July 15, 2009 (FinancialWire) — The following is an excerpt from “Dr. Joe’s Market Diagnosis”, posted at Investrend Weblogs by Dr. Joe Duarte:

“Health care stocks, such as Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and Lifepoint Hospitals (NASDAQ: LPNT) have been acting well in a fairly dicey market.  Yet, the real action in health care is what’s going on at the street level as doctors and patients are starting to look for ways to opt out of the current system.

“As the government looks to raise taxes,  hospital and drug company groups cut deals, looking for ways to pay for a controversial expansion of the health care system in the United States.  In Seattle, a city whose politics are known to lean to the extreme left at times, a market-oriented approach to health care has emerged, a one price per month, all inclusive system where insurance is not part of the equation and entrepreneurs and physicians are trying a different approach by going outside the mainstream medical model.  So far the group of physicians and two venture capital groups, New Atlantic Ventures and Clear Fir Partners, have raised $7.5 million toward the expansion of a medical practice, going by the name of Qliance.

“The medical practice bills itself as providing health care ‘for people fed up with insurance, started by doctors fed up with insurance’ saying that  ‘it has a profit-making solution to the problems of long waits, rushed doctors and cursory care that bother patients, at the same time that it eliminates the paperwork and pressure that plague primary care doctors,’ reported Reuters.

“The physician group is upbeat, as ‘Co-founder Norm Wu said per-patient revenue is triple that of insurance-based clinics. He said many costs are fixed so the firm, now losing money, will turn to profit as business grows.’ Yet, it’s an idea that’s been tried before with mixed success at best, as internal squabbles over division of labor between physicians, and the inevitability of personnel and facility costs lead to the need for more patients, which in turn tends to dilute the care. But Qliance is not alone as ‘More than 50 noninsurance clinics operate in 18 U.S. states, based on different business models, Wu noted.’”

The blog post continues at IinvestrendWeblogs.net (http://www.investrendweblogs.net/jduarte), and previously published “Blog Watch” articles are accessible via the FinacialWire(tm) archives (http://www.financialwire.net/?s=Blog+Watch%3A). Readers may also go to http://www.investrendweblogs.net/jduarte-profile to read more about Dr. Duarte and his “Market Diagnosis” Investrend Weblog.

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