Direct Care

Direct primary care practices offer a membership-based approach to routine and preventive care that can dramatically reduce health care costs for individuals, families and businesses. At the core of a direct primary care facility is a medical practice dedicated to providing routine, everyday care, essential for the well-being and ongoing maintenance of a patient’s health. This is where patients go for check-ups, vaccinations, sprained ankles, or frequent headaches. Direct primary care providers know their patients. They have talked with their patients in detail, gotten to know them, treated past conditions and know what recurring problems are experienced. If a patient has a chronic illness, like arthritis or diabetes, their primary care provider is already a partner in management every step of the way. And, in the unlikely event of a life-threatening accident or disease, the provider serves as the patients advocate, coordinating care across multiple providers, facilities, and prescriptions. Direct primary care practices serve as a patient’s primary care medical home where they go for all routine primary, preventive and chronic care management types of care. Patients pay one low monthly fee to their direct primary care facility for all of their everyday health needs. Like a health club membership, this fee gives patients unrestricted access for visits and care, so patients can use the services as much or as little as they want. Many direct primary care practices are open seven days per week and offer same-day or next-day appointments. At many clinics, physicians are on call 365/24/7. There is none of the paperwork and expense required today by insurance reimbursement - no procedure or billing approval, deductibles or co-payments. With a lower business overhead and dramatically less paperwork, primary care providers are no longer forced to squeeze in an unmanageable number of patients and can instead take the time necessary with each patient to deliver high-quality, personalized care. Accidents and the unexpected do happen, so the typical patient in a direct primary care practice keeps an insurance plan to cover emergencies and serious illnesses. Because this insurance does not need to cover routine care, many patients choose a less comprehensive plan with a higher deductible and lower premium. With insurance-paid primary care, where each and every part of the medical care is billed to a third party payer, reimbursement costs consume more than 40 cents of each dollar. Eliminating insurance from primary care makes those 40 cents available for actual health care - more time with each patient, more extensive office hours, more on-site services and diagnostics, and more patient-provider support technology. The patient and dire provider are responsible for the overall wellness. Any time have a health concern, the first visit should be to the primary care provider, who knows all of the medical history and can help make the best decision about the health. With most health issues, the primary care provider can diagnose and heal the problems thee experiencing. Specialist and hospital care should be for serious, complex illnesses and life-threatening emergencies. If one is severely injured in an accident, for example, an ambulance takes to the emergency room. Or, if thee diagnosed with cancer, may need hospital care such as surgery, radiation, or other treatments. Insurance is an important part of specialist and hospital care. Similar to automobile insurance, our health insurance system was originally designed to pay for rare, unpredictable, and extremely expensive problems. It is essential when patients need emergency care or an operation and chemotherapy treatments, care provided by specialists and hospitals. Primary care is frequent, highly predictable, and relatively inexpensive. It doesn’t make sense to pay for primary care using insurance. Paying for primary care with insurance has caused the cost of primary care and the downstream specialist/hospital care to rise considerably, and has made health care cost-prohibitive for millions of Americans. Direct primary care practices eliminate insurance overhead, which can extend health care to more Americans.

Keloids

A keloid is a type of hypertrophic scar. Keloids are made up of type I (and some type III) collagen that results in an overgrowth of tissue at the site of a healed skin injury. Keloids are firm, rubbery lesions or shiny, fibrous nodules and can vary from pink to flesh-colored or red to dark brown in color. A keloid scar is benign, non-contagious and usually accompanied by severe itchiness, sharp pains and changes in texture. In severe cases, it can affect movement of skin. Keloids expand in claw-like growths over normal skin. They have the capability to hurt with a needle-like pain or to itch without warning, although the degree of sensation varies from patient to patient.

Cosmetic Treatments

Being a grown-up does not have to be as difficult as it used to be. All adults long for the flawless skin they took for granted as a youth. As we age, the elements of our environment including the sun and air pollution affect the skin. The collagen fibers in the skin break down and lose their elasticity. Over time, the skin essentially becomes thin, dry, uneven in color or tone, wrinkled, and more sensitive. Based on years of research in scar formation and the effects of aging on skin, doctors have developed a unique multidisciplinary approach to treat aging skin. Each patient has different skin and a doctor evaluates its thickness, pigmentation, complexion, pore size, degree of sun damage, and hair density, among other variables. Doctors design individualized treatments based on general skin type and the anatomical area of concern. Treatments are best suited for individuals who seek a refreshed complexion without the recovery time associated with more extensive skin-resurfacing procedures.