Free Market Medicine and Reality

Reality is things as they are.

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), The Necessary Angel

I am a big fan of free market medicine. I am also a realist.

Free market medicine is a reality. It has an association, the Free Market Medical Association, with physician members in all 50 states, and more than 1000 participating businesses interested in cutting their health care expenses and promoting convenient care for their employees.

The Free Market Medical Association holds its first annual conference in Oklahoma City this Friday and Saturday. It will play to a full house.

Its theme is: “Thinkers, Doers, and Users: Forecasts, ideas, and how to create a free market health care practice How to practice free market medicine and how to use free market care to save money and get better results".

Speakers, all of whom are active in the direct pay independent practice movement, will address the following topics:

• Why the Free Market Boom

• Concierge Medicine – Direct Pay and Health Care Leadership

• Samaritan Ministries – Free Market Users

• Legal Green Lights and Red Lights

• Why I Posted My Prices

• How the Market Works

• MedaBid and Changing the Way We Buy Health Care

• The Free Market – Now, Next Year, and in Five Years

Charles Sauer, who is now executive director of the Free Market Medical Association; Keith Smith, MD, an anesthesiologist who co-founded the Surgery Center of Oklahoma; and Jay Kempton, CEO of the Kempton Group in Oklahoma City, who helps Oklahoma City employers find the best, most appropriate, most convenient, and least costly care for their employees, together co-founded the Free Market Medical Assocition and organized its first annual conference.

As I realist, I know direct pay independent practices, as exemplified in concierge medicine, ambulatory surgery centers, and other forms of cash-related practices without third party involvement are growing rapidly throughout the nation.

As a realist, I am also aware these direct –pay independent practices are ideally suited and work best for ambulatory patients, outside of settings directed by third party administered, regulated, and directed care.