Gene Miller, CEO of ModernMed, a young, national concierge doctor company, believes that proactive primary care can cut hospital admissions by 30%.
That’s because primary care doctors who serve as the quarterbacks for their patients’ care deal with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, before they become catastrophic and require admission to a hospital.
Miller previously ran companies that specialized in disease management and saw 60% reductions in admissions for elderly Medicare patients through intimate primary care. So his guess that about a 30% reduction among younger, healthier people is realistic.
ModernMed serves 110 people here at Serigraph with such intimate primary care. It is believed to be the first use of concierge or retainer medicine by an American company.
The care is free to the co-workers at the company. So are all prevention and wellness procedures, including mammograms, pap tests, PSA tests, annual physicals and even colonoscopies at some clinics.
Several other companies are about to follow Serigraph’s lead into using a doctor on-site and on retainer.
Dr. Mark Niedfeldt, the primary care doctor for Serigraph, spends Tuesday mornings at the company’s on-site clinic. He is supported there by a nurse practitioner, nurse/coach, and chiropractor, employed by InterraHealth, and a dietician from Froedtert Health.
ModernMed’s preventive care model for corporations is expanding in Salt Lake City and Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, Serigraph is working to expand the number of days with its doctor on site.
In addition to the benefits of chronic disease management, corporations hiring their own doctor re-gain control of the supply chain for health care delivery. The detach primary care from the vertically integrated provider systems. Instead of a provider primary care doctor, the payer’s doctor is ordering tests, specialist care and hospital admissions.
In short, payers are reinventing the business model for the delivery of health care.
