<\/div>\nI’m going off topic today to write about something that really makes me angry. <\/span>My doctors here in Long Beach – a long-established practice near Memorial Medical Center – are changing their practice to a model known as “concierge medicine.” <\/span>I first heard about it within the last six months, and already it’s coming to a practice near me – maybe a little too near.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Under the concierge model, doctors will provide much more extensive, personalized care to their patients. <\/span>Of course this sounds attractive to patients: <\/span>who wouldn’t want 24-hour access to their doctor, next-day appointments, computerized records, a preventive approach, an exhaustive annual physical, less time in the waiting room and a more prompt, attentive, and less rushed physician? <\/span>The doctors find the idea attractive because it allows them to practice medicine in the way they were trained to do: <\/span>considering the whole patient and the whole medical history while having enough time and enough income to do so. <\/span>Our health care system has driven many physicians to consider this model.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n The catch is that to achieve these goals, my doctors will each be “laying off” (my term) roughly three-quarters of their patients. <\/span>Each will see just six hundred patients in the new model; the rest of us must find other doctors. <\/span>All in Long Beach. <\/span>All at the same time. <\/span>And the six hundred are to be signed up first-come, first-served.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n I learned that last fact, though precious little else, at a crowded informational session at a Long Beach hotel earlier this week. <\/span>The program consisted mainly of material provided by the private concierge-medicine company and designed to explain how excellent the doctors are (not in question) and how great the care will be under the new system. <\/span>In other words, it was an extended sales pitch for signing up with the new service. <\/span>I could not stay until the last fifteen minutes, which was the only time allocated for questions and answers from the audience of several hundred people.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Therefore, I don’t know how the extra cost of this new practice – $1800 per year on top of all other doctor’s fees – will be handled, if at all, by my health insurer. <\/span>I don’t know how easy it will be to find a new doctor (though the presentation said that patients leaving the practice will receive help with this).<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Mainly, I’m troubled because this feels like a very tangible step towards a two-tiered health care system: <\/span>one for the wealthy, and one for everyone else. <\/span>There will always be high-end medical care available and those who are willing to pay for it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. <\/span>But in the absence of a universal health care system, or, frankly, even a functional health care system in this country, there’s no safety net for everyone else. <\/span>Wealthier people tend to be healthier anyway; poorer people tend to be less healthy, for a variety of reasons, and here in Long Beach, their health care options just got substantially narrower and, I fear, lower in quality.<\/span><\/p>\n
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