Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Metrics for Successful Direct Medical Practice


Have you been following the story of concierge medicine?  As the internists have managed to transition in a variety of models to "concierge medicine" practices, MDVIP and other Healthcare Service Organizations have flourished.  What are the metrics in creation, launch, growth and sustaining a pediatric concierge practice?  First of all I like to use the term "Direct Medical Practice", which I borrow from the folks at SIMPD.  How do you contract directly with patients and grow a sustainable practice that is dependent on happy customers, rather than the whims of the board of directors and executives of Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, and United?? Well, it's not a simple task and there are multiple variables in execution of the new business.  One of the differences is that parents REALLY like having house calls for their children.  This is how the Personal Pediatrics model evolved.  

One must consider the market, the economy, multiple legal variables including starke law, marketing, new media strategy, healthcare IT implementation with regard to hardware and software and implementation of ecommerce as a method of patient payment.    

Lots to think about.  Let the Personal Pediatrics Team know if we can help you as you consider concierge practice.  We can help you maintain ownership of your existing practice, if that is appropriate,  create a smooth launch which retains as many of your existing patients as possible, as well as help you use technology to create a high revenue, low overhead practice and maximize your professionnal satisfaction and lifestyle.   It's fun running your practice off  iphone platform.  And patients love it.  

Natalie Hodge MD FAAP 

Friday, March 27, 2009

Corporate Sales Program for Direct Medical Practice.

Here is a snippet I found on my AIS newsletter today.  




Only 62%
 ... of nearly 500 large employers surveyed by the National Business Group on Health and Watson Wyatt were "confident" they will be offering health benefits to employees 10 years from now, down from 73% a year ago. 

Businesses are looking for solutions to exorbitant healthcare costs, as well as ways to retain top talent, in particular the older gen y yougner gen x moms in the workforce.  

Our Pediatrician Affiliate program has a nice integrated solution to sell our patient memberships directly to companies.  

And who doesn't like making house calls especially when the fortune 500 is paying for them.  

Natalie Hodge MD FAAP 

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Personal Pediatrics Column for pregnancy.org


We are excited to be building out a Personal Pediatrics Affiliate Column for the team at www.pregnancy.org   Would love to have feedback from moms about the kind of column you would like to see?  What are your burning questions about parenting and motherhood?  How can your personalpediatrics affiliate help make motherhood easier and more convenient?  You know we love making house calls and cherish your family!!  We will certainly give parenting.org community users some special discounts on memberships for our Personal Pediatrics affiliate practices!!  Some call it concierge pediatrics, but we just like to call it direct medical practice.  


Natalie Hodge MD FAAP 

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Link to Washington Post Article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032301745_2.html?hpid=sec-health

Article In Washington Post

There is a nice article in Wash Post today about house calls for the elderly

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032301745_2.html?hpid=sec-health

Now this gentleman is an employeed staff member of an academic institution. Hopefully over time institutions will enable doc's to start house call service lines that can add value to the organization. Pediatricians who want business ownership and practice ownership need a variety of skill sets to start and market this kind of service on their own without a hospital paycheck. That is where the services of PP can come in handy for you. Marketing to start, convert existing practice, ongoing marketing can be extremely time consuming. Let us know if we can help you. Natalie Hodge MD FAAP.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Pediatricians!! Would love to have feedback!!


We are in the process of signing a few early beta sites for direct medical practice. We will start a new survey this week with pediatricians to see if they think that their patients would be interested in an option of house calls by their pediatrician, nurse practitioner. Pricing is different depending on market demographics, competition, a variety of other factors. Weigh in and would love to have your thoughts!! We understand the pressures of third party practice and would love to help you implement a service line tat will add greatly to your bottom line, create a better lifestyle for you and your collegues, and help you gain market share in your practicing demographic. Warmest Regards, Natalie Hodge MD

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Cloud computing for Pediatricians


Imagine that you could chart in real time on iphone during house calls, put around and do 5 or six house calls a day, maintain a transparent practice in which patients can access their medical record in the home through secure website, and have a variety of other revenue streams aside from just retainers and insurance reimbursements... Wow. Remember all those people walking around in your office? Well, you don't need them anymore. Take a look at www.personalpediatrics.com and let me know what you think about the model's potential in your demographics.

Natalie Hodge MD FAAP

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Fox Two News

Had a great chat with Margie today on fox two news about Personal Pediatrics and the advantages of direct medical practice. On the patient side you get, well, house calls which need no explanation, but Margie made a nice point about the downside of bringing your children into a pediatrics office, exposure to the next childhood virus!! Savvy mom's understand this!! On the pediatrician side the ecommerce platform, web marketing system make practice management and patient acquisition a snap. We hope to add three more docs to our territories here in St Louis to handle all these families, so pediatricians please contact us to hear how to implement direct medical practice as an additional service line in addition to your traditional third party practice. Don't let Minute Clinic and Take Care Health steal your market share in 2009. We have families from St. Charles, to Wildwood to Chesterfield to cover here!! We need 4 doctors to cover this market adequately!! I can only do so much business myself!! Running your medical practice off iphone platform with minimal staffing and hassle from third party payors is a great way to practice medicine. It creates a huge competitive advantage for your practice in the marketplace.

Warmest Regards, Natalie Hodge MD FAAP

www.personalpediatrics.com
info@personalpediatrics.com

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Nice Chat with Residency Program Director at Card Glennon

Had a nice interaction with Bob Wilmott at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital today. He is excited to facilitate my chatting to their exiting PL3 class about setting up direct medical practices. Really when you look at the average PL3, this is really exiting, run a practice off an iphone, minimal staff, minimal third party payor interference, ecommerce platform for up front payments from patients. What a great way to start out a career in private practice. Wait until they hear about all the revenue streams our direct to consumer facing portal has. Doctors have to embrace and USE the internet to communicate WITH patients. This is why my patients never need to call me. Got Fox 2 news in the am. Going to show Angel James and their crew how all this works.

www.personalpediatrics.com

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Great to hear from the AAP regarding Personal Pediatrics Healthcare Model

Received a nice email today from Roger Suchyta the Associate Executive Director of the American Academy of Pediatrics today regarding Personal Pediatrics Consulting and Licensing Programs, nice to have some positive feedback about the model from AAP and be contacted by AAP News!! Looking forward to sharing our developments with our professional organization. We look forward to sharing the strategic advantages in practice that the Personal Pediatrics Model brings to office practice. Natalie Hodge MD FAAP House call Pediatrician.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Strategies for Successful Direct Pediatrics Practice

Considerations for Successful Direct Medical Practice

1. Carefully consider your goals for success with regard to income, lifestyle and professional satisfaction.
2. In depth assessment of your market demographics.
3. Pricing Strategies
4. Marketing/ Sales and PR strategies
5. Consumer Facing Internet and User experience
6. Emerging Hardware/ Software/ Wireless strategies necessary for succcess.
7. Financial Projections/ProForma/ Capital Requirements to implement the above.
8. Legal/ HIPAA/ Med malpractice.

Wow, that's not something we learned in medical school. Let us know if we can help.

Natalie Hodge MD FAAP

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Stop Calling it Concierge Medicine Please

We would like to introduce the term " Direct Medical Practice" to Pediatricians. It is a more descriptive and accurate term for the Personal Pediatrics Technology Platform and the business it supports. Rather than calling the office to get info, our affiliates constantly " Push" information out to our clients through our web system, such that practice members have a much higher level of interaction with their ped. Also parents can email their doc and schedule appt at a more convenient time.

Web MD Childrens Site for Parents

There is a fantastics new development for parents on Web MD site. A nice set of tutorials for parents on common rashes, pink eye and other common ailments. A nice visual guide. May save you a call to your pediatrician!! But don't forget our network of house call pediatricians, for attentive pediatric care for your children!! Natalie Hodge MD FAAP

http://children.webmd.com/

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Nice post from Deliotte Healthcare Thought Leaders



So Pediatricians have a few choices in improving their lifestyle, income and professional satisfaction needs. Also PL3's graduating have a few choices. Start in a practice as an employee in the old pediatrics practice model. Pursue academia and a fellowship, staying in that system. Those interested in primary care and entrepeneurship should consider direct practice as the only long term sustainable method of practice. Taks a look at this post from Deloitte on Healthcare trends and see consumer needs fit nicely with direct medical practice. Patients want PHR, they want higher levels of attentiveness and their pediatricians time. Lastly they are picking up on take care health and minute clinic's system because the current pediatric office system is so bad for patients. Don't loose your market share to a bunch of smart MBA's and nurse practicioners.
http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,sid%253D202452%2526cid%253D226453,00.html

We are ready to help you develop the direct practice model of your dreams. minimizing your risk and capital resources necessary to be successful in this model!!

www.personalpediatrics.com

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

What about HIPAA and house calls for Pediatricians


Our clients often ask me about how to maintain compliance to HIPAA in our direct practice model. Well, I think back to the maintenance of Hipaa policies in my old office setting on paper. You do silly things like turn the charts over so patients can't see another patient's chart. Covering up old computer screens so patients cheching out can't see the schedule. Lock the door of the office when you leave for the day. Basic stuff like that. But in our high tech direct practice model, our HIPAA compliance policy comes as part of our licensing program offerings to our physician affiliates. What could be more secure than a PHR that allows our end user patients to see their patient record in the comfort of their own home?? High level encryption at the level of the banking industry. There is a guy with a gun protecting our servers from any physical breach and firewalls to protect the data from hackers. Frankly, its much more secure than the systems in typical pediatrics offices. So there you have it Hipaa compliance for pediatricians running pediatrics practices with i phones. WOW.

www.personalpediatrics.com

Pediatricians let me know if we can help you implement your concierge or direct practice in your market!!

Dr Hodge

Monday, March 09, 2009

Here are my suggestions for ailing healthcare system

I had the chance to do a nice podcast with Philippa Kennealy from Entrepeneurial MD last week which just hit the wire. We had a nice chat about healthcare and how the Personal Pediatrics Platform and Direct Pediatric Practice Model is just a bandaid on an ailing healthcare system. But pediatricians need solutions Now to achieve their goals of lifestyle, professional satisfaction, and income. On the other hand patients have needs for communication, PHR, and HOUSE CALLS. So there you have it...

http://www.entrepreneurialmd.com/index/2009/3/9/disruptive-healthcare-delivery-one-entrepreneurial-physician.html

Dr Hodge
www.personalpediatrics.com

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Huffington Post Reviews from Consumers


I always enjoy seeing what parents are saying about the Personal Pediatrics House call Platform. Direct Medical Practices for Pediatricians just simply make more sense, simply put. Taking your children out in the winter to see the pediatrician, simply makes no sense. Running your pediatrics practice off an iphone, just makes sense. Whether you are the CEO of a Children's Hospital, a PL3 Graduating from residency in June, or a seasoned pediatrician, we can help you create an innovative service line of house calls. Natalie Hodge MD

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/26/house-calls-make-a-comeba_n_170299.html

Take a look at our latest article

Speaking of house calls, take a look at our latest article in msnbc from last week. Associated Press writers came along with me for a house call and I was able to discuss the advantages of direct medical practice for pediatricians. The iphone does the work of the 5 employees I used to pay to keep my office running. Amazing Huh? One year ago I thought it would take 18 months abiding Moore's law to get to one device...but here we are... ONE DEVICE. We have a nice set of consulting and licensing programs for pediatricians to take advantage of that will double your take home pay, or add millions to your current practice's revenues. Also we can show you how to launch your concierge practice at a fraction of the costs of traditional concierge practices.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29407434/


Natalie Hodge MD FAAP.