FAQs
Learn more about the benefits of using Haig MD and the answers to our frequently asked questions.
1
Preventing wait times and delays.
If you've ever been to an ER you know about the hours long wait it can take to get medical aid. Oftentimes, the ERs in the LA area are inundated with critically ill patients, whether that be trauma from car and other accidents or strokes, heart attacks, and COVID patients brought in by ambulances. This pushes less severely ill patients down the triage list, often waiting hours to get medical aid. If you opted for the outpatient setting, arranging an appointment with your primary care doctor could take days and sometimes even months depending on a multitude of variables. And if you want to be seen after hours or on the weekends, you're stuck going to an urgent care, where you aren't even likely to see a physician. Instead you're likely to see a midlevel provider, a physician assistant or nurse practitioner, with much less training compared to a physician. With our services, we'll do our best to arrange an appointment that works with your schedule and our availability to accommodate your needs without hassle.
2
No time limitations.
You probably already have noticed the time crunch every time you go to an Urgent Care, ER, or doctor's office. As medicine has become more corporatized with strict regulations on electronic documentation and significant hurdles related to billing and insurance, doctors now spend less than 1/3rd of their time seeing patients, and the rest doing administrative work. To make ends meet, clinics need to see many patients in order to be able to pay for the significant overhead and time wasted doing administrative work. You're often left seeing a doctor for less than 15 minutes before you're sent home. With our service, you don't have to worry about the time crunch. You're allotted at minimum 1 hour of face to face time with our doctors. If it takes two hours to address your problem, we have two hours to give you to do so, at no added cost. We don't typically see more than 3 patients a day to make it easy for our physicians to see their patients and practice real medicine without insurance related and administrative burdens. And after we're done with your house call, you have direct access to our physicians for any followup questions or concerns you have. When you want to speak to a doctor, you get to speak to a doctor without any strings attached. Just let us know your schedule and we'll accommodate an appointmet around it as best we can.
3
One flat fee. No copays or insurance claims.
For most patients and doctors, insurance can be difficult to deal with. If you go to the ER or Urgent Care for services that are not emergent, you'll likely be paying a sizable copay even if you do have insurance. Afterwards you're left stuck worrying about whether your insurance will cover the rest of your bill or if you'll be left with thousands of dollars to pay. Our practice does not bill any insurance because of the unique services we provide which insurances don't cover - like immediate access to an emergency physician at home or a site of your choosing, house-call visits with no time limitations, direct cell-phone access with our physicians 24/7, and other membership benefits. We accept all major forms of payment including cash and credit cards. Our membership price is flat and clear. We believe that this cost is likely much less than the out of pocket price you'd pay if you went to an ER or urgent care for non-emergent care. With that said, if you believe you're having a true medical emergency, you should seek help by calling 911 and going to the ER. There's a reason why emergency departments exist, and if you're having a true medical emergency, you should be going there. Additionally, please note that this practice is not enrolled to provide medi-cal or medicare patients concierge services at home and does not provide care to medi-cal or medicare patients at this time.
4
Always seen by a physician, not a midlevel provider.
These days, most urgent cares and clinics employ physician assistants or nurse practitioners to cut costs associated with staffing physicians. Under the direct supervision of a physician, these midlevel providers are an important aspect of our healthcare system as they expand care. With services like ours though, where direct physician oversight is not practical if we were to employ midlevels, we have opted to not use these providers. We believe that the training acquired through medical school or residency is critical in providing the best care possible, and so only use attending and senior resident physicians (fully licensed in their final year of training) to provide your care. We will never hide the level of training of our staff, because we don't have to. If you need medical help from us, you'll always have the most trained medical degree in healthcare, a physician (MD/DO), responding.
5
We work with your schedule at your chosen location.
Nights, weekends, holidays, at home, office, or hotel; we'll arrange our appointment whenever and wherever you'd like to the best of our abilities. So long as there's a private and safe space for us to examine you, we'll be happy to meet you where you'd like so long as it is in our region and we have the capacity to do so.
6
Near full service clinic including imaging, EKG, and labs.
With our services you'll have diagnosis done right at your side. If we think you need labs drawn, we'll draw them right then and there and send them to our affiliate labs for processing and update you when they result. If you need an EKG, Ultrasound, or X-ray, we'll have that done in your home on the same day. Note that we always recommend you have a personal primary care doctor who can track your progress and health long term, help arrange for specialist care and order screening exams. While our services are meant to solve your immediate problems, a primary care doctor is better suited to take care of your health over the long term.
7
Safety, comfort, and privacy.
When we're sick or are concerned about our health, we tend to be more private about it. Few of us want to be seen in a doctor's office, especially when we're not feeling well or have specific issues we're embarrassed about (things like erectile dysfunction, concern for STDs, or seeking birth control options). Adding to this, most times in waiting rooms are unpleasant, uncomfortable, and unproductive. With our service, everything is as confidential and comfortable as it comes. No waiting rooms, no sick patients around you, and no one to bump into.
8
Some of what we do:
- Diagnosis of most conditions
- Most outpatient procedures (laceration repairs, abscess drainages, toe infections, dental problems)
- Prescriptions
- Lab draws
- EKGs
- Ultrasound and X-ray imaging
9
Some of what we don't do:
- Addiction Medicine
- Operations/Surgery
- Screening Exams (ex: mammograms, colonoscopies)
- Baby Deliveries
- Specialist Care: if we determine that you need a specialist to assess you during our visit, we'll let you know
- Long Term Primary Care: we always recommend you have followup with a personal primary care doctor who can track you long term, arrange for specialty care, and do your screening exams
- "Life or Limb Threatening Emergencies" (strokes, heart attacks, trauma): in these cases you should call 911 for emergency assistance immediately
10
What if we get there and determine that you need more complex medications, diagnostics, and/or treatments?
When we come to your house, we expect to find and solve your problem without you needing to go to the hospital. In most cases, we are able to do this, but sometimes, we may find something that requires that you go to the hospital for further treatment. As ER physicians, we know exactly who needs to be in the hospital and who doesn't. Before we come to your house, we will have a conversation with you about your symptoms. If we feel as though this may be too complicated for an at-home visit we will tell you on the phone (free of charge). If we feel like we can handle it, we will come to your house or preferred location to diagnose and treat you. There are times when even a simple complaint can be hiding an emergency that requires a hospital visit (for example little chest pain that turns out to be an impending heart attack on an EKG). If we find something that will inevitably require hospital or specialist level care, we will tell you. But even more, we will send you to the hospital or guide you to a specialist with documented guidance and recommendations based on our physicians' findings. On rare occurrences where one of our patients is having an active emergency (for example having an active massive heart attack), we will advise calling 911. In all cases, we will be there with you. We'll try to contact the hospital ER you are going to and provide a physician to physician report to expedite your care. As trained ER physicians we know how to deal with all types of medical pathologies spanning all the specialties of medicine. Our goal with Mobile Medicine is to treat you at home and avoid any unnecessary visits to the hospital, but if it's necessary, it's necessary, and we'll make sure to make the process as easy as possible.