My wife's GP Dr just told her she is becoming a concierge practice

[pinkstarburst]

2. We're seeing more concierge practices where I live too

Worse, a lot of them are happening in specialties where it's already hard to find any doctor who takes insurance, no one is taking new patients, and lots of doctors are close to retirement age.

Very demoralizing when you have to find a new doctor because yours is retiring or you move to town and no one in that specialty is taking insurance or new patients and your options are now the doctor that charges $800 cash per visit, or drive 3 hours to the next town for every appointment, which you may need every 3 months because you're chronically ill.

And there are more and more doctor's offices who are now refusing to take any patients on Medicare or Medicaid anymore. I was just reading the paperwork since I had an appointment yesterday, and sure enough, that specialist had it in bold type that they won't take Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, nothing but traditional insurance or cash pay.

We are not heading in a good direction.