Imagine the following situation: You like to take your spouse and the kids to a nice steakhouse once a month for a family meal. You arrive on time at 6 pm for your reservation and upon your arrival are herded into the video and coin-operated game room, which is noisy and nearly packed with other families and couples waiting to be seated in the dining room. After waiting in the game room for forty-five minutes, you are taken to your table. The waiter gives you the menu, which lists all sorts of mouth-watering steaks. When you tell the waiter how you want your favorite steak prepared, you are surprised and disappointed when he informs you that while that particular steak is available, you are not allowed to order it. You have to settle for a different steak (one that you never have really cared for), and you notice that there are no prices listed in the menu. The waiter replies that you will have to get the price from the cashier at the end of your dining. Somewhat apprehensively you put in your order and wait another thirty minutes before the food is brought to the table. Your steak is rather tough and dry, your spouse’s mashed potatoes and gravy are very lumpy and too salty, and the kids complain their sodas are watered down. To make things worse, the waiter then tells you that you have fifteen minutes to eat before the table is cleared and made ready for the next dining customer. At the cashier’s station you finally get the bill and are shocked that the meal is 30% higher than last month’s meal.
Here is my question:
Would you go back to that restaurant? Would you be angry and demand something be done to address the poor service and high cost? I think most people would, and rightly so. There would be no excuse for a business to treat their customers like this; however, when it comes to medical care, we get treated this way every time we go to the doctor’s office. It takes a long time to get in to see the doctor, you have to wait ridiculous amounts of time in the waiting room (even though the office wouldn’t hesitate to charge you a “no-show” fee if you were ten minutes late), you only get a few minutes of face-to-face time with the doctor, and neither you nor the office staff have any idea how much the office visit actually costs. None of this is customer-friendly, makes any sense, or is any way to run a business. In medicine, it is accepted as “the way things are”. However, some people are deciding that enough is enough and are doing something about it. I am doing something about it, and it is called Direct Primary Care (DPC). DPC reestablishes the relationship between the patient and doctor; the patient is valued and made the object of the doctor’s focus – just like it should be.
Dr. Sieberg