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Age: 38
Owner, Priority Physicians
Dr. Matt Priddy makes house calls. At no charge.
As co-owner of Priority Physicians, the family practice physician operates an unusual medical business model—the private pay practice.
“Our patients pay us an annual fee to be members of our practice,” he said, explaining that each of its four doctors is limited to 200 patients. The practice does not deal with insurance companies.
“This allows us to do things for our patients that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do in a traditional practice” where doctors might have 3,000 to 5,000 patients, said Priddy. Like spending as much time with a patient as he or she needs. Like treating them in the hospital or nursing home.
Priddy, who grew up in Carmel, began to explore alternatives to a traditional medical practice while in residency at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. He and Dr. S. Craig Veatch founded their practice in 2009. They place an emphasis on preventive medicine.
“We tell people we’re not any smarter than the typical physician, but we have a lot more time to spend with our patients,” said Priddy, who is a board member of the American Academy of Private Physicians.
What does this level of personal attention cost a patient? The annual retainer fee varies between $1,400 and $7,500, based on a patient’s age and services provided, said Priddy.
Priddy and his wife, Jennifer Priddy, an OB-GYN who practices at Indiana University Health North Hospital in Carmel, live in Westfield.
For the past three years, Priddy and his friends have held the Man Olympics, a goofy adult field day—think tricycle races—to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as a way to honor his younger brother, Joel, who died of lymphoma in 2000 at age 24. Last year, the event raised $5,000.
“I realize this is small potatoes compared to the walking events that they [Leukemia and Lymphoma] do,” said Priddy. “It’s just something we decided to do in memory of Joel.”•
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