For a Retainer, Lavish Care by 'Boutique Doctors' (NYT)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/health/30patient.html?hp

October 30, 2005
For a Retainer, Lavish Care by 'Boutique Doctors'
By ABIGAIL ZUGER

BOCA RATON, Fla. - It was on the plane from Shanghai to Beijing last year that Dorothy Lipson of Delray Beach, Fla., suddenly began to cough up blood: first in streaks, then in frightening, tissue-soaking spoonfuls.

But Mrs. Lipson, who was in China visiting an expatriate daughter, was lucky on two counts. First, her daughter happens to run a corporation that builds gleaming Western-style hospitals in China; Ms. Lipson was rushed to the Beijing hospital on landing. And second, Mrs. Lipson's internist back home in Florida is Dr. Bernard Kaminetsky, one of a new breed of "concierge" or "boutique" doctors who, in exchange for a yearly cash retainer, lavish time, phone calls and attention on patients, using the latest in electronic communications to streamline their care.

Since its debut in 1996, concierge medicine has evoked criticism from many corners. Some ethicists say it is exacerbating the inequities in American health care. Insurance regulators have raised concerns about fraud. Government watchdogs, worried that it threatens the tenuous equilibrium of the health care system, are keeping an eye on trends.

"Concierge care is like a new country club for the rich," Representative Pete Stark, Democrat of California, said at a joint economic committee hearing in Congress last year. "The danger is that if a large number of doctors choose to open up these types of practices, the health care system will become even more inequitable than it is today."
...

[brainshrub]

1. The US has the best medical care in the world. If you're rich. (eom)

[sam sarrha]

2. that is why cremation is so popular, it is the cheapest burial.. if you

cant afford medical you cant afford to be buried

[wakeme2008]

3. this isn't as bad as it sounds

She pays $137 per month for a doctor that does not want to deal with all the paper work and BS from the HMO owners and Insurance company owners. In addition they tell their patients to carry Major Medical for hospitals.

This is not as bad as some would like you to believe. Look at the people against it. Insurance companies and their friends....

[Coastie for Truth]

4. Classical "Single Payer, Universal" Health Care System Model

The "Single Payer, Universal" system provides two tracks--

1) The core coverage that most employed Americans expected to get from the unionized employers in the old days.

2) The ability to "opt out" of the single payer, universal coverge plan for "non-major" issues, but retain the single payer, universal coverge plan for "major issues"

Severely penalizing the "opt out" was a fatal deficiency of Hillary's Plan.

The "Boutique" "Opt Out" acts - in a crude way, as a quality check on the "Single Payer, Universal Plan" (Bush Hack USPHS Rear Admiral Cristina Beato would nominally be in charge of any "Single Payer, Universal helth care" system), see, e.g.,

<>

Rear Admiral Cristina Beato
Acting Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services

In June 2004, Cristina Beato admitted to her hometown newspaper that she hadn't paid much attention to the details of her resumé. That's too bad, because those silly little details seem to have stalled her confirmation for assistant secretary for health for over two years now. Beato said she earned a master's of public health in occupational medicine from the University of Wisconsin (but the university doesn't even offer that degree). She claimed to be "one of the principal leaders who revolutionized medical education in American universities by implementing the Problem Based learning curriculum" (but the curriculum was developed while Beato was still a medical student). She listed "medical attaché" to the American Embassy in Turkey as a job she held in 1986 (but that position didn't exist until 1995). She also boasted that she had "established" the University of New Mexico's occupational health clinic (but the clinic existed before she was hired, and there was even another medical director before her). For her part, Beato has offered a simple explanation: English is her third language, after French and her native Spanish, and sometimes the language barrier is just too much to handle. How does one say "pants on fire" in Spanish?

[Radio_Lady]

5. Hello Coastie -- you look smashing in your uniform!

But I guess you've been too busy with entrepreneuring to keep up your blog?

We have a couple of doctors doing "boutique" medicine here in Portland. There was a flurry of interest, and newspaper articles, but don't know how they're doing these days.

Thanks for the post. Cristina sounds like one of those Bush cronies.

Making peace a priority,

Radio_Lady in Portland, OR