Health care is in crisis. Reimbursements from insurance companies continue to dwindle, while the expenses of running an office continue to rise. Looming cuts in Medicare are only weeks away, and many physicians may stop taking Medicare. If these cuts go into affect, it is possible that primary care physicians could lose up to 50% of their salary. Just recently CNN reported that some doctors are going bankrupt.
How to fix our health care system is an ongoing debate, but not surprisingly, many physicians have decided not to wait for the government to solve this problem and have taken matters into their own hands. One solution is to simply stop taking insurance altogether. “Cash only” doctors are now commonplace in many major metropolitan areas. Another solution is charging a regular, out of pocket fee (usually) in addition to what insurance will pay for treatment. A version of this model that is becoming popular is called retainer medicine. Sometimes, retainer medicine is referred to a “boutique” or “concierge” even by physicians and others involved in health care (as evidenced by this article in American Medical News, which prompted me to post on this topic).
However, “retainer”, “concierge” and “boutique” are not the same thing. Names are important, and the terms “concierge” and “boutique” tend to have negative connotations. Thus, it is important to describe the differences.
A concierge or boutique label is discredits retainer medicine