If you have the money, you can buy more time with the doctor.
Arnold Frank, 63, of Towson, is one of a growing number of people willing to pay extra ? above and beyond his insurance premiums ? for quality medical service.
“The old way seems to be to get you in and out. It?s kind of like a factory,” Arnold said. “Now they give you like one-and-a-half to two hours for a physical.”
His doctor, Frank Glasser, trained at Johns Hopkins and joined an internal-medicine practice before jumping into the trenches in Northeast Baltimore more than 30 years ago.
“When I joined the practice, I took over an overflow of patients and built my roster from there,” Glasser said. Five years ago, he was responsible for about 4,000 patients.
Then his practice turned to MDVIP, a concierge service that grooms a physician?s practice into a boutique health service ? for those who can afford it.
“We were looking for a different way to run our practice,” he said. “Five years ago we did a survey. There was a lot of patient dissatisfaction and a lot of physician dissatisfaction. You were seeing 20 to 40 patients a day back then. We were putting out fires, reacting to diseases rather than preventing diseases.”
Now Glasser sees only 600 patients, each of whom pays $125 a month on top of insurance premiums for the extra time and attention at each visit.
Concerns over the rise of concierge services prompted a federal review by the Government Accountability Office earlier this year. The GAO determined that such plans have not affected access to care for people on Medicare and would be considered a problem only if the membership fees were charged for services already paid for by Medicare.
Glasser said the United States has had a stratified health care system for decades. “There isn?t a one-size-fits-all approach to solve the health care problems in the United States, so this is just one option for people who value preventive medicine.”
Frank, a financial planner and investment adviser, said it was worth the extra money. Glasser gave him the time to find out what works and kept adjusting his therapy until they got it right. “I?m very impressed with the diagnostic approach. No stone is left unturned.”
The VIP treatment at a glance
Annual membership fees for so-called concierge health plans range from $60 to $15,000 a year; half remain between $1,500 to $1,999.
For that money ? in addition to insurance ? patients can expect:
» Same- or next-day appointments for nonurgent care
» 24-hour telephone access
» Periodic preventive care examinations
» 65 percent fewer hospitalizations of participating Medicare patients
» 80 percent fewer hospitalizations of those privately insured
Sources: Government Accountability Office, MDVIP
