Homegrown healthcare reform at Hoboken’s doorstep
On the eve of a historic and incredibly controversial US healthcare bill, I thought it would be appropriate to review what our country needs. We need universal access to healthcare, affordable fees charged by physicians and hospitals, an end to over-treatment, and high quality. It seems almost impossible to achieve, right? And yet we have a healthcare practice right here in Hoboken that accomplishes exactly those goals.
It has been one year since PromptMD opened their doors on First Street near Willow Ave (two doors down from Dames Coffee) in Hoboken. In that time they have had over 10,000 visits ranging from H1N1 shots all the way up to food poisoning, broken bones and one heart attack. The two docs there have a devoted following of patients who rave about the superb care they receive 7 days a week. The average wait time was under half an hour, average cost was under $100, and the majority of patients got more than 60% of the costs reimbursed by insurance. Free follow-up visits ensured that patients were recovering properly from their various ailments, something hospitals don’t care about since they get paid twice if patients are readmitted.
The most amazing part is that they accomplished this with all walk-in visits. Scheduling doctor’s visits is such a huge hassle for my family that I am six months behind on my OB/GYN appointments, and I need to take the kids to the dentist. Knowing that we can walk into PromptMD before work or school whenever one of the kids spikes a fever and that we will wait less than 10 minutes is huge.
In the interest of full disclosure, I maintain the PromptMD website. We added in features like the monthly physician schedule, put all the registration & privacy forms online to save check-in time, and generally streamlined and improved the available information. However, I am not being paid to write this review, and I was a huge fan of their affordable business model before I became their webmaster. My husband and I go there for everything, from flu shots for our babysitter and entire family to allergy treatment when hay fever season approaches. Because we are frequent flyers, we receive a 10% discount on physical exams.
If my husband ever loses his job and our health insurance, knock wood, I have great peace of mind knowing that sickness or pregnancy will not bankrupt us or cause us to neglect routine doctor’s visits. The amount we pay out of pocket to PromptMD ($82/visit) is not much more than our $40 insurance copay. Drs. Islam and Jani also have relationships with specialists who they will negotiate with to get us hugely discounted care if we need additional treatment like, say, a pregnancy ultrasound. All four members of my family go to PromptMD since they treat ages 1 & up.
1/22 update: I am really glad healthcare reform has passed, but believe that practices like PromptMD are imperative to curbing skyrocketing healthcare costs. The healthcare bill extended insurance coverage to all, but does not restrict premium costs. Lower medical bills = lower premiums, and that is where PromptMD shines since their charges are 60% less than typical physician practices.
