The following letter was sent to Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, Sen. Chris Coons and Sen. Thomas Carper, with a copy sent to the Cape Gazette for publication.
I was shocked to receive a letter from my primary care physician, basically telling me he will only be treating “elite” patients as of December of this year. Apparently the whole practice is joining a conglomerate called MDVIP. You can look it up online. In order to continue being a patient, you will have to join for a yearly fee of $1,800! I can only assume it is an attempt to weed out Medicare and Medicaid patients, as we provide a smaller profit margin.
We in Sussex County already suffer from a lack of physicians. In the three years I’ve lived here, this is the second primary doctor I will lose. I have no idea where I go from here. This will dump a lot of seniors (like me) out in the cold, putting a strain on the few remaining primary physicians that still exist in this area. And I can’t help wonder if this will become a trend for other doctors as well.
I don’t know what, if anything, can be done. I understand it is their right to join such a group. As I said earlier, I’m quite sure it’s all about the bottom line. Being on a fixed income, I simply cannot afford such an outrageous fee just to be a patient (and still pay a co-pay for each visit). Several church members I spoke to happen to go to the same practice and were shocked as well.
I believe the State of Delaware should develop some kind of incentive to bring more doctors to southern Delaware. Our population is growing by leaps and bounds. As more people move here, the strain on our medical providers will only grow.
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