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May 30, 2003/Iyar 28 5763, Vol. 55, No. 40
Doctor offers patients personal care
JESSICA BARBER
Staff Writer
When the average patient schedules an appointment with a primary care physician, he or she usually expects to wait 45 minutes to an hour after the appointment time to get into the exam room - and may still face a 15-20 minute wait until the doctor comes in. Even after the wait, many never actually see the doctor, but rather are "handled" by a physician's assistant or nurse.
The process, however frustrating, has been generally accepted as the "norm." But Dr. Ethan Bindelglas thinks there is a better way.
"I hated being a patient myself in that kind of practice," he says. "In my (medical) training, patients would come in and everyone was upset. You start the encounter (with a patient) by apologizing. I thought that there must be a better way."
Bindelglas, a graduate of Sackler Medical School at Tel Aviv University, has joined a small number of physicians across the country in becoming a personal care physician - a doctor who offers immediate access for a yearly fee.
Annual membership at Bindelglas' practice, Arcadia Personal Physicians, is $900, including same-day appointments, an annual fitness and nutrition evaluation, annual physical exams, follow-up visits and personalized medical care. The fee does not include prescription medication, lab tests or procedures that must be done by another physician or in a hospital.
Two other Arizona physicians, Dr. Douglas Leeland and Dr. Steven Knope, also offer personal patient care, for $2,000 and $5,000 a year respectively, according to the Business Journal. Similar practices are springing up in cities from Boston to Seattle, sometimes at a much higher yearly fee.
The cost at Bindelglas' practice, however, may not be higher for the average patient than traditional insurance policies, he says. Patients that pay Bindelglas' fee and carry a major medical policy - for emergency room visits or surgical procedures - may end up paying similar fees to those with traditional health insurance, he claims.
"Nine hundred dollars a year is about $80 a month," he says. "That's a cable bill or a high-speed modem. It's things in our lives that we decide. For some, health care is not worth the money. But if you look at practices like mine across the country, mine is probably one of the least expensive."
Although Bindelglas does not refer to his practice as a "lucrative profession," he is able to make a living because he can keep costs to a minimum, he says.
"I can offer these services because I keep my overhead low," he says. "I don't need billing people or the front office personnel."
In addition, the average doctor serves about 3,000 patients, he says. Bindelglas has about 45, and plans to never serve more than 600.
"The goal is to see less than 20 percent of what the average doctor does," he says. "My patients and I develop a relationship. It just makes more sense."
Eventually, Bindelglas would like to add two or three part-time physicians to his staff, to encourage more patients to join his practice.
"The whole HMO deal is kind of crumbling," he says. "People are realizing that when you have a $5 co-pay, you get $5 worth of care."
For now, Bindelglas plans to expand his patient panel and continue to offer what he perceives as a "higher standard of health care."
"My deal is about access," he says. "When I see a patient, we talk about their problem before we even go into an exam room. We don't have that plexiglass window you have to look through and can't see around. We have relationships."
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