Doctor Develops New Approach to Pay for Basic Health Care

Technorati Tags: health insurance , health care , primary care physician

Leave it up to the private sector to find a better way. For $125 a month, a Wheeling, West Virginia doctor will provide primary and urgent care, lab work, x-rays, and even some generic drugs. Dr. Vic Wood figured out a way to offer a pre-paid care plan, and now hundreds of doctors across the US are mirroring his efforts.

Wood chose to go into medicine after a career as a state trooper because of a passion to help people. Instead he was faced with reams of insurance paperwork, flat insurance reimbursement rates and uninsured patients. He had to find an alternative to keep his clinic afloat and control health care costs.

After studying the situation thoroughly, Wood determined the number of visits, tests, and prescriptions the average individual and family used annually. His low rates of $83 per individual or $125 per family made health coverage affordable for Wheeling residents.

The next hurdle Dr. Wood faced was with the state insurance commission, who challenged that his plan was actually a form of health insurance and thus subject to the requirements insurance companies faced to provide coverage. Ultimately a chance meeting with the governor led to a state-approved trial of Wood’s program.

This scenario raises several issues faced by health care providers and insurance companies. Providers want to spend their time treating patients, not doing paperwork. Insurance companies are forced to require volumes of records to meet state requirements and cover their corporate butts with documentation in an era of sue-happy lawyers and hundred million dollar punitive damage awards, not to mention insurance fraud, while still making a profit; they raise their premiums to insure they complete all of these tasks.

I wish I had a flat fee service available here – I’d happily pay that and supplement it with a major medical plan for the really big stuff. My basic needs would be covered, and costs could be controlled. By having a primary care physician available, I would not have to go to an expensive specialist or emergency room for routine care, which costs everyone less.

Kudos to Dr. Wood and his fellow visionaries determined to find a way to make health care affordable whether patients. Let’s hope that insurance companies and insurance commissions closely study the results of these programs and adept every possible lesson to help reign in the costs of health insurance while still delivering quality care.