Jun
20
A Whole New System
June 20, 2011 | 2 Comments
There’s an anchor in the U.S. economy. The chain needs cut setting innovation and creativity free. While the topic today isn’t energy and fuel, getting minds and capital focused depends in a major way in shifting attention and funds away from waste to productive research and development.
Dave Chase writes in Linkedin’s Tech Crunch about a whole new system of delivering healthcare. Healthcare is sucking better than 17% out of the U.S. economy. Some estimates have the paper blizzard consuming 40% of that and inflation is driving to 1 dollar of each 5 going to healthcare very soon. With the government stack from the Feds down to the county and municipals sucking another 30% (some say half) the rest isn’t going to boost research and development – or increase the demand for jobs or get home prices and sales back to something normal.
Your humble writer strongly suggests a click over to Mr. Chase’s article. You’ll see some (debatable and incomplete) reasons that the health care delivery system needs an overhaul. Operate outside of insurance and government pay systems and the savings are incredible. You really want to click on the article. Here’s why:
Dr. Samir Qamar in Monterey California recently opened a clinic called MedLion in the heart of Silicon Valley with a model that is revolutionizing how primary and urgent care are delivered. Dr. Qamar’ breakthrough business model is enabled by cutting out insurance companies from their oversight and cash transfer of day-to-day healthcare. This allows Qamars’s MedLine to dramatically reduce the cost of day-to-day healthcare.
How much of a cut? Dr. Qamar opened a practice with a dramatically lower price point. For only $49 per month and $10 per visit, MedLion is able to provide high quality medicine at a price point nearly any family can afford. That’s $588 per year. It’s not insurance for an emergency room, hospitalization or preexisting condition. Yet for the vast majority of people that’s enough. And that price, remember, is in Silicon Valley.
Dr. Samir Qamar of Medline. Click image for the largest view.
Dr. Qamar has received inquiries from doctors all over the country seeking to replicate MedLion’s success. These leading doctors are thrilled to remove the yoke of insurance and work for their patients rather than a faceless insurance company.
Dr Qamar’s website needs some clicks!
One innovation is exploiting the resources of the 21st century. Like many direct primary care practices, MedLine is finding more than half of their patient interaction is via electronic means. Because they aren’t forced by reimbursement rules to have a patient come to their office for something that could be done simply over phone or email, paperwork and overhead is reduced.
You and I are better served when our consulting physician is relaxed and freed from stress. Dr. Qamar told Chase, “The gratifying part of being in a practice like ours is we can practice medicine the way we were trained while saving our patients a considerable amount. Many of my brethren in insurance-centric primary care share with me they believe they are only using 40% of their medical training when they are forced to have what I call ‘drive by’ interactions with patients. When they learn about how we practice, they are eager to transition their practices to our model.”
I’d rather my Doctor was relaxed and focused on me than the paper blizzard in the back room.
Something’s got to give. The U.S. is being dragged down by a huge overhead running a paper blizzard for their profit called “insurance”. But the U.S. has the most expensive care in the world and nowhere close to the best care ranking.
Healthcare is killing our economy.
Please, click over and read Chase’s article in full and then check out the MedLine website. If you have a chance to interest someone, pass the links on. Book mark this page or the others as you see fit. This is a page we need to go viral.
Thank you!
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With the advent of Lab-on-a-chip technology – every doctor’s office will be able to administor a full range of tests for a few dollars. Put a single drop of blood on the chip (and perhaps a drop of urine and saliva) and the computer performs 200+ tests and automatically highlights out of bounds results.
Guess what? All for the medical delivery outlined here. The current system is crazy. But what does someone like Dr. Qamar do for the chronically ill, as your posting states nothing?
What you don’t state is the reality of medical delivery. It is the first 5 years of life and the last 10 that we tap into the medical system. The intervening period not so much barring physical calamity. So how would Dr. Qamar propose to cover the 18yo who just survived a auto accident but will require 30 days in the hospital for post-op recovery? Or the senior whose life may involve the use of expensive drugs for maintenance? Dr. Qamar would be mute.
Figure that one out and you will be crowned king.