A few years ago, a friend of mine, and Cardio-Thoracic Surgeon, told me that his latest offer from an insurance company for coronary bypass surgery reimbursement to its membership was $1,800 dollars. He since left California and is practicing in Indiana. Those physicians less enclined to head to the midwest are getting innovative by provideing services for which patients (now customers) will pay cash. My wife’s Gynecologist, for example, just began a physician supervised weight loss program for her patients. Family practice physicians are learning how to give Botox injections while offering other services.
Earlier this month an innovative new company out of Southern California launched a simple to use program over the internet to help dermatologists and cosmetic medical physicians market to their own patient base. AppointYou uses advanced cloud computing services that allows medical practices to market directly to their patients by email, text messaging and even voice mail. What’s amazing about this service is that it is highly specific to patient by age and gender, and about one third the cost of mailing post cards. The result is that with tools like AppointYou , medical practices can create some relief from diminishing reimbursement, while providing additional services to patients who are willing to pay for them on their own. “We’re initially focused on dermatology and cosmetic medicine because they’re in the front edge of this curve” says Ken Forbes, Founder and CEO of AppointYou, “but the tool we’ve developed works for any discipline seeking to provide additional services to their patients. We are driven by our customers’ needs, not limited by the platform we’ve developed”.
You will see more of this as healthcare reform begins to change the dynamic of how healthcare is currently being funded. The good news, is that the healthcare market place remains vibrant and physicians aren’t sitting by idoly watching their hard earned training go to waste.
