for children the annual fees range fro $250 to $500 per year. These plans include certain services. For any not included, the fees are reasonable and can be easily absorbed by the patient. Naturally, the patient should (usually does) carry insurance for hospitalization and treatment for serious or acute conditions. If the patient exceeds the pre-paid office visits, the cost is not much ranging from $50 to $80 per additional visit.
The logic behind these programs is simply to use the typical “out of pocket” expenses such as deductibles and co-pays which have to be paid anyway, to actually provide better and more focused treatment. If the overall cost of the concierge fee and the additional catastrophic coverage equals the amount of premium that would be paid for a typical insurance policy, then the patient benefits from easier access to the provider and longer time availability during the visit at no additional cost.
Observers say that when more individuals and families make use of a direct pay program, less will be in the insured pool thus potentially driving up the cost of insurance coverage. However one can take another view that the concierge programs offer competition in the healthcare insurance market and can actually cause premiums and deductibles to fall in order to tempt those that have left the insurance programs to return and save money.
Generally these programs have been used by family practices, internists and pediatricians; however more specialists are offering direct pay programs.
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