DPC is the first stop on the healthcare train

Posted on by

Meet the flying medic.  Here’s a quick Facebook video taken by my local Burke County, NC Commissioner Brian Barrier.  He shares his experience witnessing the vertical takeoff this machine is known for —https://www.facebook.com/share/r/189FYYYeSr/.  Even Axios Vitals, a national, daily, healthcare newsletter, is impressed based on today’s post — Forget air taxis. Meet the flying medic.

 For all you military docs out there, I’m sure you’re looking at this and thinking it’s pretty cool.  It is.  I’m not denying that.  But, even in my wonderment and awe, I’m also looking at it with my contrarian side eye.  (Hey, if Dr. Vance Lassey can be a self-proclaimed contrarian, then so can I)

At least on some level, this is a needed tool in response to the disappearing rural hospital, shut down by the massive systems that acquired them and then closed them.  I too live in rural America.  We have one hospital in our county.  Other counties might not be so lucky.  My own DPC doctor is in the next county, 40 miles away.    At least in your county, your patients have a fighting chance to heal from the fractured doctor-patient relationships of the past.  Let’s face it, as far as we’ve come, we still have so much more to do.

Hospital mergers and acquisitions are a hot topic.  The KFF Health News article I posted yesterday on LinkedIn takes aim at the supposed benefit hospital administrators tell their communities will come once they join larger systems.  We know better.  That benefit rarely, if ever, gets realized by the communities left with the aftermath.

I think that’s why we all need to invest more of our efforts at the community level.  As a member of Health Rosetta, we are deep into building “Community-Owned Health Plans”.  Those are the types of employer-sponsored health plans that prioritize grassroots, local, community-focused healthcare partners like DPC, community pharmacies, independent specialists, independent imaging, etc.

I’m fresh off attending RosettaFest, the annual gathering of the Health Rosetta ecosystem.  It was awesome to be surrounded by 1200+ healthcare do-gooders and visionaries.  But some of those visions are already reality.  I sat in a session of the 7 or so community-owned health plans already established in cities like Ashtabula, OH, and Amarillo, TX, etc.  If I tried to tell you how inspiring that was, I couldn’t put it all into words.

I hope you’ll order the new book by Dave Chase, Health Rosetta’s co-founder, titled Relocalizing Health.  Direct Primary Care is mentioned on several pages, and case studies detail how employers and communities win when DPC is the first stop on the healthcare train. 

Dave also has a podcast with the same name that you’ll want to subscribe to.

Sometime before the summer ends, make it a point to reach out to your local Board of Health to see if there is an open seat you could fill.  Or go to your local Board of Commissioners meeting to make a 3-minute public comment about how local communities should take the notion of “relocalizing” their own health more seriously.  

Until then,

Stay healthy, Y’all!

About Cristy Gupton

A nationally recognized employee benefits advisor, Cristy Gupton has endeavored to solve healthcare challenges for employers since 1998.  Cristy has been named twice to Employee Benefits Advisor Magazine's Top 20 Women in Benefits Advising list.   In 2017, Cristy was credentialed by the Health Rosetta and Mitigate Partners, groups of the nation's leading healthcare consultants who provide transparent, employer-built health plans with independent, physician-owned direct primary care at the foundation.  Cristy has a BS in Public Health from UNC-Chapel Hill, a MS in Health Benefits Design and Health Informatics from University of Lynchburg and a designation of Global Financial Steward from Wake Forest University’s Center for Board Certified Fiduciaries. Other highlights: Spokesperson of the Free Market Medical Association, Carolinas Chapter Contributor to Industry Publications like BenefitsPro Magazine, Physician’s Outlook Magazine and DPC News Speaker at Wingate University’s Engaged Citizen’s Series, VAHU, SIIA, DPC Summit, Health Rosetta Summit (now called RosettaFest), Free Market Medical Association, BenefitsPro etc. Creator of Healthcare Smartypants, an employee education series meant to help employees become smarter consumers of healthcare. Creator of Sunlight Health Plans, a self-funded plan design for employers who embrace Direct Primary Care Cristy also serves her community and fellow citizens through organizations like Scouting America, and her local chapter of Rotary International.