Renew Family Medicine

11/11/2025

11/09/2025

11/09/2025

11/07/2025

Knew that the other insurance companies would follow Aetna and Cigna's footsteps. For those wanting to use their insurance to cover their care, get ready for even more difficulty finding a doctor.

"Anthem Blue Cross plans have joined UnitedHealth and Cigna in taking extreme measures to satisfy Wall Street but penalize hospitals and potentially thousands of doctors and physician groups that Anthem excludes from its provider networks.

What Anthem is proposing is not only extreme but brazen in that it goes way beyond what any managed care company I know of has ever undertaken to pad its bottom line by reducing patient choice. It wouldn’t just restrict access to certain providers, it would effectively eliminate access.

Anthem, which is owned by the for-profit corporation Elevance Health Inc., has notified hospitals in 11 of the 14 states where it operates that starting in January it will slash reimbursements by 10% every time a doctor who works in the hospital – but who is not in Anthem’s network – provides care to a patient enrolled in an Anthem health plan.

The move clearly will save Elevance money and help it meet its shareholders’ profit expectations, but it will be a potential nightmare and administrative expense for thousands of hospitals and outpatient facilities. And it could put many independent physician practices out of business."

Elevance’s Anthem Blue Cross plans are joining Big Insurance’s latest profit play — cutting payments to hospitals and providers under the pretense of reducing patients’ out-of-pocket costs.

11/05/2025

From a sports medicine physician Dr. Peng

These 5 exercises will help fix knee pain by correcting muscle imbalances.► Things my patients have found helpful:I get a lot of questions about what equipm...

11/04/2025

Whenever I tell my current patients that I used to have over 2,000 patients in my panel as a hospital employed physician, most of them are shocked. This is not unique to my former employer - this is the reality for all employed PCPs of insurance based practices. It is no wonder that my established patients had a difficult time getting an appointment to see me and were told the wait is 3 months. Hospital systems make more money when the patient per physician ratio is high, while telling physicians that "we need to care for the poor and vulnerable" to excuse the unsustainably high ratio.

Insurance companies incentivize high volume based care rather than high quality care based on time spent with patients. When insurance companies continue to lower their reimbursement to medical offices, they create a ripple effect of causing the hospital systems to add more patients to already overburdened clinicians. A physician who can see four patients (or more) per hour generates more revenue for the hospital system than the same physician spending an hour with each patient, explaining pathophysiology of disease, mechanism of action of medications, reviewing side effects, truly discussing the risks vs benefits of any medical interventions, or making a plan for lifestyle changes.

Our dysfunctional healthcare system eats away at our humanity as patients and as physicians.

I was disenfranchised with the limitations on how I could care for my patients and felt morally injured to my core. I had contemplated quitting medicine to work at Costco. Many of my colleagues have already left medicine to pursue nonclinical roles.

Dr. Capella put into words what most of us felt:
"But staying in that system—where every minute was tracked, where I was expected to squeeze complex care into 15-minute visits (or less), where I spent more time documenting and playing whack-a-mole with my inbox than connecting with families—was slowly destroying me."

Thankfully, the Direct Primary Care model has allowed me to stay in medicine and continue to care for patients. We cannot fix the broken system by breaking the people providing care.

https://www.facebook.com/share/14ScWNGKJAW/

Direct primary care offers a sustainable path for burned-out physicians to continue practicing meaningful medicine while resisting a broken, volume-driven health care system.

11/04/2025

"Since 2014, the seven largest for-profit insurers have taken in over $10 trillion in revenue — much of it from taxpayer-funded programs and health care businesses they now own outright.

What I found in my review was that between 2014 and 2024, the seven largest for-profit insurers alone reported making more than half a trillion dollars in profits on revenues of more than $10 trillion. And one company – UnitedHealth Group – has made nearly as much in profits as the other six combined, largely by taking advantage of the ACA’s shortcomings and by gaming the Medicare Advantage program."

Since 2014, the seven largest for-profit insurers have taken in over $10 trillion in revenue — much of it from taxpayer-funded programs and health care businesses they now own outright.

11/02/2025

https://foodfinder.oregonfoodbank.org/?campaign=0&distance=nearby&q=97229

Find free groceries, fresh produce and nutritious meals near you through Oregon Food Bank’s network of food pantries and meal sites.

11/02/2025

Happy National Direct Primary Care Day!

10/31/2025

Did you know about 85% of breast cancers occur in women who have no family history of breast cancer? Do not let social media accounts scare you away from getting screened for breast cancer. Early detection is key!

We pulled this slide from our previous post to highlight it:

MAMMOGRAM RADIATION IS TINY COMPARED TO COMMON EXPOSURES.

Let's put the "radiation risk" in perspective: You'd need 2,500 mammograms to equal the radiation risk of developing breast cancer. Reality? Most women get about 20 mammograms in a lifetime. That means mammograms are 125x more likely to SAVE your life by finding cancer early than to ever cause any harm.

A single mammogram (0.5 mSv) has less radiation than:
- A round-trip flight from NYC to LA (0.6 mSv)
- Annual background radiation from sun, radon, and foods (3 mSv/year)
- Even a banana emits radiation!

Don't let fear keep you from life-saving screenings. 💗

10/31/2025

Resources for food

"Care To Share Call Center

Our C2S call center sets appointments for food pantry visits, dental, vision, financial coaching, general wellness, and mammogram appointments.

Phone lines are open Monday- Friday from 9 am - 1:00 pm

Call us at (503) 591-9025"

Our C2S call center sets appointments for food pantry visits, dental, vision, financial coaching, general wellness, and mammogram appointments.