As he was nearing the midpoint of his career in family medicine at the Mayo Clinic, David Usher, MD—like many primary care physicians—knew something was missing from his professional life, and his personal life.
He found his answer in 2010 after reading an article in Medical Economics about a direct-pay primary care practice in North Carolina.
“I was experiencing the same thing a lot of PCPs are. The system just over time ratcheting down what you get paid and forcing you to work harder and harder to get it,” Usher says, adding there was too much hassle to get paid and patients couldn’t afford the care he was recommending.
He showed the article to his wife, and that’s when his life changed.
Nearly 2 years later, he built an independent family practice in Wisconsin to about 2,000 patients that he describes as “loyal and happy.” Yet Usher says he is starting to feel some of the same old pressures. “You’re continuously looking at the bottom line and how many patients you are seeing a day and counting the dollars,” Usher says.
Squeezing as many patients as possible into a day and having to be more focused on which codes will result in the highest reimbursements isn’t the kind of practice many physicians envision. For physicians whose ideal was simply hanging a shingle out, the outlook is even worse.
The number of independent physicians dropped from 57% in 2000 to 39% in 2012, and those that are left are looking to new practice models to hold their ground, according to the Accenture Physicians Alignment Survey.
Accenture estimates that one in three remaining independent physicians—their ranks decline by 5% each year—will look to adopt subscription-based practice models to achieve higher yields, and that trend will continue to increase by 100% annually over
Full article – The direct primary care model is gaining traction. Is it right for you?