The average primary-care physician has about 2,300 patients, according to the Annals of Family Medicine. I can’t be Marcus Welby without time,” he said, referring the 1970s television show about a doctor with a kind bedside manner. “I want to bring back medicine to the old-fashioned way. Farrago tells patients that he has partnerships with radiologists, the Lynchburg Health Department and area laboratories that will provide discounted services.įarrago, like other direct primary care physicians, also urges patients to get catastrophic insurance should something major happen “that’s a mistake to not have insurance,” he said.Ĭutting ties with insurance helps Farrago become “the doctor I want to be.”
DR FARRAGO FOREST VA SKIN
Farrago said he can attend to 90 percent of all medical needs - osteopathic manipulation, cortisone injections and skin procedures are included, for example - but acknowledges that there are all kinds of outside services not included in the monthly fee.īlood tests, flu shots and diagnostics like CT scans, X-rays and MRIs are among the services that would require out-of-pocket costs. In Forest, Farrago’s rates are competitive with other direct primary care physician’s rates, $75 a month for individuals, $125 for couples, and $150 for families. “This is one option that is particularly well suited for small family medicine practices that are struggling financially in environments not yet supporting (Primary Care Medical Homes) with a viable payment model.”Ĭlients are billed monthly and in exchange they have unlimited access to physicians with no co-pays for office visits. “The model eliminates the insurance middleman and provides revenue directly to the practice to innovate in both customer service and quality of care for the patients they serve,” said AAFP Board Chair Glen Stream, M.D. The practice has gained enough of a following that, last year, the American Academy of Family Physicians formally recognized its benefits and created a policy for these kind of physician practices. Last month he decided to go off the grid, following in the footsteps of some 4,000-plus direct-care physicians nationwide who have cut out insurance companies and directly bill patients monthly. Over the last 20 years, Farrago has worked in traditional family practices and immediate-care clinics, like those that have cropped up across the Lynchburg area in the last few years. Exams are done just down the hallway, sans computer. “We’re being overburdened with bureaucratic dreg,” Farrago said one afternoon from the same office where he meets patients face-to-face before and after exams to discuss their well-being.
Throughout it all, one thing has remained the same: his disdain for what he feels family practice has become - a 15-minute visit defined by codes and insurance companies. It’s a bold pronouncement but one that the 49-year-old entrepreneur and physician appears to have been headed toward for years.Ĭonfident and energetic, Farrago has appeared in magazine and newspaper publications across the country for everything from the patented Knee-Saver he developed for baseball catchers to the “The Placebo Journal,” a long-running MAD magazine for physicians. It’s a Thursday evening and Farrago stands on a podium in front of a 30-plus crowd of curious and somewhat skeptical adults who pepper him with questions for more than an hour. “I think at some point,” Coleman said, “he’ll be turning people away.”įast forward one week. She mulls over the health insurance premiums she used to pay, how Farrago has motivated her to take better care of herself, and the advice Farrago gave to her husband - who is having problems with his shoulder - to exercise rather than seek out a shot, and comes to a decision. In fact, Forest Direct Primary Care just had its soft opening a few weeks ago. She and her husband, Roy, haven’t been patients of Dr. FOREST – Sara Coleman leans forward, her coffee cup now empty, and considers her answer carefully.
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