Many years ago, my PCP was Dr. Belcher who I adored and she was part of a 4-5 woman internal medicine practice and they were an independent medical office called Spectrum Family Health. They had a slightly run-down waiting room, but everyone was very nice and I felt well taken care of. Then, it got combined with a local practice conglomerate (maybe 10-15 offices around the DMV) and rebranded as Comprehensive Primary Health. I asked Dr. B about the acquisition and she said that Spectrum could not keep up with insurance demands and would only be able to survive by combining with an organization with a dedicated insurance team calling insurance all day, following up on everything. The practice moved into a brand-new space with kiosks for logins. My lovely doctor B retired and the doctor who took on Dr. Belcher’s caseload, I love – she’s young, in her 30s with little ones, she’s funny and straightforward and on our second visit, because we liked each other so much she gave me her personal phone number. (When Jeremy heard this, he was like…this would never happen to me in 10,000 years.). She’s a big fan of vaccines and vegetables – really? ME TOO! Then, this year, Comprehensive Primary Health got bought out by an insurance company and private equity. Now it’s called CloseKnit. My primary care office is run by an insurance company – and now they are squeezing the blood out of every interaction, not maximizing my health, but maximizing profits. I think there are no independent internal medicine practices left in the local vicinity. They are increasing the workload of every provider, so they can not keep up with they patient load. (I felt this way when I was a provider – how many shifts did I end up distraught because I couldn’t do all the things I needed to do for my 5 patients? – perhaps all of them, now I know nurses take on 6 patients a shift regularly, omg, I would DIE.), and I know it has only increased since the pandemic. My beloved doctor is now setting up her own concierge practice. Basically, for an annual fee, you get twelve unrushed visits a year and an annual physical and access to her 24/7 via text/email. Same day visits are always available and she will call you back if you are worried about something – all medications and tests are routed through insurance, but the visits are not. So, I’m going to follow her to her new practice. Do I feel bad about this? Yes. I have a pretty strong loyalty to public things – I sent my kids to public schools – all the way through university. I’d like to think I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t … like a friend to my doctor and want to support her new business. I mean, she’s already kind of acting as my own concierge doctor. Edda (and I) went to see her at CloseKnit yesterday as she’s winding down her practice there for an annual checkup – she’s trying to get Edda at-home PT (!) and because she recommended her #1 local neurologist to Edda (who we like) but we realized doesn’t take Medicaid and that is a critical thing because we need Medicaid to pick up some of Edda’s rescue seizure meds ($300 if they run it through only my insurance, but $1 if they run it through Medicaid), she was texting me last night at 8 pm when she talked with her ER doc hubby and remembered a few more local neuros that take Medicaid that they like! 8 pm! Talking at dinner with her hubby! So how much is this going to cost me? like $2500 a year.
Elka-belka took her stuffie on a walk with her yesterday, it was the most beautiful day!
