Doctor Paul, MD

A small-town doctor working to preserve the art of old-fashioned primary care.

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This week in Medicine 12/26/14

December 26, 2014 by Paul Williams Leave a Comment

Report: Nonprofit hospitals seizing patients’ wages to collect medical debts. In a 3,500-word story co-published with NPR, ProPublica (12/19) reports on the use of lawsuits and wage garnishment by some hospitals to collect on medical debts. The piece says that while no one tracks how many hospitals sue their patients and how frequently, “ProPublica and ... Continue Reading

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This week in Medicine – 12/13/14

December 13, 2014 by Paul Williams Leave a Comment

Many new items came up this week that I will comment on. 1. Primary care physicians likely to see cut in Medicaid Payments (Congressional Quarterly 12/12). Medicaid (welfare) has not kept up with the overhead costs of a visit. The doctor has to pay to see a medicaid patient – a loosing proposition. So to ... Continue Reading

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This week in Medicine, December 4, 2014

December 5, 2014 by Paul Williams Leave a Comment

Two items came by my desk this week. 1. More medications are going to be excluded next year from formularies because of price, Bloomberg News (1/26, Langreth), Express scripts will exclude 66 brand name drugs and CVS health 95 drugs from the 2015 formularies. (prices of pharmaceuticals are rising to unconscionable levels even in the ... Continue Reading

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This week in Medicine October 11, 2014

October 11, 2014 by Paul Williams Leave a Comment

Topping the news this week is greed from Pharmaceutical companies: 1. A 60 minute report (October 5th) describes a cost of a cancer drug going from $33,000 for a treatment course to $98,000, because a competitor came out with a similar drug for $100,000 per treatment course, see the link to watch the 14 minute ... Continue Reading

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This week in Medicine September 27, 2014

September 27, 2014 by Paul Williams 2 Comments

Four worthwhile news items this week are worth repeating. – 1. The failed, not secure federal healthcare.gov website has so far cost $2.1 billion dollars (Bloomberg News 9/24,Wayne) and to date $73 billion has been spent to implement the Affordable Care Act (The Hill 9/25, Viebeck). Remember the government doesn’t earn money, only prints it ... Continue Reading

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About Doctor Paul

Dr. Paul Williams, MD is a small-town family practice doctor working in Centralia, Washington. He works from the same office where his primary care practice was established by his father over 38 years ago. He believes strongly that the art of the old-fashioned primary care doctor is an important feature of our medical system that should be preserved and protected from excess interference from insurance companies and government regulation alike.

Due to changes in the health care industry and regulations affecting it, and in an effort to preserve the art of old-fashioned primary care, Dr. Paul has shifted his practice to a Direct Care model, meaning that patients pay an affordable monthly fee to purchase primary care health care services directly, rather than having their services billed through an insurance company.

This blog is intended to help Dr. Paul's patients (and anyone else!) understand the changes the medical industry is going through, and to provide information about the Direct Care model of primary care.

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