Paul:
Well, the thing about Dr. Forrest's clinic is that nixing the insurance agencies allows him to have nearly 100% collections with almost no staff. Overhead is drastically slashed, and he only has to see four patients a day to break even.
Don't get me wrong, Paul, it would mean a drastic (even scary) change for me to do something like this. I like my current staff and patient roster, and doing this would mean decimating my staff, and it would create a seismic change in my patient population. Also, I currently do hospital work, obstetrics, and endoscopies, which are uncharted territory in this model, and I would likely have to turn my back on some of these things.
However, if I am not reimbursed adequately for the work I do, why do it? If I have to maintain an oversized staff to wrangle reimbursement from a third-party payor, at some point I have to consider not working with them anymore. If my patients are forced to turn to a crummy PPO in order to receive care, why not provide an alternative?
>>Paul said: many people will bitch about waiting an hour and half, the 5 minutes of time from the actual doc, frequently not their own doc, but not do anything about it.<<
This is true, but it doesn't take "many" people to support a practice like Dr. Forrest's. Just four a day.
Yes, you would have to finance the change, but start planning and within a year, with some creativity, I'll bet you and your doc could be out of the rat race.
Then, when you leave the clinic at night, you will have collected a day's work for a day's pay. And, you can tell all these insurance weasels to go climb a tree.
Brian
