The many hats of DPC physician Wendy Molaska

Dr. Wendy Molaska offers many points of view about Direct Primary Care.  In just over 35 minutes, we touch on all of the important aspects of DPC, examined through a variety of lenses including

·         Physician and patient perspectives in DPC and traditional primary care

·         Physicians employed by a big system vs practicing independently

·         Physician incentives in DPC vs in the “sick care” system

·         Copays and deductibles are barriers to primary care access; flat DPC fees remove the barrier 

·         Why “it feels so different” to spend time and energy figuring something out that directly benefits the patient vs spending the same time and energy to save the insurance company a few bucks

·         What DPC advocacy looks like in a Medical Society and in Academic Medicine

·         Scope of practice, transparency and frustration

·         Physician burnout and workforce shortages

·         Educating the public and the patient about DPC

·         Primary care in rural vs urban areas; doctors are returning to rural hometowns as small practices are sustainable in a DPC model 

·         Medicaid debit cards for DPC fees improve the health of high risk patients and avoid expensive emergency department and hospital care