Jay Parkinson, MD. A doctor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Manhattan
HIStalk Interviews Jay Parkinson MD MPH, House Call Doctor
Posts will be pretty sparse and short the next few days, as I'll be in New York City through Sunday, busy with work and some vacation fun.
Saturday, I have the chance to meet and grab a cup of coffee with a doctor with a very interesting business model, as you can read about on his site or the interview linked above. He makes house calls, makes great use of the internet and new technologies, and requires that you pay up front (although you can submit for reimbursement through your insurance provider, if you have one). I'm really excited to chat with Dr. Parkinson about his practice and the overlap with Lean concepts and the idea of “Lean Solutions.”
Keeping with the Womack and Jones principle of “don't waste the customer's time,” Dr. Parkinson only makes house calls, which means you don't wait in a germ-filled office. He also does “e-visits” which means you can get answers or advice to certain types of problems without even having a face-to-face appointment. Cool stuff, hopefully we'll see more doctors adopting this sort of patient-focused, time-saving model. While his practice isn't strictly inspired by Lean, Dr. Parkinson had some exposure to kaizen events and Lean concepts in his formal medical education. We first got in contact because he had linked here to the Lean Blog from his blog.
He's agreed to do a Podcast with me sometime later, so if you have any questions, post them here or email me.
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What about working with local businesses to offer employee appointments at their office? Don’t bash me as the evil employer, I’m just thinking if I didn’t have to wait at home for something basic, it could be done on a short break while at work. In my area, I’m 15 miles from town, 22 miles from work…
I’m thinking how it would save me even more time. I know I only make more people sick if I go to work, but lets be honest!
Ironically, just last night I was thinking about doctor’s offices. I am out of state working with another plant this week and ran out of a “maintenance” medication (I have asthma so I have perscription inhalers and nasal sprays). I was able to call my physician’s office and get a renewal called into a Wal-Mart close to where I am working. They were pretty danged efficient at getting me a new perscription (hey, they didn’t require me to be “seen” first!), but is there a easier way to get these perscriptions for routine items (I haven’t renewed this since 2006, so obviously I don’t need it often). It still took 2+ hours to make contact with my doctor’s office and for them to get the perscription called over.
He may be a new kind of physician; however, by forcing payment up front isn’t he selecting a new kind of client as well?
What I mean is by forcing a cash-up-front approach he’s essentially guaranteeing he’ll never see a patient who relies on only having to pay the copay at time of visit or who saves up for awhile to make the payment.
Forcing reimbursement after the fact works fine for people who have blogs and nice jobs, but that small, floatable fee to us may mean a lot more to someone in a lower income bracket.
I’m not a health professional, so I obviously defer to your expertise in this area. I’m just wondering if this could be the case, and if so if you could ask him about why he does this…