Hello, friends,

Let’s talk about price transparency, which is a very romantic phrase if you are into spreadsheets, honesty, and not being blindsided by medical bills three weeks later.

One of the strangest things in healthcare is that people will happily pay a plumber, electrician, or mechanic for skill, judgment, and time... but somehow in medicine we’re all supposed to pretend the practitioner’s brain is free. It is not. 

You are not just paying for a blood pressure check and a prescription. You are paying for training, pattern recognition, experience, judgment, continuing education (I need nearly 40 hours per year), and the ability to sort through a messy human situation without panicking or guessing. Plus the costs of doing business. 

In many insurance-based practices, the math is ugly. To break even, some clinics have to see four patients an hour. That means short visits, rushed decisions, more clicking, more coding, more boxes checked, and less actual thinking. Nothing says “healing relationship” like someone making eye contact with you for six seconds before turning back to the computer. This is a sickness model of care. Feels like being in a herd. 

Direct care flips that model. Instead of playing billing Olympics with insurance companies, patients typically pay a clear monthly fee. That fee helps support longer face-to-face visits, better access, and more time for the practitioner to actually listen, think, explain, and stay current on the situation at hand. Imagine that. Paying a medical professional so they have enough time to use their brain.

That is the whole point: more transparency, fewer surprises, more thoughtful care. Less hamster wheel. More human being.

At Integrated Wellness, I believe your visit should feel like actual medical care, not speed dating with a stethoscope. Good care takes time. Good thinking takes time. And yes, the brain doing that work has value.

Thanks for supporting a model that respects both the patient and the practitioner.

For those of you in a "pay per service" model I get it. I understand the hesitancy. I can see you. And I will always cherish you and give you excellent care. But my ability to accept more of patients like you as my practice grows will be limited. Just a heads up, this will be the first arm of my practice that will close to patients.

Direct primary care services are $130/month with monthly visits as needed. When you are in a monthly agreement, I do my best to obtain your treatments for nearly my cost.  Some of my patients sign up and keep their traditional PCP and go in for the annual physical. But my availability when you are sick is superior. So, think about it. As summer approaches and more people fill Maine you can pay convenient MD quite a bit of cash for that urgent visit your PCP can't fit you in for. Or you can let me sew your hand closed and/or treat that bullseye rash, it is prepaid in a sense when you are in a membership model. 

Integrated Wellness- Personalized care with more thinking, less nonsense

We have your back! 

Liz Duke