Who or what is One Medical Group and why do they write to me every week? Yes, I understand that I own residential property in a pretty spendy zip code, hence the endless direct mail urging me to pay what amounts to $150 a year in order to be able to get a same day or same week visit with a primary care provider using my existing health insurance. Really? Even at my California neighborhood's demographics this wouldn't make any sense unless One Medical Group also had some insight into how difficult it is to obtain a same day or same week appointment with Anthem Blue Cross in the East Bay. Now, that's niche marketing.
Visit One Medical Group's yelp page and you'll find happy yelpers extolling their magazine selection but also noting that — as the patient panel has filled — same day and same week appointments have grown scarcer. In other words, interesting deal for those who joined when the ranks weren't full, less certain good value now.
Why does all this remind me of the selling of restaurant reservations? Anything at all to cut the line, is it? Or, is it that other people must be working the system to get their needs met now and anyone who gets told their needs are less urgent is either ignorant or without resources to test that proposition?
Oh, and my favorite Yelp post at One Medical Group is from the patient aghast that the nurse practitioner did not give her all five prescriptions she demanded for what may or may not have been a sinus infection. Yeah, if you're paying that premium, apparently you even get to make the diagnosis.
Missouri State of Mind 