SimpleCare

SimpleCare is a program, developed by the non-profit American Association of Patients and Providers (AAPP), which is intended to encourage health care providers to charge a reasonable fee to patients who are willing to pay in full at the time they are seen.  No billing, insurance companies, or managed care organizations are involved.  

On August 8, 1999, NBC Nightly News ran a story on the 2,000-patient medical center in Renton, Washington run by the creators of SimpleCare:  Drs. Vern S. Cherewatenko and David MacDonald.  The costs of such things as office visits and X-rays are 30%-50% less than what a regular clinic would charge.  The savings come from bypassing the bureaucracy:  No staff are needed to get managed care approval, to file endless claims or coax payment from insurance companies.  Doctors spend their time practicing medicine, instead of fighting with third-party payers.  Patients are encouraged to get low-cost insurance to cover catastrophic illness.

SimpleCare seems well suited to handle preventive care, routine check ups and chronic health problems.  It has the potential to deal with more complex and costly problems in the future, once the movement toward efficient health care takes hold in the US.

In addition to advocating patient choice of providers, reasonable fees, and administrative simplicity, the AAPP promotes wellness education, complimentary medicine and provider education, and focuses on critical health care problems, such as obesity, diabetes, smoking, aging, and psychological stress.

According to a March 2001 report in The Heartland Institute's Health Care News, SimpleCare "has grown to about 600 medical providers and 3,000 patients nationwide. . . .  SimpleCare represents a wide variety of medical specialties, including primary care.  There are now member physicians in 43 states.  Even a hospital in Colorado joined the program."[1]

Refer to the SimpleCare web site for details on the program.

Footnotes

1. Conrad F. Meier, "Fee-for-service Health Care Makes a Comeback," Health Care News, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2001), p. 12.