Robert Centor: “Many have criticized these practices on ethical grounds and on the assumption that primary care physicians should care for a large panel of patients. I believe that retainer medicine may save outpatient internal medicine. I doubt that all patients will enter a retainer practice, but I do suspect that increasing numbers will join such practices because patients recognize the value of access to their healthcare.”
Related posts:
- Retainer Medicine is Misunderstood
- Retainer Medicine: Ethical or Not?
- DB Explores Retainer Based Practices
- Retainer medicine and the public good
- Primary care sacrifice
- Should general internal medicine merge with family practice?
- FAQ: Won’t Retainer Medicine Exacerbate Physician Shortages?
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In its current form, I don’t think retainer medicine is going to save primary care. It’s simply not for everyone, and thus won’t penetrate the healthcare market like it would need in order to make a significant shift in primary care as a whole.
I do think retainer medical practices do have a place within regional markets though.
As small niche players in a largely dysfunctional healthcare system, retainer practices offer significant value to those able to pay for the services as an alternative to traditional primary care. We’re talking small market share though – enough to make headlines but not enough to change our primary care system.
Tannus
http://www.vantageclinicalsolutions.com/blog
Any examples of practitioners who keep up the highest standards of Hippocratic medicine and the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship are performing a positive role in a degenerating profession by presenting a contrast and inhibiting the tendency of mediocrity to congratulate itself.
The direct practice of medicine whether that it a retainer model or a fee for service model IS the opportunity to change the dysfunctional system we live with.
The specific model is less important than the fact that this allows the doctor to work for their patients.
The model allows for individualized health care which is much less expensive in the long and short run than the population based model many primary care physicians have been forced to engage.
As a choice, it will continue to gain leverage as long as it allows for the “product” we deliver to be focused on the patient sitting in the room and not the insurer or the government.
No one thought that HMO medicine would take off. But it quickly gained market share because the market was focused on employer purchased health care. That is going away now. Employers can no longer afford the benefit and the patients would rather choose their own mode of care. Mostly, it failed because it was based on a financial model and not a care model.
Direct practices are about care. Primary care doctors want to get back into the business of caring and I believe that patients are wanting …. for the time and caring we provide.
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