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Privacy & Attention vs. Obamacare – A Doctor’s (and Patient’s) Choice
Biggest surprise from this Whiskey Politics interview (with yours truly substituting for Dave) is how doctors like John Crisler have benefitted by serving patients whose treatments aren’t covered by Obamacare. In addition, he provides patient privacy the only way possible – by keeping records off the cloud
https://youtu.be/g1qrzVGIxH4
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Published in General
Great interview with a lot of things that needed to be said.
Excellent! Looking forward to finding an independent doctor in my area.
I think we should be making sure people realize there’s a difference between having health insurance and getting actual health care. Obamacare doesn’t really deliver on the latter.
man melissa, you are a knock-out.
Yes she is!
My doctor keeps emailing me these “invitations” to create a “patient portal” account online, but I haven’t done it because I don’t want my medical info on the internet. I’m not on Obamacare, and I get a tax penalty of around $800 every year.
That really sucks! I got the cheapest medicare advantage program I could find and never use it. They get especially obnoxious because I refuse to us the part D but they make me pay for it anyway. Still isn’t $800 though.
I’m not on Obamacare either, but fortunately the penalty can’t be enforced. One advantage of having enough business losses that I didn’t have to pay taxes or the penalty.
Obamacare screwed up the former, making the latter worse.
Melissa – do you have a new last name? Thank you for the story – I hope things get better – we have a notch above catastrophic, as that was all we could afford – it’s never been this lousy –
This fella seems like a nice guy, and I’m sure he is a good doc. He also makes some very good points.
But he’s basically dropped out. He’s doing one thing (advising on “low T”) that is not covered by insurance, and is unlikely to make any decisions that gain the attention or the ire of the Central Authorities.
Please consider interviewing someone like @DocJay, who (I believe) runs a cash-only general medical practice, doing complicated things and solving complicated problems that actually require him to interface with the “approved” healthcare system, but without crossing the line. He is operating a high-wire act and probably has a lot of great insights to share. Best catch him, though, before someone in authority puts him in jail.
What do you say, @docjay?
Our family of seven (2 + 5 kiddos) just switched to concierge medicine and my wife couldn’t be happier. Our doctor is available any time of day by text or facetime, as well as in the office. When the kids get banged up, my wife simply calls the doc and she can provide guidance right away as to whether we should “wait and see”, come into the office, or something more urgent. What a time saver!
It works like a gym membership with $50/mo each for my wife and me, and $10/mo for the kids, which makes budgeting very easy. Prices for lab work range from $5-10, and our doc can order an MRI for only $400. (Compared to $1800-3000 in the insurance world.) Plus she maintains her own pharmacy, dispensing generics for $3-10 or so.
In my case, it was necessary to go cash-only because medical insurance does not want to pay for the type of cutting edge therapies doctors such as myself provide. And most of conventional medicine is still mired in the false (and dangerous!) notion Testosterone Replacement Therapy causes an increase in heart attacks (it actually does the opposite) and prostate cancer (nope, again). Few doctors–even at our largest medical centers–know how to properly optimize thyroid hormones (where your energy comes from) and even refuse to acknowledge the existence of an increasingly common medical ailment which can devastate your life: Adrenal Fatigue. Since we are unlikely to be paid for solving these often complex Endocrine issues, or for optimizing health and happiness, there is no logic in hiring additional staff, just to fight with, and then get turned down by medical insurance companies. The optimization of our electronic support systems allow us to keep our prices very low, which includes providing compounded medications at a fraction of the cost of the BigPharma (don’t get me started on that! LOL) brands. It’s amazing the differences in a man’s fitness, work production, and sex life we can accomplish, and often in a relatively short amount of time. This is the REAL cutting edge of medicine. http://www.AllthingsMale.com
Actually, I provide a number of cutting edge medical therapies which insurance companies refuse to pay for. And as for the “ire”: I’ve been drug before the State Medical Board numerous times; as have many of my Interventional Endocrinology colleagues. Turns out the Authorities don’t like doctors who successfully treat the patients more conventional medicine (serving at the whim of BigPharma, and their enforcement arm, the FDA) fail. What we do is ALL “evidence-based medicine”…..it’s just not popularized, even attacked, by those who stand to profit from illness (yes, when you see it from the inside, it really does work that way). Optimizing health and happiness is where it’s at! This can–literally–make the difference between success and failure in life.
My area of medicine is much more specialized, so I don’t provide Primary Care Medicine. My patients submit their labwork and medication costs to their medical insurance companies, and some even get my services paid for (by same, or through a HSA). But I’d love to read about how a PCP successfully interacts with the conventional medical system as a whole, on a daily basis. @DocJay
I was whining several years ago on a post about a bad reaction of a combination of drugs one of which was Fentanyl. @DocJay asked me what I was being treated for, told him for Occipital Neuralgia. I had brain stem surgery some years before and the nerve had been stapled into the scalp closure. The pain at times dropped me to my knees. DocJay stated he prescribed a combination of salves for his patients. It had to be obtained from a compound pharmacy. I persuaded my PCP to prescribe it, and it was only $26 for an ounce or so. I rubbed that nerve with the compound from my neck, behind my ear all the way to the top of the main nerve. Slept soundly, pain free for the first time in over 5 years. For the first few months I used it daily, then the inflammation gradually eased off over time, and today I probably use it twice a year. I am so grateful for DocJay for asking me the question, why? The same formula works quite well on my thumb and wrist joints for osteoarthritis.
Those 9 words made me cringe. Ouch!
I was in a teaching hospital. I didn’t sue them but insisted every one if the assistants be flunked. I had told them in advance to suture me as I was allergic to the metal, even surgical steel. I was ignored, and they refused to take me back to surgery to redo. Staples weren’t removed for 15 days, as the wound refused to heal. Left a real mess. Another thing, I suspect it was deliberate but can’t prove it. The specialist does his job then leaves the theater while the rest of the team finishes the closure and other followup. The assistant was a Muslim and I am a female Jew. All of the team probably wouldn’t know what my instructions were, but the assistant certainly would have. In addition I was supposed to be part of a study where they used a “glue” to close the scalp. The assistant chose not to do that either.
A new media star is born! Congratulations, 6foot2!
Agreed. I liked it too.
Well done, Melissa! 8-)
Dear Stad, Jim and Mike, as well as thomas~~~
You guys are very VERY kind. You’ve given me the confidence to do it again.
You should do it a lot! You have a face for TV.
Right Angles, you are so awesome – when are we going to get together for coffee?
Just imagine that meetup haha! Selfies all night