Turns out his oldest daughter goes to school there. He sees the country’s socialized health care approach working a whole lot better for doctors and patients than the U.S. system he feels trapped in. After practicing internal medicine for nearly thirty years in North Andover and Andover, Daly believes carrying thousands of patients with insurance companies running the show leaves two options: Burn yourself out and lose a lot of money by taking the time to treat them all properly, or cave in to the seven-minutes-per-patient, turnstile medicine he’s been resisting his entire professional life.
He’s an Option A guy. So yeah, the New Zealand plan was for real. The only thing funny about it, actually, is that it would have been a lot less extreme of a move than the one he did make.
“I couldn’t affect change in the system down there. Here I can, I think,” he says. “Nobody stops to think where the money’s going. Well, it’s going to tests and specialists, not to doctors who actually sit down and hear you, let alone sit and talk to you in terms of understanding what you need to do to get yourself healthy. If that’s the product we want, we need another model.”
Photo by Kate Harper
Enter Andover Medical Associates, Daly’s high-risk leap into the controversial waters of—pick whichever label you like—boutique/concierge/patient-centered medicine. An annual age-based fee ranging from $900 to $3,900 gets you a spot in a practice that will never exceed a few hundred patients, as opposed to the 1,500 Daly served before.
You still have to carry your insurance and pay your co-pays, as required by law. The extra cash buys you the kind of doctor that people have on television shows. Same-day appointments with no waiting. Longer, relaxed visits. Around-the-clock access by e-mail or cell phone. Counseling your insurance won’t cover, like on nutrition.
There are estimated to be just a few hundred such practices in the country and a handful north of Boston. There are those who say that’s too many. The idea of special, high-end health care for people who pay extra tends to upset some people.
“I had the same (initial) reaction everyone else did—it’s elitist, I’m not going there,” says Daly, who first became aware of concierge care about five years ago.
Gradually he came to believe he was practicing a form of it already, but at great personal cost since insurance companies don’t reimburse for time spent with patients. And why, he ultimately wondered, shouldn’t people be able to pay to upgrade their health care the way they do any other consumer product?
As emotional as it was telling patients, says Daly, most understood.
“To have access to him when I want to, it’s like all the other things I spend money on,” says Ernie Coutermarsh of Andover, a Daly patient of twenty years. “Do you know how difficult it is to actually pick up the telephone and talk to a doctor? When it’s all about you, that’s all that matters.”
But Daly has also come to realize why his peers universally greeted the news with sentiments of, “Wish I had your testicular fortitude.” He opened in September, and so far “less than 100” patients have made Ernie Coutermarsh’s commitment.
“Well, I’m living off big loans,” Daly says with a nervous laugh. “I expected a start-up period. I thought it would be shorter, but it’s taking longer to get people to join than I thought it would.”
Indeed, Vicki Gardner may be Daly’s best living advertisement—her cancer-stricken
husband died in November, and Daly was at their side from hospital check-in to hospice arrangements to the wake. But Gardner admits the doctor she loves is fighting the odds.
“It’s a difficult concept to put in place in basically a blue-collar locale,” she says, noting that the same people who spend four figures on a television “think I’m nuts” for splurging on her dream doctor.
Daly genuinely believes the approach will go mainstream, that in fact it may be the only hope for U.S. health care.
“I believe when people realize this level of care is available, they’re going to start to demand it and the health care system is going to have to provide it, because people can vote,” he says, predicting issues of financial inequity will be addressed organically.
“If a doctor spends time with a patient, he gets it right the first time most of the time. The whole system becomes cheaper and there’s so much more money to … subsidize people who are low income.”
But Daly’s in either way now. New Zealand won’t be an option again for a good long while.
“This has to work. This cannot fail,” he says. “There’s no going back.”
Dr. Daly’s office is located at 14 Florence Street, Andover, MA; (978) 470-0001; www.WDalyMD.com
The Doctor is Always In – Andover Medical Associates – Jan/Feb 2008
He’s an Option A guy. So yeah, the New Zealand plan was for real. The only thing funny about it, actually, is that it would have been a lot less extreme of a move than the one he did make.
“I couldn’t affect change in the system down there. Here I can, I think,” he says. “Nobody stops to think where the money’s going. Well, it’s going to tests and specialists, not to doctors who actually sit down and hear you, let alone sit and talk to you in terms of understanding what you need to do to get yourself healthy. If that’s the product we want, we need another model.”
Photo by Kate Harper
Enter Andover Medical Associates, Daly’s high-risk leap into the controversial waters of—pick whichever label you like—boutique/concierge/patient-centered medicine. An annual age-based fee ranging from $900 to $3,900 gets you a spot in a practice that will never exceed a few hundred patients, as opposed to the 1,500 Daly served before.
You still have to carry your insurance and pay your co-pays, as required by law. The extra cash buys you the kind of doctor that people have on television shows. Same-day appointments with no waiting. Longer, relaxed visits. Around-the-clock access by e-mail or cell phone. Counseling your insurance won’t cover, like on nutrition.
There are estimated to be just a few hundred such practices in the country and a handful north of Boston. There are those who say that’s too many. The idea of special, high-end health care for people who pay extra tends to upset some people.
“I had the same (initial) reaction everyone else did—it’s elitist, I’m not going there,” says Daly, who first became aware of concierge care about five years ago.
Gradually he came to believe he was practicing a form of it already, but at great personal cost since insurance companies don’t reimburse for time spent with patients. And why, he ultimately wondered, shouldn’t people be able to pay to upgrade their health care the way they do any other consumer product?
As emotional as it was telling patients, says Daly, most understood.
“To have access to him when I want to, it’s like all the other things I spend money on,” says Ernie Coutermarsh of Andover, a Daly patient of twenty years. “Do you know how difficult it is to actually pick up the telephone and talk to a doctor? When it’s all about you, that’s all that matters.”
But Daly has also come to realize why his peers universally greeted the news with sentiments of, “Wish I had your testicular fortitude.” He opened in September, and so far “less than 100” patients have made Ernie Coutermarsh’s commitment.
“Well, I’m living off big loans,” Daly says with a nervous laugh. “I expected a start-up period. I thought it would be shorter, but it’s taking longer to get people to join than I thought it would.”
Indeed, Vicki Gardner may be Daly’s best living advertisement—her cancer-stricken
husband died in November, and Daly was at their side from hospital check-in to hospice arrangements to the wake. But Gardner admits the doctor she loves is fighting the odds.
“It’s a difficult concept to put in place in basically a blue-collar locale,” she says, noting that the same people who spend four figures on a television “think I’m nuts” for splurging on her dream doctor.
Daly genuinely believes the approach will go mainstream, that in fact it may be the only hope for U.S. health care.
“I believe when people realize this level of care is available, they’re going to start to demand it and the health care system is going to have to provide it, because people can vote,” he says, predicting issues of financial inequity will be addressed organically.
“If a doctor spends time with a patient, he gets it right the first time most of the time. The whole system becomes cheaper and there’s so much more money to … subsidize people who are low income.”
But Daly’s in either way now. New Zealand won’t be an option again for a good long while.
“This has to work. This cannot fail,” he says. “There’s no going back.”
Dr. Daly’s office is located at 14 Florence Street, Andover, MA; (978) 470-0001; www.WDalyMD.com