Boutique Healthcare

 
You have a million things on your mind, the kids are annoying everyone in the uncomfortably jam-packed waiting room and you have to make it to the soccer game that starts in 60 minutes – despite the doctor’s 45 minute delay.

Aside from a time machine or Super Man, there are few things that could get you out of this predicament. While you won’t find it in a comic book, a “boutique practice” could be the answer to your problems, and that’s no laughing matter.

Take Dr. Douglas Magenheim’s Montgomery Rd.-based My Doctor, LLC venture, for example. He requires patients to pay an annual $1,500 subscription fee. That fee gives patients 24-hour access to their doctor, seven days a week. Patients still pay for regular services and office visits with their insurance and co-payments.

Patients who are 18 or older can call Magenheim at his office, on his cell phone or via e-mail. If they need to be seen on a Saturday or in the middle of the night, Magenheim opens his Norwood office or goes to the patient’s home.

The subscription fee buys access, time – and ultimately – the privilege of being a part of a small boutique practice. Because Magenheim limits his practice’s client base, patients often receive the results of blood work and other tests on the spot. And, cue the hallelujah-singing choir, patients rarely wait to be seen.
 
Oh, and say goodbye to those short 10-15 minute meetings with your doctor where you have to be one of those end-of-commerical-speed-talkers to get everything in. Magenheim often spends an hour with each of his patients.

This increased quality of healthcare and decreased time that the patient spends on physician visits is attractive to some employers in town because they’re now sending their employees to Magenheim. Because, let’s just be honest, they’d rather their employees be productively working, not bedded up sick all the time or in an obnoxiously delayed waiting room.

That’s the same reason why Personal NEWtrition, based in Blue Ash and Western Hills, is doing so well. Corporations are seeing the benefit of proactive and personalized healthcare. Owner and nutritionist, Chrisy O’Connor, facilitates corporate wellness weight loss programs where the company pays her to come in and implement a 4, 6 or 8+ week weight management program for their employees. The program includes a personal meal plan, nutrition handouts and metabolic analysis for each employee.

 If you’re not lucky enough to have your company cover this program, you can of course purchase it yourself for a few hundred smackers. If your company wants to test the waters with O’Connor and her nutrition counseling business, have her come in for a lunch ‘n’ learn seminar. She’s spoken at many local accounting firms, call centers, manufacturing companies, retail companies, advertising departments, marketing companies, IT departments, HVAC companies, bank offices, business groups, not for profit companies and real estate offices.

April Davidson, a Milford-based client, says, “I was introduced to Personal Newtrition through my place of employment. I have been over weight since I was about 10 years old. I am now 25 years old and have more control over my body than ever before.”

Now, that sounds so much better than a soccer mom that’s pressed for time in an over-packed waiting room, doesn’t it?