What are the Main Benefits of Concierge Medicine?

The greatest exasperation regarding healthcare, originates from the endless period of time people wait to get their appointment scheduled. Getting an appointment to see your primary care physician is only the beginning of your agitation as you’ll waste your time pointlessly sitting in the waiting room only to enter the doctor’s office and be on your way home in less than ten minutes. 

Fortunately, nowadays you are provided with the option of transferring to concierge medical care. Replacing your primary physician with a concierge one means gaining more personal and attentive medical care in return for an annual fee. 

The number of patients opting for this type of medical care is on the rise owing to the great number of advantages in comparison with the primary care model. Not only patients, but also a larger number of doctors has transferred to providing concierge services, such as Five Journeys concierge care.

In case you aren’t persuaded in the advantages of this model yet, this article is going to show you why transferring to this new model is one of the best decisions you’ll ever make. 

Closer patient-doctor relationship

Building a close relationship with your primary physician is simply impossible due to the large number of patients waiting for their turn. These doctors devote an incredible short amount of time to each patient in order to serve as many as they can, without taking a real interest into their ailments. 

On the other hand, concierge doctors don’t work with such an extensive number of patients, thus providing greater attention and genuine interest into their medical history. Their goal is to prolong the visits so that patients are given enough time to explain their issues, after which they are going to be provided with detailed advice.  Your concierge physician would make sure that you feel comfortable enough to confide your health issues, thus strengthening your relationship.

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Greater availability

The most common reason why people are reluctant to visit their primary care doctors is their constant unavailability. Calling to schedule an appointment automatically suggests having to wait at least a few weeks or months, which is an unreasonable period of waiting time, particularly for a patient who’s had an emergency or is looking for an immediate appointment.

Transferring to a concierge physician means getting your appointment booked for the same day or the following day at the latest. In some cases you don’t even need to attend in-person, as you are able to get in touch with your doctor over the phone, online or by email. Whenever you are troubled by a health issue, he/she is available to help you, not only during working hours, but round-the-clock as well. In order to provide this top-notch patient experience, doctors need the proper tools to carry out their job promptly. For example, Imprivata explains that using a digital identity platform which provides fast, secure access that enables the clinician to access their critical applications quickly is essential. This, in turn, allows the doctor to provide information to their patients faster.

Moreover, greater availability is also beneficial in cases when you urgently need a medicine prescribed or you need a referral to see a specialist. 

Higher level of prevention

Upon visiting your primary physician, you are barely given enough time to explain your current health issue, let alone discuss your medical history. Your doctor is required to be familiar with your previous health problems in order to create a better idea of you as a patient while finding a connection between your current and past health problems. Read more about the significance of medical history for your overall health.

By spending a longer time on the visit, he/she has the opportunity to ask you various questions related to your health, thus completing the most essential information of you as a patient. Therefore, concierge doctors are more likely to discover potential health problems by having you examined whenever they believe that your health is threatened. On time prevention can turn out to be a life-saver. 

It’s important for your doctor not to rush through the appointment as he/she is supposed to learn more about your medical history through the conversation, diagnose a potential issue and react immediately. 

Complete service

As seeing your primary physician doesn’t always do the trick, you are often sent to the laboratory for additional tests or to a particular specialist whose job is to give an expert opinion about your health. Concierge medical care does a lot to help you as some medical facilities even have their own equipment for running blood tests and a few specialists who collaborate with them on the spot. 

It significantly reduces the waiting time you would spend on going from one specialist to another or get tested in the laboratory and then go to pick up the results. Convenience is certainly one of the most essential perks of this model. 

Concierge physicians even collaborate with pharmacies which are able to prepare the medicine before your arrival or you can even have them delivered to your home address. 

It’s worth the investment

Many people are unwilling to transfer to these services solely as a result of the annual cost they have to pay. In addition, concierge medical care isn’t a substitute for health insurance which suggests paying for an insurance as well, that is going to cover part of the cost for medical services such as surgeries or hospital treatments. Visit the following link: https://www.rediff.com/getahead/report/money-5-reasons-why-healthcare-insurance-is-important/20161026.htm, to see the importance of health insurance.

Nevertheless, although it turns out that this health model is costlier, it’s likely to be more cost-effective than the standard one. In the former case, doctors know the right treatment due to their knowledge on your health history which saves money on doing numerous tests unlike the latter case where doctors determine the cause of your ailment by sending you to do various tests, which cost quite a lot of money.

Wrap up

When your health is in question, proper medical care is an indispensable aspect. Therefore, make sure that you are treated by a physician who takes real interest into your problems, is highly available, knows all your previous ailments and offers incredible convenience. 

All of these factors are summed up in a concierge physician. Being willing to invest a portion of your budget on medical care is definitely worth it! 

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