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Date: 11/24/2020
WILBRAHAM – An experienced doctor who was part of a busy medical office in Monson recently opened a different type of medical practice on Boston Road.
This doctor’s office, located at 2030 Boston Rd. across from the Home Depot, offers what’s known as subscription – or direct primary – care. Dr. John Diggs, Jr., a 35-year veteran who has treated patients in both urgent care and internal medicine settings, and taught classes at several colleges, is the entrepreneurial physician offering this new practice model.
“Just now, I opened a private office for the first time in my life,” Diggs told Reminder Publishing about the late September opening of his new practice. Prior to this move, Diggs explained he worked in the Monson-based outpatient primary care clinic of Wing Memorial Hospital – now Baystate Wing Hospital – for the past 14 years. “In Monson, I had the biggest practice in the Baystate system,” Diggs shared.
During those years, Diggs said he saw how the insurance model of health care was slowly taking many of the treatment decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients, often transferring them to “someone who has never seen the patient, may have never seen a patient – who decides if [the patient] needs it or not.” Frustrated that he could not always provide the level – or kind – of care he thought patients needed in the “15 to 20 minute visit, of which more than half is spent in documentation than in judging the patient’s needs” that was rapidly becoming the norm, Diggs said he began looking for a more holistic, patient-centered way to practice medicine, which he found in a subscription-type direct care practice.
“The model is new to this area, but not new in the U. S. It’s more prevalent in Florida or California, or the midwest,” he said, adding that between 2,000 and 3,000 of the 900,000 doctors in the U. S. are currently operating this type of medical practice.
A subscription-based care model, Diggs explained, is one where the patient pays a fee for care, either a flat amount or a per-visit cost.
“I’m charging a flat fee,” Diggs explained. “If you come in once a year it’s the same [cost] as if you come in every day. The flat fee [also] covers if I treat a cut, give a joint injection, or scrape precancerous lesion.” In addition the annual fee covers call-in consultations, and ongoing care appointments for chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, illnesses which Diggs said have better patient outcomes with more frequent monitoring.
“My focus is on the individual,” Diggs continued. “Everybody has a different body, everybody reacts differently to prescriptions,” and to courses of treatment.
As a subscription-based practice, Diggs does not accept insurance, though he stressed patients still need to carry some form of medical coverage for “certain testing, hospitalizations, other doctors, such as specialists, and medications,” he said.
“I am clearly not a substitute for insurance,” he stated. To help patients mitigate the overall cost of health care, Diggs said he will be recommending other cash-friendly medical services, such as Radiology Associates of Hartford, which has an office in Enfield, CT, for certain types of testing. “The patient can see what they are charging for testing, as opposed to the insurance cost,” and make their own decision, Diggs said.
So far, Diggs said he has had some patients from his former Monson office join his subscription medical practice, and he is currently accepting new patients, though his plan is to keep this practice model smaller than in the past. “I had 2,500 patients; I can’t do that here. I’m trying to write a check my body can cash,” Diggs joked.
For more information about subscription-based medicine, and the cost to join Diggs practice, visit www.johndiggsmd.com.