The typical traditional office visit lasts 18 minutes. The average patient is able to speak for 23 seconds before the physician interrupts. One out of three parents reported spending less than 10 minutes with the clinician at their last well-child visit; only one out of five spent more than 20 minutes. Does this sound like your office?
Many physician offices are already overwhelmed by the current patient load, causing long waits, inability to get appointments and as a result, patient and physician dissatisfaction.This problem will only get worse in the future. In the wake of the SCOTUS decision to let the Affordable Care Act stand, a tidal wave of newly insured patients will enter the market within the next year.
How will healthcare markets, and more specifically, your practice respond to this "Patient Overload"?
Many physicians have began to look for alternatives to traditional practice model.
Mycron Medical Consultants, LLC offers two lucrative options.
1) Volume Driven: Doctor as apex of a care pyramid
Physicians and medical groups can benefit personally and financially from this expected increase in patient population. By changing the practice to the "Pyramid Model", the physician will be freed from many of the current hassles surrounding the patient encounter.
In the more traditional practice structure, the primary care physician is responsible for the care of all or most of the patients in the practice. In the "Pyramid Model", the physician will become the leader of a care team supervising a number of physician extenders who provide the majority of the hands on services. The skill and experience of the physician will be saved for the more complicated and severe cases seen that day.The majority of the doctor’s activity will be devoted to leading and coordinating the care provided by the pyramid of N.P’s and P.A.’s who are their direct reports.
2) Service Driven: Concierge Medicine (retainer-based) model
Where an average primary care physician practice serves 2,000 to 4,000 patients, retainer-based practices typically serve 100 to 500 patients. A report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission highlights several advantages for the physician, including increased time with patients, decreased stress and burnout, and increased or comparable compensation while working fewer hours and having less administrative and billing responsibility. Direct care and payment means that the constraints imposed by payers are removed, and physicians may recommend the individualized care they believe their patients need.
In a concierge medicine practice, the physician is often seeing less than 15 patients a day, providing direct patient care and continuing to have meaningful personal relationships with their patients. The concierge medicine model is inherently entrepreneurial and will always involve a fairly sophisticated business plan to be successful.
