By Jill nagy
Dr. Danushan Sooriabalan—known as Dr. Dan to many of his patients—expects his new “direct primary care” practice to give him more time with patients and less with paperwork.
Patients will pay a fixed monthly fee, the amount depending upon their age, for unlimited access to his care.
The doctor, an internist, has been in practice since 2007. He did his internal medicine residency at Albany Medical Center, including a year as head resident, was a hospitalist at Glens Falls Hospital for 10 years, and was part of the Hudson Headwaters practice group.
In May, he set out on his own with an office at 2452 Route 9 in Malta.
He said after his first six weeks, he had 87 patients. He aims for a maximum of 300.
Most of his new patients are from Malta, Clifton Park, Saratoga and other nearby communities. He made no attempt to bring patients from his prior practice “out of respect for my previous employers,” he said.
While he expects to hire a nurse in the near future and uses a third-party company for billing, everything else is “do it myself.”
His practice model is a fairly new one but, he said, a growing trend, especially in the southern United States. It is also referred to as “concierge medicine.”
He said that he wants to get to know his patients and to be able to spend as much time with each one as necessary. “They see only me,” he said. “No fragmented care.”
He also appreciates the autonomy of a private single-physician practice.
Since they pay his monthly fee directly, patients do not need insurance in order to cover the cost of their care. However, he said, he encourages them to carry private insurance to cover other costs, such as hospital care and referrals to specialists.
Sooriabalan was born in Sri Lanka but left that island nation, with his family, at the age of 2. The family spent seven years in England and then moved to Canada. He came to the United State to complete his medical training at Albany Med.
Further information about the practice can be found at www.DrDanMed.com. His telephone number is 518-886-3338.