Traditional vs. Concierge Medicine Practice: Day-to-Day Schedule
When switching from a traditional practice to a concierge practice, physicians will often experience significant changes in their day-to-day schedule. In fact, this is often an area of great improvement. SignatureMD affiliated physician Joel Meshulam described his personal experience for us:
In this video, Joel talked about his hectic schedule:
Before the transition I would be seeing thirty to forty patients in a day. I had very little time to go to the bathroom or have a meal. I would get up at four or five o’clock in the morning and get home around six or six-thirty at night.
I’d be exhausted.
I’d kiss my wife on the cheek, have a couple of drinks because I needed them to unwind, have dinner, sit on the couch with my wife and my puppy, and fall asleep. Then I’d get up the next day at four o’clock in the morning and start the whole process all over again.
However, once Joel made the transition to the concierge model, things changed:
I don’t want to give the notion that I’m now just living the life of luxury and leisure. I’m not. I still work hard, but I’m not seeing patients every ten minutes. If I need to go to the bathroom, I can actually feel comfortable doing that and not worrying that I’m falling further and further behind.
The pressures of the schedule are far less severe.
I’m very fortunate; I have a great nurse practitioner. It took me a couple of tries to find him, but he’s really very good. The patients respond very well and he’s very intelligent. I can’t overstate the importance of that in this Signature MD model. If you’re looking for a segmented concept, you really have to have a partner that knows what they’re doing and can communicate with patients.
I don’t have to come in early every single day. I get a day off a week, typically, although I usually will come into the office and just do paperwork or work on what I want to work on for myself, not necessarily to generate extra income. I come in because I want to, not because I have to, on those days.
I’m taking vacations now.
Prior to my conversion I took a week at most, and that was usually in the form of two or three long weekends. Since the conversion I’ve been able to visit my son when he was studying abroad in Barcelona. I’ve been to Puerto Rico. I’ve taken an actual full week off. I actually used to do that. I just wasn’t doing that anymore.
Now I’m doing that, and a lot of it has to do with changing the way that I approach the care of patients, and being able to see people this way as opposed to ten minutes, twenty minutes, in out, in out, in out, all day long.
If your current schedule has you feeling overwhelmed or burned out, we encourage you to get in touch. We can help you take back control of your practice and your life.
You can also learn more about work-life balance as a SignatureMD affiliated physician.
About SignatureMD
SignatureMD is one of the nation’s largest firms providing initial conversion and ongoing support services to concierge medicine physicians. SignatureMD currently partners with over 200 affiliated primary care physicians and specialists across 35 states, and its network is rapidly expanding.