No you do not. Co-pays are when you have insurance and MDs that do this no longer take any insurance. The fee usually covers lab fees as well. Our MD tried to do this until the state of Maryland came down on this group calling what the tried to do insurance. Before they had to abandon the concept they had already collect enough fees to equal the past year's total income.
They were going to offer house calls, email and phone access, and more time for office visits. They have a 15,000 person practice for four doctors. The hours are long and I am willing to bet my wife, A nurse anesthetist make more than he does.
Anyone thinking that the new health care law will cover everyone, bring down prices does not know anything about the practice of medicine or how it works.
Thank you.
As a practice manager there are many misconceptions on this thread.
-Concierge services have been around since the 1990s, but are becoming more popular with PPACA here.
-At $1800 a person, for 600 folks, that million dollars seems like a lot, but the doctor gets about 1/20 of that. The largest cut is malpractice insurance, likely in the $200-300,000 range. Add rent and utilities, supplies, staff costs, etc the money leaves quickly. PCP doctors have been struggling for years, that's why so many are going to concierge plans, closing practices, or merging into larger groups. Specialty doctors are making the higher incomes.
-Shop around for rates, call around for test costs. A CT scan where we refer patients costs around $2500. One of our associates was out of town and had a concussion, her bill was over $14000 for the same test and an ER visit of less than 2 hours.
-From my standpoint, to drive healthcare costs down you need to manage the most expensive cost to the doctors, which is malpractice. Tort reform is a must. Insurance companies are making money, as well as the pharmaceuticals. Hospitals and doctors are getting pinched by lower reimbursements, I've heard of 3 large hospital groups doing significant layoffs in the past 2 weeks as a result of lower reimbursements.
There is no perfect solution, the system is a mess, but passing a bill without understanding what is in the bill beforehand is detrimental to the ultimate goal of affordable health care to all.
