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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
SAN FRANCISCO — When John Battelle's teenage son broke his leg at a suburban soccer game, naturally the first call his parents made was to 911. The second was to Dr. Jordan Shlain, the concierge doctor here who treats Mr. Battelle and his family. "They're taking him to a local hospital," Mr. Battelle's wife, Michelle, told Dr. Shlain as the boy rode in an ambulance to a nearby emergency room in Marin County. "No, they're not," Dr. Shlain instructed them. "You don't want that leg set by an E.R. doc at a local medical center. You want it set by the head of orthopedics at a hospital in the city." Within minutes, the ambulance was on the Golden Gate Bridge, bound for California Pacific Medical Center, one of San Francisco's top hospitals. Dr. Shlain was there to meet them when they arrived, and the boy was seen almost immediately by an orthopedist with decades of experience.
For Mr. Battelle, a veteran media entrepreneur, the experience convinced him that the annual fee he pays to have Dr. Shlain on call is worth it, despite his guilt over what he admits is very special treatment. "I feel badly that I have the means to jump the line," he said. "But when you have kids, you jump the line. You just do. If you have the money, would you not spend it for that?"
Increasingly, it is a question being asked in hospitals and doctor's offices, especially in wealthier enclaves in places like Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and New York. And just as a virtual velvet rope has risen between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else on airplanes, cruise ships and amusement parks, widening inequality is also transforming how health care is delivered. Money has always made a big difference in the medical world: fancier rooms at hospitals, better food and access to the latest treatments and technology. Concierge practices, where patients pay several thousand dollars a year so they can quickly reach their primary care doctor, with guaranteed same-day appointments, have been around for decades.
But these aren't the concierge doctors you've heard about — and that's intentional.
Dr. Shlain's Private Medical group does not advertise and has virtually no presence on the web, and new patients come strictly by word of mouth. But with annual fees that range from $40,000 to $80,000 (more than 10 times what conventional concierge practices charge), the suite of services goes far beyond 24-hour access or a Nespresso machine in the waiting room.
Indeed, as many Americans struggle to pay for health care — or even, with the future of the Affordable Care Act in question on Capitol Hill, face a loss of coverage — this corner of what some doctors call the medical-industrial complex is booming: boutique doctors and high-end hospital wards.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @07:24PM
Yeah, this is the real capitalist alternative to single payer. I wanted to say that this is evidence that it can work, in certain ways. When it can work, it works beautifully. Low cost (vs. insurance premiums), quick quality service, skilled people who are interested in your health, and no back office nonsense involving crazy insurance company bureaucracy.
I used to do something similar with a chronic condition I have. The ACA changed all my math, though. My employer doesn't offer a true catastrophic plan, and I don't have access any more to buying meds outside of the hyperinflated US pharmacy price anyway. It's a complete crying mess the way things are now. It's not capitalist. It's not socialist. It's "fuck you"ist. Not even "fuck you I've got mine" it's just "fuck you".
I think a capitalist model for immediate and chronic problems excluding emergencies and catastrophic insurance for emergencies could be a viable model, if and only if catastrophic insurance (or any insurance really, I'd want catastrophic only and pay cash for my chronic problems but who am I to make that choice for somebody else?) is not tied to employment is any way shape or form. Even make it illegal for employers to make it a benefit. They can always just give you a bump in the paycheck to make up for it. Divvying us up into smaller risk pools is one of the weird tricks they use to increase profits they otherwise couldn't use if health insurance were a free market.
This works wonderfully for cars. But comparing car insurance to health insurance in the USA today is apples to oranges, and that's why our present health "insurance" model is not working. Maybe somebody wants car insurance that covers routine services like oil changes and tire rotations, maybe that does exist, but I don't think the vast majority of us would want that. I have collision coverage (which makes sense for me as a middle aged driver of a very modest car), but that's not oil change "coverage."