[INTRODUCTION]
Announcer
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[EPISODE]
Christopher Habig
Hi everybody and welcome to Healthcare Americana. I'm Christopher Habig, CEO and co -founder of Freedom Healthworks and your guide through the evolving world of direct primary care and all the pioneers driving it forward. Today, once again, we are visiting the vault of Healthcare Americana. There have been so many good episodes and discussions over the years of this show that we thought this was one of those that is worthy of bringing back out so that our new audience members can get a taste of our guest and our topic of conversation. So like I said, we're revisiting one of our best
episodes in my opinion and this is with Dr. Jeffrey Gold of Gold Direct Care. Dr. Gold has been like I'll say in the episode coming up a titan of the industry and really a trailblazer for so many physicians before him practicing in the Massachusetts Boston, Greater Boston area. His insights into the DPC industry really sheds the light on a model of healthcare that you know we continue to grow, we continue to gain traction
for our simplicity and for really the patient -centered approach and as a more of an oasis for physicians who are struggling in the typical insurance dominated healthcare or hospital type of a world. The conversation touches on a lot of different subjects but to me the big takeaway is that doctors and patients have a choice.
Christopher Habig
I’m gonna repeat that one. Doctors and patients have a choice when it comes to providing healthcare services and when it comes to receiving healthcare services. Dr. Gold makes a fantastic, fantastic point when he talks about the fact that it's a Stockholm syndrome type of situation when patients believe that they have to have insurance or else they're going to be pushed off the cliff or left on the streets to die.
And Dr. Gold gives a lot of examples of why that is simply not true in how our current healthcare system is shading more and more so to a single -payer dominated system, which, when monopolies, that is bad for people listening to this and, you know, people like me. So, enjoy this conversation. I'll be back at the end of it to, again, recap and give my thoughts on it. But remember, when it comes to physicians and patients,
taking back control of our healthcare industry, doctors have a choice. Dr. Gold went out and did this by himself. He is a do -it -yourselfer.
There are options out there for doctors who say, I need help, I need to get out of the daily rat race, but I don't have the resources, the time, or the ability to do it myself. And that's why companies like Freedom Healthworks exist. So whether you're hearing this for the first time or coming back for a refresher, this episode is once again a testament to the possibilities that emerge when doctors and patients are really given more control over their healthcare choices. So let's dive in and discover why increasing these choices is crucial for the future of healthcare. Enjoy!
Christopher Habig
Hi, everybody. Welcome to Healthcare Americana. I am your host, Christopher Habig, the CEO and co-founder of Freedom Healthworks. This is a healthcare podcast for the 99% of people who get care in America. We talk to innovative clinicians, policymakers, patients, caregivers, executives and advocates who are fed up with the status quo and have a desire to change it. We take you behind the scenes with people across America that are putting patients first and restoring trust in American healthcare.
who is familiar with the direct primary care industry for the past, oh, I don't know, 10 years or give or take. This name really needs no introduction, a titan in the industry, one, somebody who I've looked up to for a good portion of my career and somebody who has amazing insights to share with physicians across the country. Dr. Jeffrey Gold, owner of Gold Direct Care. Dr. Gold, thank you for taking time to join us here on the show.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Thanks for having me, Chris. I really appreciate it.
Christopher Habig
There are a million questions swimming in my mind, so I wanna not get ahead of myself because that's when I lose, you know, I forget how to actually talk and put questions together and that type of a thing. So first I wanna start off, you know, a little bit of the superhero origin story, those are all the rage these days. Give us a little example and give us some kind of, some background on how you founded Gold Direct Care way back when and kind of what led you to it.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Yeah, I think, you know, if you know anyone in healthcare, whether it's a nurse, a doctor, an office worker, a physical therapist, everybody kind of, you know, hears the same issues that come up with people working in the system, whether it's burnout. And I think it needs to be clarified because
The burnout is not due to working hard, taking care of patients. People think that doctors, nurses leave the system to do direct primary care, concierge medicine, or whatever other term, to make their life less hard in terms of work.
You don't go through four years of medical school and a minimum of three years of residency training, working 40 hour shifts with no sleep if you don't mind working hard. The burnout comes from working hard at doing things that have nothing to do with what you train to do and nothing to do with patient care. So I think it's always important to clarify what the burnout really is from. So for all those reasons that you've heard.
many, many times I was getting to the point that I was just sick of listening to myself complain. You know, it got to a point where I said, you know, Jeff, you either gotta shut up and just accept that this is what it is and do it and keep your mouth shut and accept that this is the system and this is your job and make the best of it, like I think a lot of people in the current system do, or.
make a change and do something different. And, you know, the concierge model is pretty prevalent around the greater Boston area. And I knew a little bit about it. And...
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
I don't begrudge any physician or patient or anyone doing it. Just for me, it seemed like we were just further creating a two-tiered system and not really getting to the root of what the problems with our current system are. But again, I don't begrudge anybody doing it. I get all the reasons why they do it. And I had never heard about direct primary care. There was no one really doing it in Massachusetts. And I just happen to be
you know, screwing around on social media one night and saw a tweet, and, you know, it said hashtag DPC and I hit reply all, what's that? And kind of the rest is history. I didn't think that I would ever be this interested in, you know, fixing a system. I always thought like, I just wanted to do my thing and take care of patients, but it's...
You know, and that is the main reason why I did this, but the secondary reason is I've just really dug deep into how corrupt and how screwed up this system is and I'm trying my damnedest to at least leave some type of footprint for change.
Christopher Habig
Kudos to you, obviously. Um, I think that's why I get along with you is that instead of saying, you know what, I'm just going to complain about it every time when I get home about how many patients I saw and all this kind of stuff, throwing my hands up, he actually went out and did something, right? So hats off to you. Kudos to you. Um.
Obviously an inspiration to a lot of people out there. What did it focus? You know, burnout is one of those words in my mind. I hear that and it's almost and this is probably just being in the industry for a while here. But it's a lot of those not necessarily a throwaway word, but people use it a lot of like, oh, burnout, burnout. And I'm sitting here thinking, you know, Dr. Gold, if this was any other industry, there would be massive employer lawsuits against hospitals, employers.
those companies that are putting doctors through this rigmarole, putting them through the wringer, I guess is a better way to say that. When you talk to other physicians who are saying, hey, how did you do this? What went on? Is that kind of pervasive across the spectrum of these docs that say, I can't go out and practice anymore if I don't do this, I'm going to leave medicine altogether?
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Yeah, I think, you know, look, I agree with you that, you know, the term burnout is just kind of a con. I've always said. Yeah, no, it's not moral. It's actually like what I have. And I put patients in the same category as well. This is not to mean that doctors are the only ones suffering, you know, in this system. But the reality is, is it's no different than emotional abuse.
Christopher Habig
It doesn't do it justice, right? It's moral injury I've heard. I mean, it's like.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
And I think we sugarcoat it. I think we try to beat around the bush here, but the reality is, we now have the highest rate of suicide of any profession in the US. People wanna do yoga and put band-aids and breathing exercises on it. And it's not that those things aren't helpful, but the reality is it's just like everything else.
You know, you got to get to the root of the problem and not just shift, you know, the deck chairs on the Titanic. You know, the course of the boat and the iceberg were the problem, not, you know, the fact that there was water filling the boat. That was a consequence of what, you know, the problem is. And, you know, we, and I think this is prevalent in a lot of aspects of American culture and...
in general in our way of thinking is what's the immediate bandaid to fix the problem so we don't have to sit in any emotional or physical discomfort. But the reality is if you really want to mitigate change and have change happen, you have to be willing to sit in that emotional and physical discomfort to get through it. If you want to evoke meaningful change, otherwise the rest is just, you know.
A waste of time, in my opinion.
Christopher Habig
Yeah, it's just...
It's the status quo, right? You gotta push a little bit for someone to say like, oh look, there's a different way to do this. This is nuts to continue going on. I think it's a shame that it's happening to physicians in our country here, some of the best and brightest, most empathetic people out there who actually devote their lives, like you said earlier, to caring to other people. You bring up an interesting point on, it's not just doctors and nurses who are suffering from emotional abuse and suffering
the system. I always say it's like running Secretariat every single day of the week. It's just impossible. He's going to break down at some point in time. You can't do that on Redline every single time. You brought up patients. Dive a little bit more into what you're seeing there, because that's an interesting concept that I don't think we hear enough about of patients getting lost in the system and patients suffering due to the current economic model of healthcare.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Yeah, I mean, I think they're the most important because the reality is, you know, we're patients too. You know, I mean, we're all patients at some point. And you know, what kind of system do we want for ourselves, for our family members, for our loved ones? You know, I've, I've kind of phrased it in a couple ways in the past. You know, one is this emotionally abusive Stockholm syndrome type issue where
you know, when you have someone coming in an abusive relationship, the first thing you tell them is, how do we help you extract yourself from that relationship? And unfortunately, you know, with the Stockholm Syndrome type model, you see psychologically people adapting to who their abductor is, or abuser is, in order to survive. I mean, it's a survival mechanism.
So I've framed it in that way in the past, which I think a lot of people have, but the other model that I've kind of framed it in is the addiction model. If you ever read a really good book is Dreamland, which was written by Sam Canones. He is the one that kind of exposed the whole Purdue Oxy issue in the LA Times and wrote like a huge piece about it. And he wrote this book called Dreamland.
which is really about how the Mexican drug cartels got heroin, black tar heroin into the US, how they sold it and how did they get people hooked? And it's honestly probably the most brilliant business model you could ever come up with. And it's a major reason why we're dealing with, the issues we're dealing with in terms of addiction. And that's, I hate to say it, but that's kind of what I call the cartel.
did with health insurance and healthcare and, you know, basically got the American public to believe that everything in medicine is so expensive that if you don't use insurance to pay for it, you're going to be left on the street broke, dying alone, no one's going to take care of you and put this fear of God in. So what do you do? You give people free stuff, you know, you give them, you know, this $10 copay and everything else is free and
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
you get people hooked and now they're hooked and now the sickness is hitting them and they're not sure how to get out. And even when they are trying to get out, it's like the pain of withdrawal is so bad that they relapse and can't pull themselves back out. And it's psychology. It's not that they're...
I think consciously doing anything wrong. It's just, that's how you behave when you're struggling with an abusive relationship, whether it's with a person or a substance.
Christopher Habig
It's a great take and I'm kind of thinking here, you know, in this example, I'm trying to identify, you talked about stock homes, I'm trying to figure out who the abductor, who that captor is. Is that the insurance companies? Is that just this pervasive education that, or miseducation, I would say? Or is that, you know, fee for service hospitals?
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
I think it's a combination of all the above. I always say I'm not anti-insurance. I'm anti-insurance for dumb things. I say I'm not anti-government, I'm anti-ineffective government, or self-interested government. But the irony is, what's the opposite argument to what we have now that a lot of the public wants?
and our policymakers want to push a single payer, single payer, single payer. I'm like, guess what? You already have it. And I'll explain what I mean by that. What we have is this distorted form of socialized medicine under the guise of insurance. We don't have health insurance. It's not health insurance. Insurance is a financial transfer of risk. If health insurance worked the way that
I think it should work and that any other type of insurance works. The $250 mammogram that a woman needs every year to screen for breast cancer wouldn't be free. They would just pay the $250 or probably even lower than that to get their annual mammogram. And then God forbid if there was a tumor or an abnormality that they needed follow-up testing, biopsy, imaging, whatever.
your insurance would protect you against the financial ruin of that unknown. We say we're going to give you that carrot, we're going to give you that free mammogram that you think is $1,500, $2,000, but then we're going to expose a majority of Americans to a $3,000, $6,000 deductible. So it doesn't make sense. And so what I tell people when they say, what do you mean we have a single payer? If you've ever seen The Wizard of Oz, it's like there's the guy behind the curtain.
Right? The way we have things right now is you have the government, particularly Congress behind the curtain, and you have these multi-billion dollar, rich, profitable insurance companies in front of the curtain that are allowed to have corruptive behavior and high and rob people blind because of the man, the people behind the curtain are allowing them to do it. If we had.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
a single payer system in name, you just flip who the positions in the curtain. And what I mean by that is like take Medicaid plans. Most Medicaid plans are actually managed by private insurers. Look at what's happening with Medicare Advantage plans. They're all managed by private insurance companies. So that's kind of just what we would end up having. And so it's just kind of rinse and repeat. And
And who do you want to blame? You can blame anyone. I mean, there's a lot to blame. Doctors aren't off the hook either. I mean, we, generations prior, allowed this crap to happen. And now we're sitting there saying, oh, I'm retired playing golf all day, while the next generation of physicians and nurses and patients are suffering.
Christopher Habig
You mentioned legacy before and I think that's exactly what it is. Like, you know, sins of the past are revisited upon this current generation of physicians out here and, you know, great points. And I appreciate the kind of the behind the scenes look at how insurance, because I totally agree with you that when someone says, oh, we just got to turn to the government to solve it. I'm like, we're nine out of 10 steps already there. I'm right there with you. Instead of just, you know, the government being the single payer, we have four.
five that already do it and if you don't like this guess what you're really gonna hate when there's an absolute monopoly because anybody who's taken economics at a high school level can understand the monopolies are very good for the monopolist very bad for the consumers we're talking good
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
And you can't have, you know, as you go back to economics, and I say this all the time, I never took an Econ 101 class in four years of college, but you cannot have an unlimited demand for a product or service, in this case, healthcare or access to it, with a very limited supply. Like it just, this is Econ 101. It just doesn't work. And just as you can't have price control.
without quality and price transparency. So these basic, again, getting back to what I said at the beginning, you can't just keep plugging your finger in the dyke, like you've got to actually take a step back and look and say, what are the fallacies that are allowing this stuff to happen? And as I always say, if we really want this system fixed,
then doctors and patients included, every citizen in this country should be riding in the streets about this crap because they're getting robbed every goddamn day. And it's enough. You now have other options. 30 years ago, other than maybe high-priced concierge medicine, there were no other options, whether it was primary care, whether it was specialty care, now there's options. So stop complaining about it and actually do something about it.
because it really is their money. You know, I always, you know the whole, my employer pays for it. No, they don't. You pay for it. Like, wake up.
Christopher Habig
Thanks for watching!
Absolutely, absolutely. And people look at that. And we've had, you know, from our standpoint, our company Freedom Health Works, we provide a direct primary care plan. We'll actually provide a direct dental and direct optometrist plan coupled with a health share. And we've had team members who come up and say, I'm making more money than I ever had before because I don't have to pay for that massive insurance benefit coming out of it. And guess what? I actually have a better relationship
you know, trusted medical team that's caring for me, actually gives a shit about me, and I got a better health plan coming out of it. I'm curious, Dr. Gold.
And once again, for the audience out there, we're talking to Jeffrey Gold of Gold Direct Care. Curious, what are some of the things that your detractors say when you were starting up your practice? Did anybody come up to you and say, hey, you're going to just leave people to die out on the streets. You're not going to take care of the most vulnerable. What were some of the some of the naysayers? What would they tell you?
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
I mean, it was anywhere from the general, this is never going to work in Massachusetts. You know, everybody has insurance. What do they need you for? And I was always like, and I'm like, yeah, I didn't realize that insurance provided medical decision care, you know, making and, you know, sat at the bedside or in the exam room with you and actually did your exam. That was all news to me. You know, and then it went to the specific stuff of, you know, how
Christopher Habig
Romney Care, very famous.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
not everyone can afford this. And I say, okay, there's a small percentage of the country that truly cannot afford what we do, but I think there's ways around that if policymakers would actually listen to the people actually doing what we do instead of, I always ask people, I say, do you think the justice or the legal system
you know, could use some reparation or, you know, fixing and everybody universally answers yes. So I say, would you bring a bunch of doctors in to do it? No. Okay, then why do we have a healthcare system that's basically being controlled by a bunch of business people and bureaucrats? Like, you get what you pay for. So, you know, here we are, but I think that the...
two specific arguments or that not everybody can afford it, or that like you said, you're gonna leave people to die in the street. My argument to rebuttal to the first one is if you look at statistics and these are simple things you can Google, what percentage of the American population has a cell phone? About 98%. If then if you look and see what the average cell phone monthly bill is, it's usually around 75, I think 80, maybe a little higher.
So 98% of the American population could afford DPC. It's whether they want to or not. And that's how a market works. If they don't want to and they don't see the value, that's okay. We have the system that they can fall right back into, but don't complain about it. Okay, because you can afford what we do, you just don't want to. And that's okay, that's your choice. The second argument about scaling this downstream
to the people who are underserved and truly need this, I think they're the ones that truly need this. If the government actually gave a shit about that population, they would actually be coming to us being like, how do we get you docs to do either, you know, where we give subsidies or, you know, we give an EBT card where people can go buy Coca-Cola.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
but we can't give them $100 or $150 a month card to access a direct primary care physician, like, please, it's...
Christopher Habig
That's because the health data is far more valuable than consumer behavior because that's already tracked to the credit cards. There's your answer right there on why that's not happening. That was from Seema Werner's mouth herself when she was in charge of CMS. They only care about the data.
jeffrey_s_gold_md (22:33.308)
But the reality is, whether you look at Medicare or Medicaid, just like employer groups, they already have the data that they need to see whether this works or not. They have downstream claims that they can look at, be like, how many urgent care visits, how many ER visits did we reduce, how many specialty visits did we reduce. This could be the easiest study and pilot ever done. You already have.
know where to get the data from and have it readily accessible, it's just they don't want to. Like, plain and simple. They don't want to get out of the middle of controlling the dollar. And as we know, who controls the dollar controls the puppets. It's plain and simple.
Christopher Habig
Yep, I think you're right there, you know, the C word, the control, the control aspect of it. And of course, in government, you know, you don't use your budget, guess what happens next year? It goes down. I mean, that's the oldest trick in the book here. Once again, we're talking with Dr. Jeffrey Gold of Gold Drug Care. Dr. Gold, I want to focus a lot, I want to focus our time on really the macro, what I consider to be macro, still a very fledgling industry.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
That's all it's about.
Christopher Habig
You spend a lot of time going to conferences, giving speeches. I've seen you on the stage a few times and always enjoy what you have to say there. In your mind. And this is this is a question that I kind of rack my brain with all the time. Why are we only seeing about 2000 to 3000 practices nationwide? Why isn't this 200000? Why aren't we at 300000 practices? As we agree that this is a great business model, it helps a physician, it helps a patient. Why aren't people moving in droves?
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
I think it gets back to, I think it's much less a financial issue, even though that's what people use as an excuse. I think it's much more of a psychological issue like we talked about earlier. You know, this is what people know. And this is, even though it's not working for them, this is what they're used to. So I think that's almost like breaking that addiction or uneducating.
and then having to go back and educate as to why this actually makes sense for them. That's a really, really hard thing. And I think that is the major reason why it's such a challenge to see more. Number two is obviously the financial risk. I mean, I'm pretty open about, you know, my situation where I had a patient who, you know, is my angel investor and helped me, you know, get this going, but.
the lack of education and medical training about how to run a business, no matter whether you're a DPC or a specialist, or I think it's disgusting that there is no teaching on the business of insurance, how hospital systems work, and no curriculum on that, going through medical training, whether it's residency, medical school, whatever. But...
You know, I have to take organic chemistry, which I never use, but nothing practical. So, you know, I think so I think the psychology, the education or lack thereof, the financial concerns about having a mortgage to pay and kids to take care of and bills to pay and student loans to pay to sit there and take that leap when there's no guarantee that people are going to come pay you. If anything, it's probably more of a guarantee.
like in my situation, that's gonna be plugging tooth and nail to get people in the door and get them out of that psychological addiction or Stockholm syndrome that they're in. So I think until there's a shift in the demand for this, and I look at the law of numbers, and even though I don't agree that employers should have anything to do with health insurance, that goes back to World War II.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
it's not going to change anytime soon. So when you look at, you know, where people get their benefits from, a majority of people in the U.S. get them through their employer. So that's why I think the employer benefits advisors are such a huge way for us to get more of that demand up so that I can go to a colleague and say, you know,
look, I'm not in a situation that I can salary you or provide benefits or I can help out a little bit, but we have a company in this area with 300 employees that are going to be all yours to start with, whether it's an on-site clinic, near-site clinic, whatever, until people start demanding change, it is going to be very, very difficult. I mean, don't get me wrong, doctors are doing it. They're...
Some of them are doing it right out of residency. Others are leaving their employed jobs. But you come to an area like this, I mean, we're seeing specialty groups now bought up by hospital systems. Like no one is immune to this. And patients and employers need to start asking who do they want making their medical decisions? And then with that, who am I gonna pay to do that?
Christopher Habig
Do you believe that there is a patient demand problem or a lack of supply from just a sheer number of DPC practices out there? Talking about just basic economics is kind of a pervasive theme amongst us.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Yeah, I think in this case, it's a combination of both. I think you have such a broken down group of people on both sides, both the physicians and the patients that I think everybody's just trying to tread water and figure out how to survive. And that's why I think it is so important that we unify that schism that's been created where so many patients
don't think the doctor is looking out for their best interest or whatever. And it's because of all these third parties, you know, like you never, unless you're in an open relationship, bringing a third party in usually doesn't do anybody good, right? And here we are in this other important relationship where people are telling you all their good secrets, their bad secrets in an exam room.
But then we have third parties ephemerally floating around in that exam room making the decisions. So I think people just need to start asking the really, really hard questions. And that means taking accountability, looking in the mirror. I was part of the problem too. When I was employed by the hospital system, I had no idea how much money was taken out of my paycheck for health insurance. I just thought I had a card. I didn't care.
I was part of the problem. I was a doctor practicing in a system where I knew what nothing cost, didn't know anything about quality, was just doing what I was told to do by the system that I worked for. So I think the hardest thing for a lot of Americans to do and people in general is look in the mirror and be like, what good am I bringing to the table and what not so good am I bringing to the table and how do I fix the not so good part?
That's what everybody needs to start doing is asking those really hard questions and looking in the mirror and be like, how am I contributing to this problem? Because we're all to blame. And when you're in a David versus Goliath situation, you know, when you're dealing with some of the richest corporations in America and a government that's allowing them to run amok, as you probably see me put on LinkedIn a lot, I say, if you want to kill a bee, stop feeding it. That's the only way to kill it.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
You can't, we don't have, you know, the manpower right now in that supply side to make the demand automatically happen. Right? So you got to stop feeding the beast that we've built. And we're all guilty of that.
Christopher Habig
I'm curious, as you travel the country and you're asked to speak at different conferences and conventions, is there any one or two pervasive thoughts amongst the attendees, amongst the speakers that really frustrates you? And I'm thinking things that might even limit doctors jumping into this industry, things that people will say, and you're like, well, that's not very right. That's counterintuitive of what we're trying to build here as a DPC industry.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Yeah, I mean, I think the big one, you know, if you really want to get me fired up and bring out, you know, the former hockey player side of me, you know, is tell me that, you know, I'm doing this to make myself have an easier life and be rich. Like that's one way you're just I'll go toe to toe with you all day.
You know, that's coming more from the policy side. I think some of the things I hear on the doctor side of things is, you know, this sounds so great. You know, but I can't do it. Why? Why you went through four years of college, four years of medical school and three years of minimum of residency, and you're telling me you can't figure this out? You know, that's frustrating to me, but I get where that comes from because I was
probably guilty of that too. And I think on the patient side, the frustration on my end is just listen. When I left my hospital-based job, I left about 3,000 patients, and after 10 years, only 100 came with me. And where were the people just asking me, what are you doing and why are you doing it? Least educate me and...
You know, and then, like I said, if you make a decision that this isn't for you or you're unsure about it, that's OK. You have the right to choose. But, you know, at least get informed and at least get educated. Don't just sit there and think it's eight hundred fifty dollars a month when it's, you know, eighty five, which you go spend, you know, in a bottle of wine every Friday night at dinner. It just comes back to, again, I think, personal accountability.
all of us looking within to say, okay, how do we fit? How do we fix this? What can we do to fix it? What's our part? And we all have a part in that.
Christopher Habig
I'm curious, Dr. Gold, as we, this will be our last question here, kind of wrapping up here. I'm curious, do you, whenever you get somebody who comes up to you, a high school student, a college kid comes up and says, oh, this is so cool, I want to be a doctor. Do you recommend that they go to medical school? Do you say, hey, that's a great idea? I would do it again.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Um, that's a really, throw me a real screwball there. That's a tough one. Um, I was waiting for the right down the middle fastball. Um, I think it's a really hard question to answer right now, to be honest. I think that depending on what educate health, you know, medical education is going to look like, you know, in the near future, um, it's tough for me to answer that. I mean, I obviously want people to do what they
feel is going to make them happy. And, you know, as we know, like it's not a job when you enjoy doing what you're doing. And that's truly, you know, how I feel right now. But I, I don't see the type of solid change that we really need happening in a quick fashion. I think it's going to be a very long drawn out, you know, it's we didn't get here overnight. You know, it's not going to get fixed overnight.
I mean, I always want people to pursue their passion, but I think it's very, very challenging to tell them, yes, go to med school without the corollary of, let me give you the heads up though, of what things are gonna look like. Because I think we all go in with this idealistic view, like you said, of helping people, healing people, having a job that challenges us academically and cerebrally and emotionally every day.
finding out that what we're signing up for is a little bit different in reality. So, you know, I think it's, I think college students, high school students that are thinking about medicine, I really encourage them to find a local, you know, physician that they can sit down and grab coffee with or shadow around for the day and really see what it looks like before they make that decision.
Christopher Habig
What I'm hearing is if you go to medical school, make sure you go with the idea that you're going to go into direct care very shortly after that, right?
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
I mean, that's what I want to do. I mean, that's my whole mission. And, you know, I feel like I've accomplished stage one, which is I've shown that I can have a profit, you can have a profitable DPC practice in a highly regulated state like Massachusetts where everybody has insurance. But now, you know, my...
mid to long term goal is build a system that makes it easier for my colleagues and patients to get into this and not have it be the niche market it is but actually have it be the norm. You know I always end my talks with you know the Buckminster filler quote and I always butcher it but you know you can't fix you know the current system you got to build break it down and build a new one that works and I think that that's kind of.
you know, pretty emblematic of what we need to do with healthcare.
Christopher Habig
I couldn't agree more, which is why I always enjoy talking to you and whenever I see your name on the docket, I'm like, that's where I'm going to go. Because I...
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Nice. Well, I appreciate that. It means a lot because I, as I told you aside, I hate public speaking. I really do. And I've gotten better at it and, but I still, you know, get the nerves. So I really appreciate you saying that means a lot.
Christopher Habig
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And when you see eye to eye and you say, all right, we're going to, you know, Freedom Health Group is trying to fix it from our direction and trying to empower a lot of physicians to get them up and going and give them a nice playbook to be able to do that. And from your side, goodness gracious, you know, you can influence so many different people and show them that, hey, this is real. And I think that's what's one of the biggest barriers to the industry right now is people are like, oh, that's a nice thought, you know, that's a nice little utopian little thought right there. And people like you are, are showing them that, hey, this is real.
impact on people's lives in every single day situations. And it's powerful.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
And I'll finish Chris just by adding not to cut you off, but I think that you brought just to echo your sentiment of it being real is I think it's so hard. Part of the reason why it is so hard to sell this, whether it's to an employer or a doctor or a patient, is they don't get to see how the sausage is made. So like come see it like actually, you know, see the difference between the primary care model that you're used to.
versus what we're doing here. My patients love it when I host people to shadow or whether it's an employer, a doctor, they don't care. They want people to see that there is a different way. So take that concept and actually make it real to yourself, you know?
Christopher Habig
That's brilliant. Dr. Jeff Gold, Gold Direct Care. Thank you for joining us here on Healthcare Americana.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold
Yeah, thanks for having me, Chris. And I appreciate you having me on.
Christopher Habig
Thanks again for joining us on this enlightening journey back to our discussion with Dr. Jeffrey Gold at Gold Direct Care.
Big takeaway for me is that it's clear in this conversation when it comes to healthcare, and I know it's not like a broken record, but one size does not fit all. The DPC model is more than just an alternative. I think it gives people hope. It's a beacon of hope for a future where doctors and patients alike have the freedom, I love that word, obviously, to choose what's best for their health without outside interference. Now, as continued to navigate the complexities of healthcare,
that choice seems to be muddled or seems to be confused. And a lot of people will think that, man, when I'm sick and I need to go get care, what am I supposed to do? And I tell people all the time, if you want to change healthcare, you got to ask the price. And so listening to Dr. Gold's insights remind us that the right choices at the right time can have a profound impact on the quality of care, the patient satisfaction, and the overall efficiency of healthcare.
Now, I hope this episode has inspired you to think about the power of the alternatives in healthcare and what that means for actually improving our overall system. If you're intrigued by the DPC model or want to learn more about other innovative healthcare solutions, visit our website, healthcareamericana.com. Join the conversation, shoot us a note on somebody that you think we should interview and who you want to hear from. Your voice and your choice matter in building a healthier future. And as always, like and subscribe to all of our videos and content out there. We're always looking for
new listeners who want to take some time to maybe learn something new or maybe it just reinforces what they already know. So until next time, stay informed, stay healthy, and keep pushing for the choices that will redefine healthcare for the better. Once again, I'm Christopher Habig and you've been listening to Healthcare Americana.
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