Direct Pay ─ A Simpler Way to Practice Medicine

This books reviews direct pay business models, clarifies what it is, how practices view and have been able to create business models using different fee structures including: fee for care; fee for extra service or fee for non-covered services, and fee for service hybrid models. The author includes interviews with physicians and case studies, a perspective on why and how the subject originated, how and why became important in a challenging health reform environment and suggests trends for the future. The book examines the possibilities of direct pay for improving the practice of medicine through greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Divya Srinivasan Sridhar works in the field of public policy. She has developed her knowledge and experience at a number of public policy organizations including the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), National Housing Trust (NHT), Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS), Verite Healthcare Consulting (VHC), and more. She has delved into a variety of public policy issues during her internships and graduate programs, and has published and written papers on electronic government, social policy, and healthcare, including health reform, healthcare IT, and health informatics. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Texas A&M University in finance, her master’s degree in public policy from UT (University of Texas) Dallas, specializing in social policy/health policy research, and her PhD in public policy at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. Srinivasan is the author ofImpact of Healthcare Informatics on Quality of Patient Care and Health Services (CRC Press, 2013),Health IT as a Tool for Prevention in Public Health Policies (CRC Press, 2014),and Direct Pay: A Simpler Way to Practice Medicine (CRC Press, 2015).