1. Do you accept insurance?
Happily, No. When insurance enters into medicine it comes between the patient and the physician. In a standard practice, around 40% of the overhead is devoted to collecting the owed money from third party payors. The mountains of paperwork needed for reimbursement of a simple sick visit is becoming very burdensome to physicians. This leads to more time waiting to see the doctor and less time in the room with him. When you remove the third party payors from the relationship, medicine can be practiced much more personably, effectively, and less expensively.
2. Is this type of service only for wealthy people?
Actually, this type of service could benefit many different types of people. Across the U.S. practices like ours serve a variety of people. Many might see wealthy people, elderly individuals that can’t easily get out of the home, young people with no insurance at all, busy families that benefit from not dragging multiple kids to a standard office, business minded individuals that don’t want to leave the work place for half their day to go to the doctor, and many others. Comparing some of the typical monthly expenditures below quickly shows that this service is affordable for most people.
Cable TV bill – $90 (USA Today Money)
1 Large Coffee Shop Coffee daily – $91 (USA Today Money)
Dining Out – $218 (U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics)
Entertainment – $207 (U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics)
Clothing – $133 (U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics)
Healthcare spending is on the rise. Employees are being saddled with a greater percentage of the healthcare costs associated with their employer based insurance. Monthly premiums and yearly deductibles are well into the thousands of dollars for most people, not to mention the copays for each office visit. Exchanging your current insurance plan for a high deductible plan combined with Black Bag Family Healthcare’s subscription service could save you hundreds of dollars per year. All of these factors combined make the monthly membership fees very affordable in comparison.
3. Is my Black Bag Family Healthcare fee tax deductible?
This is a gray area. Since this healthcare model is fairly new, legislators haven’t made a solid decision yet. You may get varying answers from different CPA’s. We are certain that what you pay for covers your cost of primary care and physicals and therefore is a medical cost. You will need to speak with your tax professional to get an accurate answer. We will be glad to discuss options with your tax preparer.
4. Will my Black Bag Family Healthcare membership meet the ACA requirement for insurance?
Black Bag Family Healthcare is not insurance. It covers all of your primary care needs as well as most of your urgent care needs in one monthly membership fee. In and of its self, it will not meet the insurance requirement for the ACA. Many choose to combine the memberships with a high deductible, catastrophic health plan in order to meet the requirements of the ACA. Often the difference between the high deductible plans and the standard plans are more than that of the membership. Therefore you could potentially save money by combining the two. We have even done some of the leg work for you by working with an insurance provider that can walk you through the available plans and help you come up with a cost effective combination.