John Chamberlain- Citizen Health Ambassador, DPC Change Agent
I am a husband, father and grandfather. I have over 42 years of experience in healthcare from product manufacturing to the C-Suite in hospitals as well as executive positions in physician practices and health insurance. The last 6 years I have been focused on Direct Primary Care and price transparency and other disruptive efforts, i.e. disintermediation, in hopes that we can fix our broken healthcare (or sickcare) system (which is more accurate IMHO).
Favorite Quote:
“Not waiting for the world to change…” — Me (apologies to John Mayer)
Why did you choose to enter healthcare and make this your profession?
“My dad was an internist. He was the quintessential southern gentleman doctor and 5th generation physician. He often took alternate means of payment when patients couldn’t afford to pay cash or had no insurance. I saw how much he cared for his patients every day. Even though he passed when I was a senior in high school, he inspired me to pursue healthcare as a profession. I now know I made the right decision.”
How could Direct Primary Care (DPC) be an answer to some of our medical issues?
In several ways:
1. Restores the physician/patient relationship.
2. More time to see and treat patients due to the absence of insurance requirements, i.e. EMR, pre-authorizations, service level justifications, claims denials, claims chasing, etc.
3. Smaller patient panels allow for longer appointment times. Useful in uncovering potential issues with patients other than their primary presenting complaint/concern, resulting in better care at the right time.
4. Patients can be “seen” via text, email and secure video (e-visits) when “face to face” consults are unnecessary, i.e. prescription refills, chronic or recurring illnesses and other non-urgent questions.
5. With more time available to treat patients, more treatments can be done in-office as opposed to being referred out, resulting in more convenient, timely and less costly care.
6. 365/24/7 availability via “e-visits” can result in less absenteeism and presenteeism.
7. Lifestyle improvement for physicians = happier docs. Restores the lost “life balance” via the absence of government and insurance company intermediation, i.e. EMR, MIPS, MACRA and all the other alphabet soup.
8. Significantly reduces the cost of entry for new residents or those physicians looking to convert to the DPC model due to smaller office space requirements, smaller staff and less costly, patient-centered EMR.
9. Offers much lower cost to the patient via monthly membership that covers all primary care needs (about 85% of most medical needs), access to less costly (50–90% less) ancillary services like imaging, laboratory and Rx.
10. Not only does DPC reduce primary care cost, it reduces downstream cost by reducing referrals to specialists, urgent care and ER and has the potential to reduce hospital admissions.
11. Convenience. 70% or greater of patient/physician communication can occur without having to go into the office. In some DPC practices, patients can leave with a 30 or 90 day Rx in hand, alleviating the extra trip to the pharmacy. Also, meds are typically 70–90% cheaper this way.
12. Infection control. Since the DPC doc typically sees less than 10 patients per day, there is little to no wait. Hence, no sitting in the waiting room with other sick people, eh?
What do you see as the greatest single challenge facing the healthcare industry today?
Affordability.
Affordability affects access to care, ancillary diagnostic services, subsequent procedures and/or medications necessary to treat patients. Improving the affordability of and access to primary care reduces the necessity for and cost of downstream care as well.
It affects the overall cost of care not only for the individual/family but also for the employer. In fact, it affects the cost to the entire nation. The cost of healthcare (sickcare) has now eclipsed military spending in the United States.
Welcome John to the Citizen Health Team! Join in as we learn more about DPC, Direct Primary Care, and bring you the insights and knowledge necessary to propel this field into the 21st Century of Care. We are more than enthused about this field and the promise it holds to bring the costs of care down, while providing quality care.
Join us this Thursday, 3/29/2018 at 6:00pm CT for our next Citizen HealthTalk:
RSVP: Citizen HealthTalk #2
Connect with John right here:
On Medium: John Chamberlain
On Twitter: @ misterchambo
Follow us right here on Medium, we appreciate your Claps, as we are working overtime to bring change to healthcare. Someone has to. So we will!
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Webiste: citizenhealth.io
