Vantaggi
$65 per patient visit = $520 per patient, per month. For most providers, at least in my area, the average load was 12-18 patients. Each seen 2x weekly. So pay could be $3k to $5k every 2 weeks. Although some providers could have as many as 30 patients, and making $7800 or so every 2 weeks. Mileage reimbursement is from door-to-door. So, it's not bad. Flexible scheduling. Sort of. It's just between you and your patients for the most part, but see below for the rest of the story Easy charting. About 3 minutes per patient for a followup. about 15 to 20 minutes for start-of-care. Maybe 5 more minutes to write and fax orders to HHN. Super-simple charting. Almost comical. PMH example of choices you can select in the EHR Cardiac - High blood pressure, cardiac disease, heart problems Pulmonary - Shortness of breath, COPD, asthma, cough Ortho - Muscle stiffness, chronic joint pain
Svantaggi
Most providers, at least in my area, covered two distinctly different areas seeing each patient 2x weekly. First area on Monday/Thursday, and second area on Tuesday/Friday. But.....and there is always a but. The areas were often many miles apart and many miles from your house. So, in my case, I had 2 areas that were each approximately 25 miles from my house to the epicenter of the area. But, the epicenter of each area of 35 miles apart. Example - If a patient missed a visit on Monday, you were expected to make up that visit on Tuesday. But, in my case, that meant that a normal visit that took 20 minutes when I was in the area was suddenly 2 hours of my time if I had to make it up the next day. You take the good with the bad, but this happened often. You are only in the field Mon/Tue/Thur/Fri, but expected to see patients for start of care or follow up visits on Wednesday. You aren't making a dime on Wednesday, but if you had to do a visit, you would waste about 2 hours of your day doing the visit to make $65. Also, unpaid meetings every Wednesday that you were expected to attend. No reimbursement for any licensing, education, administrative time ordering supplies, responding to emails, etc. That was all on you. The plus was that you could do it on your own time frame. So I would often do a lot of this stuff early morning or late evening. As noted above, pay was vary erratic. Pay check might range from 3k to 7k dollars, depending on many factors. First of the year, you always lost at least 3 or 4 patients due to insurance changes, which could cost you a couple thousand in January while you waited for their new insurance to kick in or waiting for new consults to build up your practice again.