If you're a primary care physician exploring concierge medicine physician jobs, you're probably frustrated with the traditional primary care model. It's the main reason why traditional primary care doctors look for concierge medicine physician jobs.
You want to practice medicine the way you envisioned when you went to medical school. You're tired of running the business. The traditional model for primary care, driven by large patient panel sizes and less-than-ideal insurance reimbursements, is not what you had in mind.
As one of the leading concierge medicine practices in the Mid-Atlantic since 2003, we get asked a lot of questions by doctors exploring concierge medicine physician jobs.
And also, how is becoming a concierge doctor going to benefit both you and your patients? Here are three of the biggest benefits.
In a traditional model, you are forced to rush through 20-35 patients per day, every day, to squeeze them in and hit your quotas. You’re lucky if you get to have a meaningful conversation with a patient or family, and then it’s on to the next.
If you’ve ever worried if this rushed model might be causing you to miss something important, you’re not alone. We call that “the fear of missing something” and we hear it when talking to doctors frequently.
Concierge doctors typically see between 6-10 patients per day. Most concierge practices guarantee appointments that last at least 30 minutes with the physician, if not more.
This gives you the time to get to know each patient, to listen to them instead of looking at your computer while the patient is in the room, and to talk about the holistic factors affecting their health. As we said before, it allows you to practice medicine the way you always envisioned.
A concierge medicine physician job allows you to slow down, develop long-term personal relationships with your patients, and walk in and out of an exam room confident in your ability to make the right diagnosis and help ensure their path to better long-term health.
There’s a reason we say at PartnerMD that “it’s primary care so personal, it feels like having a doctor in the family.” It’s because our patients tell us it truly feels like that – a special relationship of mutual trust and respect.
You became a primary doctor to help people grow well and age well. You also became a primary care doctor to be there for your patients when they need you the most – when they are sick, when they aren’t sure what’s going on with their body, when they know something is off.
Your ability to heal, to help someone feel better, to help them live better, is one of the reasons you chose this profession in the first place.
But for many traditional primary care doctors, with 2,300+ patients on their panel, the schedule is booked or double-booked for days, if not weeks, in advance. It becomes nearly impossible to squeeze someone in on short notice.
When you take a concierge medicine job, your schedule always has the flexibility to get someone in either the same day they call or the next day. At PartnerMD, we start each day with open acute care spots on our doctors’ schedules, so we can guarantee same-day or next-day sick care for our patients.
By reducing and capping your panel size, you not only get to spend more time with each patient, but you also get to be the physician your patients see when they need care. They are not forced to wait or to see another physician who has no knowledge of their personal medical history.
The days of your patients heading to urgent care are over because they can see you as quickly as they need to.
You’re a doctor. Your expertise is in providing high-quality medical care to patients in a compassionate manner.
You help people live longer, happier lives. And you certainly didn’t go to medical school because you wanted to deal with health insurance reimbursements, vet and hire additional staff, negotiate a commercial real estate lease, promote your practice, or manage IT. You have patients you need to see.
Unless you’re part of a larger practice with a back-office administrative team, these are the business operations that you must worry about whether you are running a traditional or concierge private practice. In fact, still having to run the business is one reason why concierge medicine physicians switch concierge medicine jobs.
But as a traditional doctor, not only do you need to see patients each day to generate revenue, but you also have to figure out how to grow your practice, hire the right staff, provide them with the right benefits, and more.
It’s a lot.
Finding a concierge medicine physician job, in some instances, allows you to completely leave that in the past.
For example, at PartnerMD, we have a top-notch team of business professionals who run the business. You focus on caring for your patients, and we’ll handle the rest.
If you join one of the larger concierge provider/franchise networks, like MDVIP for example, you may still need to run the business. They typically help you get started, transition your initial panel over in the beginning, and then own and run the business long-term.
But at its core, finding a concierge medicine physician job means you’re free to do what you do best – provide more personalized healthcare to your patients.
And for a lot of our doctors, at least, leaving the business operations behind is a big plus.
At PartnerMD, we regularly speak with doctors who are considering switching to concierge medicine. Some decide it’s for them. Some decide it’s not.
But the number one thing we look for in any doctor – is doctors who want to practice medicine the way they always envisioned.
We’re looking for great doctors who are committed to their patients and to providing the best possible care every day. Our doctors work hard, but their hard work is 100% directed to personal, relationship-based patient care.
Sound like something you’re interested in? Learn more about becoming a concierge doctor on our website and fill out one of the forms if you're interested. No strings attached.