CraigStevenOstranderDOMBA

Summary

• After several years of practicing traditional family medicine and hospital medicine, in 2016, I made the transition to "direct primary care". This decision was the single best decision I have ever made, with the exception of going to medical school in the first place. This single decision transformed my life. I am blessed to have the autonomy of owning my own "full" practice. All of the barriers that third party insurance created were removed allowing me to spend more time with patients. I now can interact with them in less conventional ways such as home visits, phone visits, video visits in addition to the standard clinic visit. I am able to perform more procedures. Appointments can be extended when necessary to up to 60 minutes. The burden of paperwork is reduced significantly because it is now positioned to be a tool of medical communication, instead of a necessary evil for the purpose of billing. Third party payors are irrelevant now, at least for day to day matters (though most have it). Medications, imaging, and labs are no longer expensive because the middleman is removed (no lie, $3 for a CBC, $1 for a month of metformin, $250 for an MRI, are some examples). Referrals are rarely necessary now because we bring the expertise of specialist into our visit through e-consultations (in other words, we pay the specialist to assist our workups and follow the patient with us without leaving our clinic). It has allowed us to be intimately involved in all of our patients medical care regardless of complexity. The learning is incredible. And none of this required that I sacrifice earning potential. In short, DPC for me has provided the balance that I need. To my colleagues in primacy care, if you want an honest introduction to DPC, then please feel free to reach out. I would be happy to help initiate you to this wonderful little appreciated model of medicine.