Bakersfield Life

Concierge Medicine – Benefits for Women’s Health

Many physicians with whom we speak are expressing angst regarding converting to a concierge medicine model in today’s economic climate. Is it economic suicide to make this change today? We think not, if the change is made intelligently. Across the board consumers are reducing spending on goods and services. This is not only affecting discretionary purchases like Botox injections and laser eye surgery, but is also affecting primary care services.

Concierge Healthcare and concierge medical practice has many stigma's that have been following it since its inception out of Seattle in the 90's, and many, if not all, of those stigma's are nothing more than urban myths. With the death of Elizabeth Edwards, and the renewed focus in the media on women's health issues, we wanted to take a look at how women's health is an integral part of concierge medicine.

According to recent survey, several disturbing health trends have emerged over the last three years, including:
•    The percentage of women that tested positive for the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia increased from 6.3% to 7.4%.
•    The percentage of women that reported one or more episodes of binge drinking within a month of being questioned increased to 10.6% from 7.3% in 2007. Binge drinking was defined as having five or more drinks on a single occasion.
•    The percentage of women that reported getting annual Pap smears declined from 86% to 78% during the same period.

Compared to three years ago, a higher percentage of women in the U.S. are also obese and have high blood pressure and/or diabetes.

Read full article at http://www.articlealley.com/article_2036772_17.html