Marblehead Doctor First in Massachusetts to Practice Direct Primary Care

No more copays, no more pesky insurance cards and more time to ask your doctor important questions. This is the vision of Marblehead doctor Jeffrey Gold, the first physician in Massachusetts to open a Direct Primary Care practice.

Direct Primary Care is a model of healthcare in which patients pay the doctor a flat-rate, monthly or annual fee for a range of medical care and services. Dr. Gold’s patients will pay a monthly, age-based fee ranging from $30 to $125, which includes an annual physical exam, according to Marketwired.

Dr. Gold’s new health insurance-free practice, Gold Direct Care, will open in Marblehead on Feb. 1. The practice will be located at 123 Pleasant St., Suite 105 in Marblehead.

In a statement to current and future patients on the practice’s website, Dr. Gold said, “Over the course of the past couple of years, due to many factors, it became very clear to me that my vision for how I wanted to practice medicine was not coming to fruition; at least not in the dysfunction of the current healthcare system.”

He says in the statement that he believes Direct Primary Care will be a major part of the solution to the U.S. healthcare crisis.

Some of the benefits to Direct Primary Care, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), are:

• fewer medical errors / less exposure to risk
• more time with patients
• zero insurance filing

Dr. Gold said opening the first private Direct Primary Care practice in Massachusetts is “terrifying,” according to AAFP.

“I want to be a doctor again. I want to do what I went to school for; I don’t want to be a bean counter,” Dr. Gold told AAFP. “It’s my job to judge the quantity of patients I see.”

Correction: Dr. Gold’s new practice will open on Feb. 1, not Jan. 1 as was previously stated.

image: Dr. Jeffrey Gold via Gold Direct Care on Facebook

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