Various Medical Practice Model Types

The EHR vendor (and many other services), Kareo, has put out a practice model guide which they call “Practice Models: The ABCs from ACOs to Concierge and Everything in Between.” With this guide they shared this picture that includes various practice models:

When I see an image like this I’m torn on if this is an extremely exciting time for physicians or if it’s a miserable time to be a physician. One thing is clear, times are a changing. The medical practice models of the past are going to be blown up by new models.

Take for example Telemedicine. Can you imagine any healthcare future where telemedicine is not part of that future? I can’t.

I’m still personally torn on concierge practices. I can see why they’re appealing to so many. I love the idea of unlimited primary care and getting insurance out of primary care. However, it’s not clear to me that this idea can scale across the entire healthcare system. Certainly the rich can do it no problem. Can the concierge model work for the middle and lower class? Many fans of concierge tell me it can. I’m still not so sure.

I know a lot of doctors that are part of ACOs. I don’t know very many that are excited by the work ACOs are doing. Most of them just feel like they need to be part of it to understand the future of medicine. They’re not joining ACOs because they think it’s something that shows a lot of promise for their patients.

I’m probably coming off a little more cynical than I am about these shifts. A number of these changes are really exciting to see happening. However, I’m also not blind to the challenges that many of these medical practice models face.

Needless to say, it’s an exciting and challenging time to be in medicine. The structure of how we pay for healthcare is being questioned and new models are being explored. This can be really exciting if you find yourself tracking the right wave. However, if you miss the wave, then you can be stuck out in the middle of the ocean wondering how you missed out.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

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