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111 Boston Post Road
Suite 107
Sudbury, MA 01776
Phone: (978)443-8010
Fax: (978)443-4634

A blend of the traditional and the contemporary

W e are pleased to have you visit and appreciate the opportunity to provide you with information about us. The material in this site is designed to acquaint you with the practice and answer many of the questions that patients commonly ask. We feel we can serve you better if you are familiar with us and our policies, procedures and style of practice. Everyone in the practice is expected to operate as a member of each patient's health care team. All have been professionally trained and take pride in their abilities. If you have questions that are not answered on this website, feel free to call us to discuss them. We aspire to have our practice run like an old-fashioned small town general practice worthy of a Norman Rockwell painting, but one that has been enhanced by the implementation of current technology and, if the need arises, access to state-of-the art diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, world-class hospitals and highly skilled specialists. Our primary objectives beyond maintaining financial viability are to personally provide you with quality medical care and to advocate for you rather than for a company, product, health insurer or health service provider. We strive to realize those objectives for all of our patients -- affluent or poor, young or old, health-conscious or non-compliant. We are open to people of every gender, race, religion, nationality and sexual orientation. As we are a community-based solo practice, we are able to provide convenience and personalized care in a nonjudgmental and informal setting. We welcome your feedback and are open to suggestions as to how our practice can better serve you. We have never, we do not now and we will never in the future, participate in any multi-level marketing schemes or encourage you to purchase any product or service purely for our financial gain. Our livelihood derives solely from our efforts on your behalf. We are a holistic practice - not in the sense that we recommend aromatherapy and homeopathic medicines when antibiotics and and antihypertensive medications are called for, but in the sense that we strive to know our patients as people. We try to remain familiar with their medical history, their lifestyle, their health habits, their attitudes towards wellness and illness, their hopes, needs and desires. We try to keep them well (sometimes despite themselves) and make them well when they are ill. When the medical interventions we can offer can no longer make them well, we assist them with coping with the consequences of their illnesses, and, when the time comes, as it will for all of us, help them die in comfort and with dignity. That is the true essence of practicing holistic medicine. We feel our role is well expressed in The Oath and Prayer of Maimonides

Unfortunately, the practice of medicine has become a regulated industry and health care services have become a commodity, not unlike most other consumer products except that intermediaries are allowed to circumvent the usual supply:demand market economy that is the very essence of free enterprise in democratic societies, and engage in unfair business practices, such as price fixing, to their benefit. Small practices like ours suffer from a growing lack of leverage in negotiating power with insurers and provider organizations, which has created an environment where those entities are able to evade free market pricing and impose undue administrative burdens upon us, seemingly without adverse consequence. Our reimbursements are fixed by the amount your employer or the government is willing to pay for our services, while our overhead expenses are determined by market forces. Therefore, we are unable to offer the level of customer service preferred by our clients like other types of businesses, where an increase in overhead is directly passed on to the clients who utilize those services. We continually strive to find the balance between maintaining a primarily consumer-driven orientation and continuing to ensure the existence of a practice where those consumers can receive health care services. This is especially daunting in a hostile practice environment, like that here in Massachusetts. (Click here to learn more)

Confronted with rising practice costs and accountability to payors on one hand, and escalating consumer expectations on the other, we have been compelled to make difficult decisions about the way our practice runs in order to ensure its survival. Other internal medicine practices have resorted to selling supplements and weight loss products, or performing Botox injections and laser hair removal. Many practices have closed altogether -- a critical shortage in primary care physicians in Massachusetts is forthcoming in the near future. Our response to this situation is that we have decided that we will run our practice with the resources to provide our patients with the level of service they need, (in our professional judgment), though we may not always provide them with the level of service they want. Right now, only the concierge practices in this area can provide the premium service we would like to provide and bridge that gap between "need" and "want." In those practices, for a monthly or annual fee in addition to insurance premiums, the physician cares for only a small panel of patients, usually 600 or less. With such a small group, the concierge physician can provide even more individualized attention than we can.

I f you are seeking a primary care physician in the MetroWest area, feel free to contact us. We would be happy to speak with you and even schedule a get-acquainted visit with Dr. Krasner and the staff.

Contact Information

Wayside Health Associates
111 Boston Post Road
Suite 107
Sudbury, MA 01776
Phone: (978) 443-8010
Fax: (978) 443-4634