WSJ on micropractices

Gordon Moore, the father of the micropractice, is chronicled here. SoloDoc is mentioned as well:

Dr. Moore estimates that his overhead costs make up 35% of his revenue. That compares with a figure of about 60% for other small primary-care group practices, according to Medical Group Management Association, an Englewood, Colo.-based professional association for doctors’ practices.
A few weeks ago, Dr. Moore asked patients to rate the medical care they receive by using the online survey, “How’s Your Health.” About 450, or three-quarters of his patients, responded. About 70% said they had received the care they wanted, and at the time they wanted it. The national satisfaction rate, based on the same survey, is about 30%.

Comments

Val Jones, MD
An interesting article indeed. Here’s one doc’s response: Can the Internet save primary care? http://www.revolutionhealth.com/blogs/valjonesmd/can-the-internet-save-2491
Anonymous
The main benefit of micropractice is lower overhead. This model is incompatible with any speciality needing testing beyond bloodwork. I remember when many primary care physicians had their offices in their homes. Maybe this is the future for primary care, psychiatry, and any other speciality not dependent on ancillary services/equipment.
Anonymous
I doubt that as a future for medical practice of any kind. The home office practice is a quaint rellic of a smaller, poorer, less insurance-dependent but better-behaved America.
The idea of having strangers in your home, even if just in an office area is just too alien a notion to be acceptable anymore. That era is done and gone for good. Here and there you might find an example of this kind of arrangement, but they are noteworthy because they are rare.
Commumities will have doctors whose practices can afford a modern office in an appropriate professional building with the conveniences and accommodations for the handicapped and all the other facilities expected of a medical practice setting or they will just have to settle for doing without doctors. A practice that has to rely on using the home of the practitioner for professional space is simply not an attractive or viable workplace.
Anonymous
None of the guys profiled in the article practice in their home. This idea is certainly not incompatible with a professional office building–it just requires a professional office building with smaller spaces. Or as many people do in my specialty of psychiatry, leasing of the standard 1300 or so sq ft and then subleting rooms to other like-minded docs with similar needs. What it does require is different business plan that involves a different style of practice. Lower overhead and fewer patients vs more typical overhead and more patients. What you can’t have is your cake and eat it too. You can’t see 12 patients a day for E & M services and have staff that takes care of everything. You can’t have 4 staff people on the payroll and 1500 sq ft of space and be able to see patients for 30 minutes each.
I imagine that some of the big groups that these guys left turned themselves into the production treadmills that they were fleeing by a combination of signing low-paying contracts to fill their large capacity and building or renting Taj Mahal’s where you have to produce to pay for all the same space and staff that you need in a small practice–plus the waterfall in the atrium, the box seats at the local football stadium (for marketing), the full-time recruiting staff (to replace the people who get burned out) and so on.
Steven
You may recall that Kent Bottles interviewed Dr. Moore about his practice back in Sept. 05 – to listen go to http://soundpractice.net/article.cfm?id=217

WSJ on micropractices

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