Richard G. Michal, MD

Greetings, I had just moved into this area in Eastern North Carolina and had to start over creating new relationships with all new local services. It is a pain to change addresses, forward mail, establish a new banking relationships, etc. But finding a physician turned out to be impossible. Even in my previous mountain digs, I was not comfortable with the family care medicine was shaping up. One can spend an hour in a waiting room, I guess that is why they call it a waiting room, to see one of the assistants to the doctor, but never actually meet the doctor himself. I never did meet my doctor in an 8 year period, but for waving at him from down the hall while he conferred with five assistants. His patient load was overwhelming and a very unsatisfactory arrangement for me. I felt like a number and a stat sheet with a billing address. At any rate, after my move from the mountains I learned that I could not find a place for regular, sometimes mundane care. When i called to seek out medical care, I was told over and over again, to call back in six months. Until then I should use the emergency room where an aspirin or a band Aide cost sixty bucks. I am a senior citizen, never had too many ailments, but I knew that I had type 11 diabetes, overweight a bit, and was feeling poorly, tired, with little energy. Then I got hold of a several huge vines in my back yard, which turned out to be a 50 year old 3 inch wide poison Ivy vines. In days, my face exploded with rash, considerable swelling until my eyes were almost swollen shut. The urgent care people told me that I had cellulitis, that it was dangerous and could become a life threat in days. But they could not care for me! I thought that I might be in real trouble or go broke that the emergency room. But, the urgent care folks did make an appointment for me. ( fast forward the next day) I had just come from an appointment with urgent care, (they have two shifts) and the group that finally did agree to see me was not on duty, the other shift was working that day. They told me that they could not care for me and sent me off to search the area for a doctor that was taking patients. I was sick, frightened, felt abandoned, swollen and just the thought of beginning a new search for care was debilitating. I decided to get a late breakfast and take an aspirin to regroup praying that cellulitis would not kill me while I searched. There was man seated next to me at the diner who was a friendly face, offered me a smile while I took a seat next to him and then I took off my sunglasses. He was suddenly stricken as if I had leprosy. He asked politely, what is wrong with your face as he forked a nice piece of sausage readying for a bite. I told him that I did not know, but I could not find a doctor anywhere in the area that would take me in and the long story of tens of phone calls, long hallways, crowded waiting rooms with two hour waits, pages of paperwork, just to be refused service with a suggestion to try a doctor that had retired two months ago. He excused himself, got up and left the diner. I thought that I had freaked him out and ruined his breakfast. But, he came back, offered me a card and told me to call this fellow from the diner. It said MDVIP. Turns out that this is a white glove service where the Doc had purposely reduced his patient load by 80 percent and only handled one fifth of his previous patient load, SO THAT HE COULD ACTUALLY ADMINISTER TO HIS PATIENTS. I skipped breakfast, drove straight to his office, was seen in 5 minutes and then spent 90 minutes with him discussing ME, his new VIP. Awesome experience. It was then that I discovered that I probably had been super-juiced by the large poison ivy vines but he would not eliminate the thought of cellulitis. So, he split the difference with proper meds for both. I was better in 5 hours, and good to go in one day. Cellulitis was not the culprit, but rather, extreme ivy poisoning. The fees are reasonable that allow him to earn with less of a patient load and offers me or you, quality time with an "in your face" Physician. He is available all of the time and an appointment is not a visit with an assistant while he manages paper work down the hall. It is an appointment with him for as long as it takes. Health regimen with a plan and specific goals were put into place just for me and the extra fees charged were negated when he suggested a new pharmacy that saved me a like amount of money annually. I write this epistle so as to communicate what a boon this has been in my experience with MDVIP as compared to the horrible direction medicine has taken in this country in this past decade. I am so pleased that such a program have been embraced by many Physicians that really care about PEOPLE and have found a way to offer their patients "time" for real healing, spiritually, intelligently and medically. Go big MDVIP.