Was just thinking that there should be doctor clubs, where a bunch of people pool their money to hire a dedicated general physician. Or to have a shared tailor, or group cafeteria, or whatever.

The ratio of people covered to specialists would probably determine whether it’s feasible. You’d want the specialist to still get paid a healthy (and guaranteed) salary and to have a more satisfying relationship with customers. And the members of the club to get better service / product than they would otherwise with middlemen taking a cut.

  • moistclump@lemmy.world
    82·
    9 months ago

    No one is answering your question.

    I live in a town of about 5,000 people. General practitioners near me make about $500,000. If everyone was forced to pay in that would be $100 each a year.

    But then there would be a lease and an administrator doing the appointments etc… Hopefully the administrator can handle the payments too. Lease $5,000 a month and administrator $5,000 a month. Ooh medical supplies. I’m not sure. $2,500/ month? Still only adds $30/year for those 5,000 people.

    1 practitioner would be available on average 20 minutes per person a year (assuming 4 weeks off and 40 hour work weeks) but I bet there’s around 500 people who take up most of the doctors time with their stuff and then thousands that only see them once every couple of years.

    To scale up would add another $100 a year per doctor per resident of this 5,000 person team and probably up to 3 or so doctors the other costs wouldn’t change significantly.

    It’s an interesting thought. Thanks for asking!