Preventioneers believe that quality medical care is best delivered in a relaxed and friendly environment.
It is not an easy task to convey in words the full range of passions that drive us. So before we share our passion statement, perhaps it will be helpful if you understand why we exist in the first place.
In 1989, our founder, Steven Charlap, MD, established HealthDrive, a healthcare organization that provides dentistry, optometry, podiatry and audiology services onsite at extended care facilities. Over the next 20 years, the practice grew to be the largest of its kind in the United States, providing approximately five million treatments to elderly nursing home and assisted living residents across 13 states. Many of the practices’ patients, most over 80 years old, had been institutionalized because they suffered from the consequences of chronic diseases. Dr. Charlap instilled in his fellow team members his philosophy that they needed to “do well by doing good” for these most vulnerable and sickest of patients.
However, the “good” was often difficult to measure because of the patients’ unpredictable life expectancies.
To make matters worse, all sorts of government regulations often only allowed providers to react to problems as opposed to trying to prevent them. Notwithstanding, as part of the effort to help others, Dr. Charlap published Making Sense of Nursing Homes, A Guide for Families.
Still, given the practical limitations of providing care in the institutional setting, there was little more than he or anyone could do other than to make sure that all care was at a minimum delivered with dignity, compassion, and concern.
Although they did “well,” the inability to do more “good” pained Dr. Charlap. He was proud his organization was recognized repeatedly for raising the standards of care in extended care facilities and making a difference for so many elderly patients; nevertheless, he was repeatedly discouraged by the ever present constraints of treating institutionalized patients late in life with advanced chronic diseases.
Then something amazing happened. In 2010, Dr. Charlap discovered that for the first time in its 45 year history, Medicare would the next year begin reimbursing doctors for spending time on preventing diseases instead of treating them. He became absolutely ecstatic because he realized everything he previously did was necessary to fully appreciate the mission of what now needed to be done.
His heart and mind raced. “What if people were guided at a younger age to do things differently and get on the right health path?” he thought to himself. “What changes can they make that will have positive long term consequences including avoiding institutionalization altogether?” He realized the knowledge and experience he gained over twenty years would be invaluable, but such an undertaking required a new perspective and in depth study. He immediately began to read dozens of books, review countless manuscripts and websites, attend conferences and speak with many of the thought leaders of prevention in the US.
After careful consideration of all the existing models trying to tackle the same problem, Dr. Charlap realized that the time for a new solution was at hand. He founded MDPrevent to implement an evidence-based and practical approach that he believes will change the course of many people’s lives. He went back to work in December 2010 and began building the team at MDPrevent. Along the way, based on everything he learned, he was able to shed 20 pounds and gain new meaning in his life.
Now that we have shared our story, you can better appreciate the sense of mission that stokes our passion, which is “to help people of all ages replace the limitations, sufferings and costs imposed by preventable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and stroke with the joys and freedoms afforded by a healthy mind and body.”
WE can’t wait to welcome you to the type of medical practice you may have long given up on hoping for – a practice that is completely focused on your needs and nothing else! Call us today at (561) 807-2561 to find out what we can do for you.