My staff and I are often asked this question.   

It is true that many of the best doctors in Austin are choosing to retire earlier than they'd planned because they refuse to make the compromises necessary to practice under the control of the managed care companies.

 I, on the other hand, have no intention of retiring from medicine for many more years because I love my work and my patients, many of whom have also become close friends over the years.    I like doing this every day; so I probably won't retire until forced to do so by advancing age.

 However, I was not willing to give away my time and expertise for the absurdly low (and still falling) fees currently being paid by all the managed care plans.   I was also not willing to destroy the relaxed, warm, caring, comforting environment of our office by turning it into an impersonal, uncaring, high-speed, high-volume assembly line in order to try to compensate for low managed care fees.

I therefore resigned from all of the managed care plans in 2002; and we no longer file insurance claims with any company.   Instead, my office now operates on the straightforward fee-for-service basis that worked so well for everyone (doctor and patient alike) during the first 20 years of my career.     

My office charges fair fees; and we ask our patients to pay in full at the time of service, just as they did before managed care.    At each visit the patient receives a completed HCFA (insurance claim) form filled out by our computer which they can mail to their insurance company in order to be reimbursed for those out-of-network benefits to which they are entitled under their plan.

Our patients are pleased to receive VIP health care, and my staff and I are happy as can be to provide it to them.   We're all "Happy Campers".

So the answer is, "No!   I'm not going to be retiring for many, many more years."

 

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