CEO has First Q-Experience.

Even though we have been up and running for a while, our CEO, Norm, has just recently had his own first experience here as a patient. Even though as empolyees we all 'get it', I think we are still all coming from the same old system and are still really amazed at the difference. Here is Norm's description of his experience during his first annual physical with Qliance.

Norm Wu
CEO, Qliance Medical Management Inc.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I run Qliance Medical Management, the company that the providers at Qliance Medical Group contract with to provide its business back end services.

But I’m also a patient at Qliance and I want to report on my extraordinary experience with this practice.

When I lived in California, I used Kaiser Permanente for my health care. They are similar to Group Health here in Washington, but much bigger. My last annual physical there was all of 15 minutes long, of which half the time was spent chatting with my doc about her new twin baby boys. She basically looked in my ears and eyes, listened to my lungs and pronounced me healthy. Oh, I think she may have had me get some lab tests too, but since they were taken after my physical, we really never had a chance to discuss them live.

At Qliance, my first physical was an hour and 45 minutes long. Talk about comprehensive! We reviewed my complete medical history, my medical records from Kaiser (amazing how Kaiser somehow reduced twelve or so years into three and a half pages), the prescriptions I take and how to reduce the cost of those, the need to schedule preventive care (like the colonoscopy that Kaiser would never agree to do, even though I’m over the age at which 99% of the primary care and GI docs recommend the screening), and how to get my weight down so I’d have a reasonable BMI. Clearly, my physician had made sure she scheduled sufficient time to really focus on wellness, having reviewed my medical records ahead of time.

If you’ve never been to a practice where the IT infrastructure supports incredible patient-centered care, you have to try Qliance. How are my lab results? Let’s pull them up on the tablet PC and review them (Qliance can do a number of labs while you’re in with your provider so that the results are available while you are still there, and for ones that need to be sent out, you can come in ahead of time if you like). How much will a colonoscopy cost me? An instant message goes out to a staff member and a minute and a half later, an IM comes back with my insurance company’s reimbursement policy. One more minute and the medical assistant comes in with a 12 page print-out for me from my insurance company about why colonoscopies are needed and how often they will pay for them. A referral to a great local GI doctor is made. Have some benign but unsightly skin blemishes? A little liquid nitrogen later, they’re on their way to becoming history. All 13 of them. No need to get approval from an insurance company (approval which most likely would not have been given since it wasn’t “medically necessary”). And no extra cost, since like all procedures they can do on-site, there is no charge unless you need to keep some expensive do-hickey (like an ankle brace), in which case you just reimburse Qliance for their cost, not some inflated price that encourages them to push unnecessary stuff on you. Oh, and did I mention the hearing test I got from Qliance the next day? No additional cost, of course.

So one week later, I feel invigorated. I’ve started Weight Watchers and I email my Qliance doc my weight every Tuesday so that she can put it in my records and we can talk about how it’s going. I’ve scheduled my long past-due colonoscopy, knowing now that my insurance company will reimburse 80% even though I haven’t hit my $2,500 deductible yet. And I’ve reduced the cost of my prescriptions by one third.

Give Qliance a try. They don’t take insurance, but their flat monthly care fees are incredibly low. You can bundle Qliance with a high deductible insurance plan for comprehensive specialist care and hospital coverage. And they can even point you in the right direction for plans that complement their primary and preventive care. You’ll get phenomenal care for less money. You won’t be sorry. Tell them Norm sent you.