I’m often asked, “Why did you write this book?”

The answer is simple: I wanted to change the world! I wanted to specifically change the world of healthcare. I wanted to help fix our broken system and share what I have learned in the last seven years by opening my own private medical practice and opting out of HMO medicine and Medicare. I wanted to help doctors and patients understand that there is a simple solution to our current broken healthcare system. The solution lies in a return to direct financial relationships between patients and doctors, in which the patient pays the doctor a fee for his services and the doctor acts as the patient’s advocate for all health and medically related issues. Simple!

So how does such a system benefit both doctors and patients?

It allows patients to:

• Have access to their doctor, 24/7 basis for medical emergencies.
• Be seen on the same day for any serious medical problems.
• Have TIME to address true preventative medicine, such as getting personalized advice from your doctor regarding exercise programs, weight loss and nutritional programs.
• Experience continuity of care, so they are not shuffled from specialist to specialist without a captain of their medical ship.
• Develop a personal relationship with their physician—a return to the days of Marcus Welby—when patients were actually cared for by their doctor.

It allows primary care physicians to:

• spend the TIME they need to practice what they were trained in medical school to do.
• Get off the medical treadmill, running from room-to-room, seeing 20 to 30 patients per day, spending only 8 to 10 minutes with each patient.
• Read and stay on top of their continuing medical education, enjoying the pattern of life-long learning that is so critical to the practice of good medicine.
• Lead healthier lives themselves, taking the time to exercise and eat well, spending time with their families and actually have something to give a patient at their time of greatest need.
• Earn a salary that is comparable to that of a specialist, such as a cardiologist, gastroenterologist or radiologist.