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Originally Posted by Villages PL
Here's something you might find interesting: It was said there will be 64 doctors and each doctor will be limited to 1,250 patients. That means The Villages Health will be able to handle 80,000 patients.
When this all started it was said that the TV Health Clinics would not take business away from other doctors who are already doing business here. However, with a total population of about 100,000, what do they plan on leaving for the other doctors? 100,000 - 80,000 = 20,000 patients to keep all the other doctors going.
Is that fair? First the developer sells or leases property to them and then sets up clinics to take their business away?
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I don't know whoever said that the creation of Villages Health wouldn't take patients away from existing doctors. What I've discovered is exactly the opposite--the plan is to drive many local doctors out of business here.
In a conversation with one of my doctors, a specialist who was involved with the consulting study commissioned and paid for by the developer regarding healthcare in The Villages and the quality of care in the hospital, she described some of the findings. One of the consultant's conclusions was that healthcare here was limited by the quality of the doctors practicing in this market. The explanation was simple to understand. Many of the doctors practicing here came even before The Villages Regional Hospital was built. Many opened practices with no admitting privileges to any of the hospitals in the area. Many we're educated in non-certified foreign medical schools, were not board-certified and came here knowing they would have to "make a go of it" with patent rosters which were heavily Medicare-insured. That formula has resulted in questionable quality healthcare on average, and a hospital that despite top notch facilities, is not highly regarded. The core problem according to the consultants is the competence of the doctors practicing here.
Those conclusions along with the developer's desire to dramatically improve healthcare in The Villages have lead to several results--the addition of the Moffitt Cancer Center to TVRH, the partnership with the USF medical school, and now the creation of Villages Health.
The doctors who will be hired by Villages Health will all be educated in U.S. medical schools, will all be board certified, and will all agree to work for a salary, which was reported to be quite generous in an effort to attract high-quality doctors. The business model is the same as the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, etc.
When I questioned whether the lower quality doctors would have their hospital admitting privileges withdrawn, the answer was no. The feeling is that sixty-four new, competent physicians, practicing in a patient-responsive way, will drive the lower quality doctors out of business in a relatively short time.
I suppose some can call this unfair, but the practice of medicine in the end is a business. The clientele and patients will migrate to higher quality, more effective, lower cost healthcare. That's the free market economy that most of us embrace.
I haven't made up my mind whether Villages Health is for me. That's why I sought some answers to questions. But I do know that the the developer should be complemented for the actions he's taking, putting lots of money behind his desire to improve healthcare here and not waiting for many of the provisions of ObamaCare to kick in.