**Transcript**
Hey Dr. McNamara here and today I wanted to talk to you guys about a concept called shared medical appointments. So what is a shared medical appointment? Perhaps you have never heard of this term. A shared medical appointment is a doctor patient visit where instead of an individual there is a group of patients that are seen by one or more than one healthcare provider within that same visit.
Now, why would somebody want to participate in shared medical appointments? There are many reasons, but the most important one I'm going to discuss today is the emphasis on overall health and disease prevention versus the current outdated model of symptom management. Some have even termed this sick care versus healthcare.
Now, let me give you an example, take the pandemic for instance. There was no way that any of us could have known such a devastating virus would wreak so much havoc on our society. We were forced to react to the situation and we are primarily still using a reactionary playbook to address this pandemic.
I suggest instead of being reactive, let's be proactive. The best way to be proactive against future disease, future pandemics, and any other unforeseen health concerns that may occur in the future is to promote health so we do not develop any of these preventable diseases, such as hypertension, type two diabetes, metabolic syndrome, all those comorbidities that increases our likelihood of contracting infectious disease. And that we put our bodies into the best possible condition to combat any type of future infectious diseases, any toxins, or any other future pandemics.
Shared medical appointments are a unique and effective way of accomplishing all of these tasks. So I'm sure you're wondering what makes these visits so effective? This type of appointment has been shown to improve patient health outcomes and the biggest driving factors of this is affordability, community, as well as accountability.
Affordability is accomplished because the cost of a visit is significantly less than the individual appointment costs, as well as getting improved patient outcomes, leading to less number of total visits with the shared medical appointments. This is also a service that is billable to insurance. So unlike most concierge medical services, which are getting very popular these days, these services and these appointments can be billed.
Now community is accomplished because it connects the patient with other individuals with similar health concerns in a manner that is very empowering to the patient. We've learned from studying the blue zones that the number one indicator of health and all cause mortality is social connections. It has been shown that there's a bidirectional association between loneliness and chronic pain, and that even affects inflammatory markers, such as highly sensitive CRP.
Accountability is accomplished simply by providing a group of like-minded individuals with similar health concerns with each other, in order to make it easier to have a lifestyle change, and to really get that habit drilled in. It has also been shown that patients tend to trust the advice of another patient over professionals alone, because patients can speak directly from their own experience. This is very powerful.
So I hope now you guys all have a little bit of better understanding of how shared medical appointments can benefit both your health, as well as your bank account. If you are interested in this or you know someone that may be interested, please share this video with them. You can also click on the link attached. That'll have more information for you there, and I hope you guys all have a happy healthy day.
Click to learn more: https://www.healcommunity.com/clinic/mcc-mclaughlin
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