Interview with Dr. Patrick Williams
Topic: Intro to OneMD Local Concierge Physician Group
Guest Name: Dr. Patrick Williams, M.D.
Guest Credentials: Dr. Patrick Williams, M.D.
Discussion Details: Introduction to local Concierge Physician Group. Learn more about why they are different and why it can be a great benefit to have concierge doctor.
Benefits of Watching: Introduction to Dr. Williams and what OneMd has to offer. How to begin working with them.
Address of Guest’s Business: https://www.myonemd.com/locations
Dr. Patrick Williams: All right. I’m Patrick Williams. I joined One MD just a little over a year ago after spending the previous 23 years practicing exclusively in the hospital. So I decided that, um, that moving to the preventive side of medicine rather than the reactive side of medicine was a better fit for me and actually allows me to provide the kind of care for patients that I really want to provide. So, uh, I graduated medical school back in 1997. I went to the University of Kentucky. I did my residency there in general internal medicine and pediatrics, although I haven’t practiced pediatrics now since 2003, so my focus is on adult primary care now.
Dr. Brad Conder: Awesome. And tell me a little bit more about One MD as well.
Dr. Patrick Williams: So One MD is a concierge or retainer-based medical practice. We treat adults, all different types of illnesses, but what’s different about our practice, well there’s a lot of differences about our practices. But first of all, we do require a retainer to join the practice, but that retainer allows us to practice without being dependent on insurance reimbursement to run our practice. So once you join the practice, though, you’ll be one of only about 300 patients per physician, which allows us to provide more personalized service and much better access than what you’ll get in one of the corporate practices, which typically they have 2,000 to 3,000 patients per provider. So when you call our office, you’ll talk to an actual person. When you come in for an appointment, the entire time will be spent with the doctor, not an MA that’s inputting information into the computer. We’re also going to do an annual comprehensive physical that’s going to go well beyond anything that is done in the corporate practices.
Dr. Brad Conder: We’ll pause just for a second. Hopefully it kind of gets us back on here in a minute. So One MD is a primary care group. They have a location over here off of East Point Parkway near us. We also have one in Saint Matthews. I think they have some other locations as well. While we’re waiting for Doctor Williams to kind of come back on here, I don’t know if it’s an internet issue for them or for us, so it could be both. They were kind of getting lagged up just a little bit, so hopefully this won’t take too long for it to get back on. I met Doctor Williams not too long ago. Let’s see. We had to leave, so bring him back on here in just one minute. Hey, we’re back. Oh, we’re back. Sorry about that. I kind of filled in some gaps for you as far as how I met you guys in One MD. We cut off right at where One MD is a retainer-based practice, but also the differences between a corporate-based or hospital-based practice versus the individual-based practice that you guys are running. So actually, you answered that next question, which was what makes you different, and I think that was a great answer. Anything else you want to kind of just reiterate as far as what makes you different and why people should come out to see you?
Dr. Patrick Williams: You know, Brad, I think that probably pretty well covered the highlights. The access, the comprehensive physical. The other thing would be the 24/7 access, really. When the office is open, as I said, somebody actually answers the phone and helps you. But when the office is closed, so weekends and holidays and after hours, patients have our cell phone number and our email, and they can text us or call us or email us for less urgent issues even after hours, and we’ll get back to them. It’s very different than the situation with the corporate practices where you call and you wait a week or longer and never hear anything, or you have this back and forth with a medical assistant through a MyChart portal. We have a better way of doing things.
Dr. Brad Conder: Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s needed in today’s healthcare environment to make sure people feel comfortable and with somebody they trust to get what they need when they need it, which is right. That’s the thing, get what you need when you need it, which is not happening in a lot of cases.
Dr. Patrick Williams: No. I know that from personal experience with my mother-in-law being in the hospital right now.
Dr. Brad Conder: So who would be an ideal fit for you? Typically, if you’re educating me as a physical therapist or educating your other patients or even the community, who would be an ideal fit for you right now?
Dr. Patrick Williams: So I don’t know that there’s necessarily an ideal. We’re a medical practice for adults, and we see a broad spectrum of illnesses and conditions. Obviously, people who have multiple medical problems who really have difficulty with accessing their physicians, I think fit very well in this practice because we can help coordinate that care and sometimes streamline it. Then I often have younger patients as well who are just interested in being proactive and being healthy. Sometimes when we meet, they’ll ask, do I really need this type of practice? I’m healthy and always have been healthy. And my response to that is we’re all healthy until the day that we’re not. And the day that you’re not is not the time that you want to be scrambling for help. So we can be somewhat of an insurance policy as well. A lot of the things that we look at are things that are not going to be routinely checked in one of the corporate medical practices, and we can look for trends even within the normal range of laboratory values, for instance, that may be an early indicator of a problem, and we try to address that sooner rather than later.
Dr. Brad Conder: That’s awesome. Yeah, I think that’s a mindset shift as far as our community. Again, I always tell people I think healthcare gets too hard of a time as far as what actual healthcare is, because I think a lot of times insurance companies act like they’re a part of healthcare. It’s like, well, you’re just a payer, you’re not actual healthcare. And our actual healthcare is really, really good. One of the things that we want to try to move towards is more prevention-based healthy lifestyle instead of a sick-based model that has been pushed on us for many decades. What would the process be? What would it look like for somebody to work with you guys? What’s the process look like to begin working with you?
Dr. Patrick Williams: So the easiest way is to go to our website, which is www.myonemd.com
, that’s M-Y-O-N-E-M-D dot com. There is a link on there where you can actually contact Kristen, who is kind of the office manager for all three locations. Then she can help get the forms to fill out and arrange a meet and greet. So typically, if someone’s interested, we’ll try to meet with them first and make sure it’s going to be a good fit for both sides. Once that’s done and the paperwork is filled out, we’ll build our own file and then decide if we want to start things off with that comprehensive physical exam. Or in some cases, with patients who have a more complicated medical history, we’ll want to bring them in just for an hour to sit down and talk through things and fill in the gaps, make sure that we’re kicking off this relationship with good data and good information.
Dr. Brad Conder: Great. Great. It sounds like a pretty easy process, and that’s the whole purpose. You get that to kind of really just give us some info, log on, get the website, and then your staff take care of it, which is awesome. So is there anything that you would like people to know about your own services that they may not know, as far as this type of service, anything that kind of stands out that people just don’t realize that you guys might do?
Dr. Patrick Williams: That’s a tough question. I think there are people who probably have experience with some other concierge medical practices that probably aren’t as comprehensive as what we do. In Louisville, there’s a spectrum of concierge practices available and also a spectrum of price points. We’re on the higher end of that price point, but what separates us is our low patient volumes. So we’re not trying to see 30 people a day. As I said, we have a max of about 300 patients each. And that comprehensive physical is something that’s typically not done at the other concierge practices either. That comprehensive physical is going to involve an extensive panel of lab work that can be customized depending on the patient’s needs. But then also we’re going to do a treadmill stress test, an echocardiogram, carotid ultrasound, aortic ultrasound, chest X-ray, pulmonary function test, vision and hearing screening, and glaucoma screening. So what we’re doing is well beyond what most practices are offering, and it’ll give them a much better insight into the status of their health at that point in time. Then we make plans for the coming year really based on that physical.
Dr. Brad Conder: That’s awesome. That’s very comprehensive. I’m actually getting educated a lot right now, just to kind of continue to remind myself of everything you guys can do, which is what people need. I’m looking forward to promoting that for you guys. One last question, just to finish up because I know you’re busy. Any promotions, events, or special things going on this year or this quarter that you might like people to know about?
Dr. Patrick Williams: That’s the best thing. We don’t really do any events or promotions. Our advertising comes mostly from word of mouth. Honestly, as patients come in, they tell friends and family, and that’s really how we grow. We make ourselves available from time to time at events. Like last year, we were at the Out of the Blue Jet show, which was a lot of fun. But as far as events otherwise, we’re kind of under the radar. We’re not trying to be huge. We want to grow, but we want to do it in a thoughtful way.
Dr. Brad Conder: That’s a perfect ending. It really brings it back to the whole purpose of your business and medical practice, to keep it small, private, and truly intimate, which is great. So you don’t need to do those big things, which is phenomenal. I do appreciate your time. One other thing I should mention.
Dr. Patrick Williams: Brad, that kind of came to mind when you were asking about things that separate us from others. We do have X-ray capability in the office, some limited ultrasound capability. What we want to do is keep our patients from having to go to urgent treatment centers or the emergency room to get their care, because that’s probably the worst place you can go to get your medical care. So being proactive in keeping people out of the hospital and in our practice, where someone who actually knows them can take care of them.
Dr. Brad Conder: That’s awesome. I’m glad you mentioned that. That’s a huge thing right now. Again, from personal experience, having my mother-in-law, even her first reaction is to go to urgent care or ER, and keeping them out of that is huge because it’s not helping the course of care. That’s great. I appreciate it so much. They know if they call their doctor, it’ll be two months before they can get an appointment, and it’s not like that here.
Dr. Patrick Williams: Definitely.
Dr. Brad Conder: That’s awesome. Oh, I’ve done something. Have you really? Everything looks pretty good on my end. I think it’s good. Yeah, good. I know it’s been kind of a week with the internet. So yeah, I think that’s all the questions I have for you. I really appreciate your time. I was excited about doing this. I appreciate you getting on. I’m trying to gather the resources for people. I’ve been in business for 10 years now. I’m over here at East Point Park right now, and we have our ribbon cutting next Friday from 11:30 to 4. I might just stop by your office and give it to Laura at the front office. I’ve got a flyer, free food. Again, I’m trying to spread the word, but I’m actually going to be on my way to Saint Croix next Friday.
Dr. Patrick Williams: Okay, cool.
Dr. Brad Conder: Maybe some of the other people in your office will come by. I’m trying to truly develop resources for patients. It’s confusing. One thing I try to promote to patients more than anything else is to start treating healthcare like retail. You’re trying to buy something. You can’t just trust that your insurance or whatever you’ve done in the past is going to take care of your needs. Do the research, talk to people. Don’t write something off because you don’t know if it’s covered by insurance or not. Insurance nowadays, if you have a high deductible, it could be cheaper to go somewhere else anyway, and you’re going to get the care you want. So it’s a hard thing, and I’m trying to put more resources together. I appreciate you being my first interview. Hopefully you’ll see it out on our social media and emails to promote you guys. I’ll let you go. Have a great time in Saint Croix. It sounds awesome, much better than 20-degree weather.
Dr. Patrick Williams: Sounds good, Brad. Thanks again.
Dr. Brad Conder: All right. Talk to you soon.