It always gives me a warm, tingly feeling when I hear about doctors stepping in to help people in need.
With most people worried about the poor and uninsured portion of the population, it would be easy to overlook another needy group: the rich. Most of these people have plenty of insurance and good access to health care, but not good enough.
These are people who can afford the best of everything. Yet when they get sick they have to sit in doctor's offices and waiting rooms as if they weren't any better than anyone else, even though they could easily buy the entire building if they wanted to.
Luckily, several groups of doctors have sprung into action and started a new system of health care to address this growing need.
It's the Wealth Care system, and it works like this: Patients sign up for the practice and pay a yearly fee, as much as $20,000. In return, they then have a doctor at their beck and call. They can pick up the phone, any hour of the day or night, and get a doctor to help them with their problems. Most of the time, they don't even have to leave home -- the doctor comes to them.
They can access this service as often as they want during the year. As you can imagine, it is a tremendous relief for millionaires to know that a physician will rush over with a medical bag whenever they get a sniffle. With doctors standing by in case of a bad hangnail, they won't worry so much about missing their twice-weekly manicure when their seaweed-wrap deep tissue massage runs long.
And although these clinics provide mostly primary care, if a patient needs to see a specialist the doctor will make the call and arrange the visit. One doctor even accompanies the patient to see the specialist. Who knows? For the right money, he might even put on the gown and step in for the patient during parts of the exam.
There are a lot of people willing to pay for this kind of special service. "Wealth Care" clinics have sprung up in Seattle and Florida, where some politicians are trying to outlaw the practice. New offices are planned for Denver, Portland and Chicago, and eventually wherever millionaires get sick.
The doctors say they are much happier. Many of them got tired of the aggravation that comes with modern medical practice. Over the last 10 years they have been seeing more patients and making less money. Now, instead of caring for a population of 3,000 or 4,000 patients who need their help, they only need to see a handful of millionaires. They might only see one or two people a day, letting them spend more time -- maybe too much time -- with their patients.
They also make a lot more money, sometimes so much that they could even afford to become their own patients.
Some European countries have a two-tiered system of health care, with private insurance for the people with enough money, and socialized medicine to take care of everyone else. This is fine as far as it goes -- at least poor, sick people have somewhere to turn -- but this system does nothing to address the terrible burden of inconvenience that faces our wealthiest people every day.
Here in this country, where 40 million people have no health care at all, it's good to know there are doctors working hard to make sure the people at the top get plenty of special attention, even if it means turning caring, competent physicians into fawning lapdogs for rich people.
Imagine how proud I feel.
Mark DePaolis is a writer and physician who practices in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
© Copyright 2001 Star Tribune
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