After completing my medical training at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1970, I worked as an emergency-room physician at a suburban community hospital. Since several family physicians in the area had recently retired, the hospital administration asked me to consider opening an office that would be subsidized by continued work in the ER. It sounded like a great idea, but we had just spent our last dime purchasing and renovating an old Victorian fixer-upper in a small town of about nine hundred families near the hospital.When my wife suggested that we open an office in our home, it was all the incentive I needed. Obviously, she had ulterior motives, because I would have more interaction with my daughters as they grew up. Having the office in our home was reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting. I even had a little black bag and made house calls. The only items missing were the horse and buggy.
As the practice flourished and the girls became teenagers, we either outgrew the home-office, or rock music from the third floor made physical exams impossible. Both items entered into the decision-making process of moving to a larger space. We've subsequently moved into a gorgeous two-physician office under the direction of a hospital affiliate called Lourdes Medical Associates. Needless to say, we no longer make house calls, I rarely see my girls or my grandchildren during the week, and I miss the good old days, except for the rock music.
Medicare was only five years old when we started our adventure, and because we lived in an older, Victorian town, we had a large number of geriatric patients. You could say that the practice grew up with Medicare as it ushered in several HMOs of Part C during the 1990's and prescription-drug plans in Janury 2006.
