A thriving, rural, primary care practice

Note that the key has been the hiring of mid-levels–making money off the labor of others. That is a fundamentally different model of business than making money off ones own services which is the traditional foundation of professional practice. While it shows a way for an FP to do very well financially, the article actually highlights not the viability of primary care medical practice but the replacement of it by the primary care medical service business.

Not a personal criticism of the physician–he did what all successful businessmen do and responded to the marketplace in existence–but the model chosen which adapts to the devaluation of primary care also perpetuates it. What is needed is for physicians to have an alternative to more volume to be viable–that is to raise prices.

I wish him well, but what you see is that it is, in fact, impossible to do rural primary care.

He has to turn away Medicaid AND Medicare, which will be a big percentage of the population. Then he turns over much of the care to midlevels.

What would impress me is a solo primary care doc who can practice physician-to-patient medicine without midlevels. And MEDICINE, not Botox and all the other stuff you see these days.