Whether it’s “managed care,” “national health insurance” or “socialized medicine,” there are lots of health care buzzwords grabbing headlines these days that promise great things but have implications that are every bit as frightening. So, if what assuages your anxiety more than anything else is affordable, top-quality health care that you control, Drs. Robert Branton and Lorraine Jarrah may well hold the key to your peace of mind.
“It was a really tough decision,” Branton recalled, “but Dr. Jarrah and I ultimately decided that the practice of medicine under the strictures of the insurance companies and the current managed-care system not only discourage but practically prevent the administration of individualized, one-one-one, quality-oriented health care for the patient.
“Sure, we could treat more patients if we’d stayed with the managed-care route,” he continued, “but we wouldn’t have been able to treat them as thoroughly or attentively as we can under our current structure… no physician could.”
It’s absolutely clear, then, to Branton and Jarrah that it’s to the patients’ benefit to eschew the often stifling restrictions of the insurance companies, but the medical and marital partners of 13 years readily admit it’s good for them, too.
“What I enjoy most about this structure is that I now get to really do medicine, the way I’d hoped and planned to when I was in medical school,” Jarrah, a graduate of the Medical College of Pennsylvania, stated with palpable enthusiasm. “The insurance companies are just too confining — that’s why you see primary-care physicians leaving the practice of medicine in droves these days.
“So what you have in the end,” she concluded, “is a configuration that leaves physicians disenfranchised and leaves patients less satisfied and subject to lower quality care. It’s a difficult system, I know, and each approach has its liabilities, but one thing I’m sure of is that human beings were never meant to be processed on an assembly line.”
And it’s precisely that philosophy that accounts for why Branton and Jarrah’s practice has grown so steadily since it was founded in 1996.
Their backgrounds don’t exactly hurt either. Following a three-year residency program at the prestigious Lehigh Valley Hospital — one of the nation’s premier medical centers — and certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine, both Pennsylvania-raised physicians find themselves eminently qualified to render state-of-the-art care for acute and minor injuries; chronic disease management (including hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol management, COPD/asthma, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, depression/anxiety, thyroid disorders), preventive and wellness care, routine physicals, DOT physicals, school and sports physicals, cancer screening, pulmonary function testing, minor dermatologic procedures, liquid nitrogen therapy, biopsy and a whole lot more.
The clinical complement to this medical practice, of course, is the utterly noninvasive MedSpa, which the decidedly youthful and attractive parents of three launched in 2007. But with the workload they already had, why even go to the trouble to open the rejuvenative facility?
“The creation of the MedSpa has established a business model that has allowed us to reduce the day-to-day volume of our medical practice, so that we could spend more quality time with each patient,” offered Branton, who in 2008 was named one of “America’s top physicians” for internal medicine and laser medicine by the Consumers’ Research Council of America. “The MedSpa allows us to broaden the care of our patients by allowing us to treat their cosmetic and dermatologic concerns in supplement to the other areas of care we already provide.”
The MedSpa offers a litany of products and services that attend to the aesthetics of human juvenescence in virtually every way and down to the last detail. Not only does the facility offer Botox and industry-standard injectable treatments such as Juvederm, Restylane and Radiesse, they are also your “go to” guys for Titan (skin tightening), Limelight (sun and age spots), Vibraderm (microdermabrasion), Latisse (eyelash growth), Clairsonic (pore cleansing) and Laser Genesis (wrinkles, pores, texture and discoloration), as well as laser hair removal, vein therapy, chemical peels and an innovative line of professional skin-care products by SkinMedica. The MedSpa even offers a free Visia skin analysis for new patients and clients. And yet there’s more.
“In January of this year we decided to enhance the scope of our practice even further, by adding The Weight Loss and Lifestyle Center,” said Branton, who, with his wife, moonlights as the medical director of Harbor Pointe in Salisbury. “We partnered with Registered Dietitian Nicole Acle to offer our patients and all residents of Salisbury the expertise of a dietician who is able to intelligently guide clients on their way to achieving meaningful weight loss and a healthier way of living for the long-term.”
So do your face a favor, pay a visit to Drs. Branton and Jarrah, who will not only give you a reason to smile, they’ll improve it.
The MedSpa at Drs. Branton & Jarrah’s office, 1205 Pemberton Dr., Ste. 101,
Salisbury, Md., 410-548-7578,
www.the-med-spa.com
