The media continues to take notice of DPC and so do we. Recently, Dr. Matthew Hitchcock was highlighted in his expansion in TN:

“I think we’re going to go back to what insurance should be,” says the doctor, who recently invested $3 million to relocate Hitchcock Family Medicine (HFM) to 5104 Hixson Pike.

Expanding to 11,000 square feet, Hitchcock’s subscription-based, direct primary care practice will now have more than four times the space of its original location, also on Hixson Pike. The increased space will accommodate a doubled staff compared to the original offices.

“Over there, it was pretty much just me — no extra services, no imaging, no lab. Just me,” says Hitchcock, adding that the HFM office near Eastgate Town Center is unaffected and will continue serving patients.

The new location, Hitchcock says, will feature a new in-house pharmacy with pharmacist Robby Eskridge, along with a range of imaging equipment such as X-ray, ultrasound and CT machines.

And in Indiana you have Dr. Dennis Uhrhammer:

As a doctor with Indiana University Health, Uhrhammer cared for about 3,000 patients annually. Now, he is the physician in charge of Family Direct Care Inc., and he hopes to see about 700 patients this year.

“When a patient calls into an office, they don’t have access to their doctor who knows them very well,” Uhrhammer said. “It’s usually an answering pool of nurses, and then that message is moved over to the individual office, then the individual office moves it to the nurse that is directly working with the doctor, then finally to the doctor.”

Uhrhammer believes his patients are more open about their health and what they are willing to do. His practice doesn’t follow a “cookbook-type of medicine,” so they take into account what the patients want, he said.

And Dr. Matt Pflieger with his wife, Dr. Janelle Maxwell Pfliege at Cardinal Family Medicine:

“We were starting in a very new field that people weren’t really used to,” Pflieger said. “It took a lot of work to talk to people about what the model is, and that from the standpoint of the patient and provider, it makes getting care a lot easier.”

Pflieger said the couple enjoy working in direct primary care because they run a smaller practice and can build relationships with patients. He said prices are also more transparent than those of large health care systems, which patients enjoy.

As well as Dr. Jarrod Wiegman, physician and owner of Indiana Direct Primary Care:

“When I started in medicine, this is sort of how I envisioned it would be,” Wiegman said. “It’s about focusing on people’s health and treating disease, but it’s really focusing on living a healthy lifestyle.”

Because he wanted more from a practice than traditional medicine offered, Wiegman said, his family encouraged him to open Indiana Direct Primary Care to do what he envisioned. His goal is to focus on healthy lifestyles, and his business offers on-site perks including a gym, massage therapy, a personal trainer and a nutritionist for clients.

“They feel better, they’re healthier, and they get to the basics of what they really want,” Wiegman said of his clients. “That’s why we created this practice, and direct primary care allowed us to do that. Before direct primary care, working with corporate medicine or in a regular doctor’s office, you wouldn’t be able to afford to do it.”

Direct Primary Care continues to grow and even we have trouble keeping up with it. Congrats, everyone!!