Plum Health Direct Primary Care Simplifies How Patients Connect with their Doctor

Health Insurance Overcomplicates Health Care

Intentionally or unintentionally, health insurance companies have made the practice of medicine overly complicated. As a patient, have you ever felt like you wanted to ask your doctor a simple question, but didn’t want to have to call the office, to leave a message, to have someone pass that message to the doctor, to have the doctor call you back 3 days later? I mean, what gives? We have text messaging and emails that make communication seamless among regular people, but for some reason, doctors remain out of reach.

I was watching the Super Bowl Halftime Show when I saw The Weeknd trying to find his way through a house of mirrors. It reminded me of how patients feel when trying to navigate the health insurance system - it’s hard to find your way through a distorted system with blinding lights. So, I made this post on my LinkedIn page (connect with me on LinkedIn if you haven’t already!):

Trying to navigate the health insurance system when all you want to do is ask your doctor a simple question...

This is why so many people are reaching out to their Direct Primary Care doctor - we get rid of this house of mirrors and the distorted versions of primary care and create a system where the patient's needs are prioritized.

See what all the buzz is about at Plum Health DPC.

Direct Primary Care Simplifies the Healthcare Experience

The direct primary care model simplifies health care delivery in that our patients are able to text, email, or call us anytime. We guarantee a response within 24 hours, and if you text during business hours, you’ll often hear from us within a few minutes to a few hours. This takes a lot of the anxiety and stress out of the health care experience and our patients can seamlessly access the care that they need, when they need it.

If you’d like to enroll in our service, you can sign up here:

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day,

-Dr. Paul Thomas with Plum Health DPC

Plum Health featured on the Beyond Medicine Podcast

This week, I was able to speak with Dr. Rami Wehbi about Direct Primary Care on his podcast, the Beyond Medicine Podcast. 

Dr. Wehbi brings a unique perspective to the conversation as he is a Family Medicine Resident, considering his options as he creates a career for himself in Medicine. 

This a crucial time in the life of a young professional, especially the life of a family physician. For a family doc like Dr. Wehbi, he could pursue an additional year of training in something like Sports Medicine, he could become a teaching physician, he could sign a contract with a large hospital system to see patients at a high rate, he could start a Direct Primary Care practice, or he could take on other options.

For me, Dr. Wehbi is the future - his choice, and the choices of his colleagues like him, will shape the future of family medicine and the future of how our patients afford and access health care in their communities.

I am so grateful to Dr. Rami Wehbi for having this conversation with me and I know that he will be successful in whatever path he chooses. People like Dr. Wehbi thinking critically about health care, and how we deliver that care, will advance the discussion and bring us closer to a better system. 

In this part of the show, we discuss why health insurance really hurts low income people. Health insurance sets the price point too high for accessing routine, every day care. Often times, uninsured folks who are unable to afford the high cost of private insurance often go without basic health care services. For these patients, they cannot participate in the system because they don't have enough money to buy into the system. Further, if they do buy private insurance, they might be afraid to use health care services in the fee-for-service system because of the unknown/unclear pricing in that system.

In this video, we discuss the difference between health care and health insurance. In our health care model, we focus on developing relationships with our patients so that we can get to the root of the problem, rather than just treating the symptoms. We have this ability because we have enough time with our patients.

Here's the full list of what we discuss in the Beyond Medicine Podcast episode:

• Background of Dr. Paul and why he decided to start a Direct Primary Care practice in Detroit, Michigan.
• Why Insurance is a failing system in the medical world.
• How Insurance is inflating the cost of medicine.
• Why doctors have been unable to maintain a healthy doctor patient relationship.
• The difference between Direct Primary Care and Concierge Medicine.
• What is included in a Direct Primary Care practice.
• How does Direct Primary Care work and how does it benefit patients.
• How to find a doctor that practice in a Direct Primary Care model.
• How DPC can work with your insurance plan. HMO vs PPO vs Medicaid
• How Direct Primary Care can save you money every month.
• Doing the math of savings and how you can change your insurance plan and join a direct primary care.
• Wholesaling medications for patients in Detroit and Southeast Michigan and how Dr. Paul is able to save patients the cost of membership with the savings on medications alone.
• How DPC can work in non- affluent neighborhoods and how to start one.
• Patient pool in DPC vs a insurance based model.
• How to make a DPC practice sustainable and profitable. My experience with being demoralized seeing the current state of healthcare.
• How do you order imaging, get consults from specialists.
• How does pricing work?

You can listen to or download the podcast, here. You can find out more about Dr. Wehbi, here. 

Thanks for reading and watching, and have a wonderful day.

- Dr. Paul Thomas with Plum Health DPC

Below are some extra videos produced by Dr. Rami Wehbi, enjoy!

In the above video, we discuss our values at Plum Health DPC, and we value the doctor-patient relationship. We value getting to know our patients, understanding who they are, and where they want to go in their health care journey. We also really value price transparency. We want all of our patients to know what the prices for health care are, so that they can make informed choices about consuming health care services.

Below, Dr. Rami Wehbi and I discuss why it's important to have longer, often 1 hour appointments with our patients. This really allows us to focus on the relationship, and developing strong relationships with our patients.