Dr. Michael Freedman has been an Annapolis Internal Medicine physician since 1997 and has been awarded Top Docs honors 6 years in a row from Whats Up Magazine.
Dr. Freedman received his Bachelor of Sciences from the University of Michigan majoring in psychology and biology, Masters in Physiology from Georgetown University and MD from Drexel University in Philadelphia. In Medical School, he led a group which built the largest student-run medical system for the homeless in the country and was awarded the 807th Daily Point of Light by then-President George Bush.
On graduation, he received the following awards: The Daniel Mason Award for Excellence in Cardiology; The Hahnemann Club Award for Academic Excellence, Outstanding Leadership and Loyalty; The Joseph A. Langbord Memorial Prize for Humanitiarism in Medicine; and The Student Affairs Committee Award for Outstanding Service to the Class, the University and the Community.
Dr. Freedman completed his residency training at Emory University in Atlanta in 1997, became Board Certified in Internal Medicine and moved to Annapolis. He has special interests in Cardiology, Geriatrics and preventive/general wellness — both physical and mental.
Shortly after moving to Annapolis, became Medical Director of the then newly formed Annapolis Outreach Clinic where he would build the clinic, which offered free care to the underserved, from 12 to 150 doctors. The clinic was seeing over 6,500 FREE patient visits per year including free surgeries, radiology services, free Specialists of all types. In fall 2011, Dr. Freedman stepped down from this leadership position to focus on his personal practice, running Annapolis Internal Medicine and raising his son. He also was extremely well respected by the Specialist of Anne Arundel Medical Center and cared for many of the doctors, nurses and other staff from AAMC and served on the following committees: AAMC Medical Executive Board Strategic Planning Committee, AAMC Medical Executive Board Community Needs Assessment Committee, AAMC Information Technology Advisement Committee, and AAMC’s Strategic Physician Synergy group.
In July 2014, Dr. Freedman opened Evolve Medical Clinics, a practice where he could provide a much higher level of care and service in a setting that was fast, easy and accessible. He designed it to have the same conveniences as salons, hotels and restaurants, technologically cutting edge with online scheduling, phones answered by a human, communication via text, email or virtually.
He designed the office to be relaxing, with hardwood floors, local artists paintings, coffee, tea and water with lemon–something more reminiscent of a cafe or spa than a doctors office. And he has a goal that no one should ever wait more than 30 minutes to be seen.
Membership is only $35/month with $25 per visit–whether virtual or in-person. As a membership, the practice is not incentivized to make people come in for every little thing. Instead, Dr. Freedman and his Nurse Practitioners are more than happy to take care of things in the most convenient way possible for the patient: by phone, text, email, virtual or in-person.
But not taking insurance has turned out to be a huge bonus for many patients. As more insurance plans include higher deductibles, more patients are looking for cost transparency. “What’s happening is with all these high deductible [plans], of $3,000 to $6,000 an annual deductible … is that people are going to primary care and they’re getting a bill for what the insurance would have paid, and everything is their responsibility, so they’re paying all this money anyway,” says Freedman. “My goal is to carve insurance out of the entire industry period so that healthcare insurance will not be part of primary care or urgent care.
I think we’re at this amazing time right now where primary care can get free of the insurance hassles that have haunted it for the last few decades. Dropping insurance lowers the office overhead immediately by 40% and that savings can be passed back to the patients and reinvested in technology, better communication and accessibility.
So how is it working? Dr. Freedman has this to say, “… It’s just like working in heaven, Nirvana. We come in to work and there are hardwood floors, and there’s artwork hanging on the walls. It’s clean, it’s pleasant. We’ve got a hand-picked A-list team [of providers] … Everyone just loves coming in.” And most importantly, the patients love Evolve too.