Notice: This is based on about seven years of experience with this office and decades of experience with other medical facilities. I've chosen Boulder Valley Family Practice as my principal provider even though it is at some distance from my home.
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My review: Personalized, responsive health care such as Boulder Valley Family Medicine offers is increasingly rare in America--due mostly to federal policies that encourage consolidation, specialization, and paperwork. There are great advantages to BVFM's approach. But prospective patients should understand that personalized, quality medicine has costs. I've seen negative reviews that arise from failing to understand those costs.
Advantages of the BVFM approach:
* Appointments are available far more quickly than in most offices.
* The providers are generalists, so they are more likely to see interrelationships between health issues that specialists don't see.
*As generalists, they are used to treating the whole patient--Dr. Stanley Jack is, for example, trained in skeletal manipulation most physicians can't do. And for diagnostic purposes they are willing to touch the patient rather than merely rely on technology (and, yes, they use technology, too).
* The office is small and personal.
* They are open to different ideas rather than clinging to stereotyped ways of doing things.
* Compared to most offices, there is less paperwork.
Costs:
* Generalists may not know things that a specialist would know. (Of course, you get the advantages of specialized knowledge only if you happen to choose the right specialist!)
* Because BVFP is a small office, they have to make sure bills are paid on time and in adequate amounts. One reviewer complained that they don't take Medicaid. The reviewer should address that complaint to the federal and state governments, which both grossly underpay physicians and impose crushing paperwork duties on them. A small office that relies significantly on Medicaid risks going bankrupt.
* Larger medical offices often pressure their providers to generate cash by seeing as many patients as quickly as possible. BVFP takes the necessary time with each patient. Also, there is less staff to shift around. So sometimes you have to wait to be seen. But the complaint of one reviewer--a half-hour wait time--was absurd. That's pretty common even in institutional medical offices.
All in all, Boulder Valley Family Practice is an excellent blend of the advantages of modern medicine with the advantages (and occasional costs) of traditional, personal care.
One last point: I'm seen negative reviews of BVFP colored by a bigoted response to Dr. Jack's Christian religion. I do not share his religion, but bigotry has no place in America. Anyway, during the years I've been visiting BVFP neither he nor anyone else in his office has ever mentioned the subject. read more
