Hi, thank you for coming back for the latest edition of Beyond Primary Care’s blog; where I highlight healthy and fun recipes, healthcare news, advice for medical conditions, as well as how membership for care works! Dr. Jeff O’Boyle is the owner of Beyond Primary Care, which is a new approach to family medicine and addiction medicine that creates the time and space your healthcare deserves. Beyond Primary Care serves patients in Ann Arbor and throughout Washtenaw, Livingston, and Wayne County.

The primary purpose of the blog is to introduce healthy lifestyle concepts and answer common questions I receive from patients that I believe are important. I want to start discussions that will help educate, benefit, and improve your well-being. 

This featured recipe is Huevos Rancheros. These recipes are my attempt, in a way, to bridge that Doctor’s adage of “Eat Better & Exercise More.” In this post, I will showcase a healthy meal made on a budget, my pictures are pretty decent, and that is how I got into this food endeavor.

Huevos Rancheros

Adapted from Gina’s Weight Watchers Recipes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1  yellow onion, minced
4 plum tomato, minced
4 tablespoons green chiles
Oil spray
Salt and pepper to taste
4 eggs
1 cup shredded lettuce
1 tablespoon cumin
1 oz Mexican cheese, shredded
2 teaspoon cilantro, chopped
1 (15 oz) can refried beans
1 (13 oz) package Tostadas
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 avocado, thinly sliced

Instructions

1) Set oven to 400 degrees F
2) Spray baking pan with oil spray. Place tostadas on baking pan,  Drizzle lime juice and add salt to taste. Cook for 2-3 minutes
3)  Add vegetable oil to fry pan, sauté onion.
4) To pan with onion, add tomatoes, green chiles salt, pepper, and cumin
5) Heat refried beans in microwave until warm
6) In a separate pan, cook eggs over easy
7) Top heated tortillas with heated beans, add second tostada, then top in order with cheese, tomato sauce mixture, lettuce, eggs, avocado, and cilantro.

Hi, thank you for reading! My name is Dr. Jeff O’Boyle. I am a board certified family medicine physician. My clinic, Beyond Primary Care is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In this post I am answering a common question that I receive, and that is how does Direct Primary Care (DPC) keep medications costs low for it’s members? Offering low priced medications is a key feature of virtually all DPC practices, and is something that is done to increase the value of a membership. Just how low? Many DPC practices do in-clinic dispensing and can provide hundreds of medications to their patients at a tenth of the costs that many national retailers can provide.

How DPC Practices Keep Medication Costs Low

DPC practices, like pharmacy retailers have applied for and obtained their medication dispensing license from their respective states. This allows a DPC provider to contract with pharmaceutical wholesalers of medications, the same wholesalers who retail pharmacies such as RiteAid, Walgreens, or CVS may use.  My clinic, Beyond Primary Care, uses two wholesalers of medications, AndaMeds and Bonita Pharmaceuticals. 

These wholesale companies sell the medications, often in large quantities to the DPC practice. However, unlike hospitals and retail pharmacies where selling medications IS their business – resulting in the expected mark-ups (250%!) and high-prices as noted by the American Journal of Pharmacy Benefits– DPC practices turn around and sell the exact same mediations to their patients at those near-wholesale prices. As noted, DPC sell the medications to their members in this innovative manner because our primary business is taking care of you and NOT being just a pharmacy. Your membership for care to a DPC practice allows for this innovation. 

Savings from Medication Costs

You may be or may know some people who take multiple medications. Medications for blood pressure, diabetes, urinary incontinence, anxiety, heart conditions, COPD, or erectile dysfunction may add up to hundreds of dollars a month you are paying out of your pocket. Compare this to the costs I charge my members for the exact same medications. Often times the money saved in medication costs alone pay for a DPC membership! Don’t see your medication on my sample list? Don’t worry, I may still stock it or I can order it too!

* Prices are subject to change without notice, one month supply listed unless noted

Did I Mention In-Clinic Dispensing?

Many DPC practices do in-clinic dispensing of medications. Once the doctor evaluates you and discusses the best course of treatment, that provider can have the necessary medications dispensed to you before you leave the office. In urgent situations, this saves you time, energy, and of course MONEY, something that rarely happens in fee-for-service medical offices. 

Obtaining Specialty or Brand Name Medications

As I mentioned in my earlier post, there are times a member needs or would benefit from a certain medication that is brand name only (very expensive) and would be best obtained through insurance that requires a prior-authorization (what is prior authorization) from the insurance company.

In this scenario, we will work to fill out the necessary paperwork to get your needed medications at reduced costs or even reach out to the pharmaceutical companies seeking a reimbursement or free supplies on your behalf. A great example is we got one of our members Vivitrol, a vital medication for Medication Assisted Therapy in Addiction Medicine. This medication costs over $1,000 on the market, but we worked to get our member the medication FREE of charge with their insurance. Did I mention the office visit and the injection itself were included with the membership? So the patient literally paid $0. Saving money for our patients gets me so excited! 

Dr. Jeff O’Boyle will host a Meet and Greet at Beyond Primary Care Thursday, December 6th from 5:30 pm until 8 pm. 

Meet Dr. Jeff O’Boyle, check out the personal and all-in-one clinic, and learn what Direct Primary Care offers.

Topics include:

• How Direct Primary Care works with health insurance
• What kind of insurance works best with Direct Primary Care
• How obtaining your medications works with Direct Primary Care
• How obtaining labs and imaging works with Direct Primary Care
• How hospitalization works with Direct Primary Care
• How referrals work with Direct Primary Care
• Comparing the actual costs of services and products in a fee-for-service system versus Direct Primary Care
• Dr. O’Boyle will answer any questions you have

Hello and thank you reading my blog at Beyond Primary Care and trying the BPC Good Eats recipes. This featured recipe is a Cheesy Skillet Pizza. These recipes are my attempt, in a way, to bridge that Doctor’s adage of “Eat Better & Exercise More.” In this post, I will showcase a healthy meal made on a budget, my pictures are pretty decent, and that is how I got into this food endeavor.

Cheesy Skillet Pizza Pasta
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Adapted from: The Comfort of Cooking

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
8 oz spicy or mild Italian sausage, casing removed
½ cup mini pepperoni, divided
2 (15oz) cans tomato sauce
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp dried basil
¼ tsp garlic powder
8 oz. rotini pasta
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
½ cup parmesan cheese, shredded
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to boil
2) In a large cast iron skillet set to medium-high heat, add olive oil.
3) Once oil is hot, add Italian sausage and cook until browned. Drain excess fat.
4) Stir in ¼ cup pepperoni to skillet with sausage and cook 1 additional minute.
5) Stir in tomato sauce, oregano, basil, garlic powder, pasta, and 1 ½ cups water.
6) Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat simmering until pasta is cooked through, about 12-14 minutes.
7) Remove from heat, sprinkle with mozzarella, parmesan, and remaining ¼ cup pepperoni.
8) Place under broiler and cook until melted and golden brown, 1-2 minutes, watching to avoid burning.
9) Garnish with fresh parsley, serve

If you are in the process of open-enrollment, consider a better plan- Direct Primary Care (DPC) with Health Insurance. This post is the second of a two-part blog post where I detail how anyone, regardless of their coverage of insurance, would potentially stand to benefit from direct primary care services. Check my earlier blog postings for the first part (and other cool things too… like the recipe for a yummy Chicken Noodle Soup).

You read my first post and have looked at your own insurance or enrollment options, and say “I am paying a lot of money for health insurance.” Maybe you are left wondering how direct primary care can fit in or rather “What kind of health insurance should I purchase with DPC?” I went on a health insurance exchange to give everyone a better idea of what pairing insurance and a membership to Beyond Primary Care would be like.

Practical & Affordable
The following slide features a hypothetical family of four, that lives in Ann Arbor, MI. Let’s say the parents are in their 40s and they have two young children. Their household income is $65,600/year, which is the median. This family has a number of things happen in the course of their hypothetical 2017, listed in the left column.  A somewhat busy year medically, but not catastrophic.The family purchases either a gold (high premium, low deductible) plan, a bronze (low premium, high deductible) plan, or a bronze plan paired with Beyond Primary Care ($130 a month for family membership). Then let’s see what each of these occurrences “costs” out-of-pocket under each of the three scenarios, and then add up the total out-of-pocket expenses for 2019 in the last row.

Notice that in the last column, the family paid their bronze plan premium ($10,908 for the year) AND the monthly fee for Beyond Primary Care ($130/month, or $1,560 for the year). Despite the extra expense of Beyond Primary Care, they still came out way ahead compared to the gold and bronze plans. This is because Beyond Primary Care offers many types of out-of-pocket savings, including: no visit copays, no additional fee for stitches, and substantial discounts on labwork, medications, and radiology.  These savings help to hedge against using that high deductible.  

Tolerance & Values

At some point in your research of health insurance, it no longer becomes analytical but needs to revolve around a conversation about tolerances and values.

What is your risk tolerance? As example, if you pick plan ‘B,’ what monetary hit can your family afford to take if you get ‘run over by the bus?’ Health care in the US, is a service, and it is expensive. What do you value in your healthcare? As example, do you care about longitudinal care? This is where a doctor really knows you and your family. Do you value access to your doctor, or appointments that run on-time?

With Direct Primary Care, patients are paying the practice, so we are very conscious of trying to give a patient their money’s worth. If DPC can give them value (a concept that has become foreign to healthcare) and patients are happy with our care, they will continue to stay in the practice. It’s in DPC’s best interest to do this, so we do a number of things to save patients’ money:

• DPC offers very low-cost lab testing (using “client billing”), saving people 75 percent or more on labs.
• DPC clinics dispense medications in the office (legal in most states), also saving people 75 percent or more, and offering a huge convenience to the patient.
• DPC will find the lowest cost for procedures, X-rays, and specialist services. While many of these are covered by insurance, most people have higher deductibles. So the lower cash prices are very valuable to them (not to mention the value to the uninsured). 

Health Insurance can be Expensive.
Insurance is a hedge against financial disaster, not a prepaid healthcare. DPC is not meant to replace insurance, nor does the model in any way encourage patients to drop their insurance. People need a way to pay for the high-cost areas of care, such as surgery and hospitalizations. DPC doesn’t try to address paying those costs.

Direct Primary care does offer excellent and affordable healthcare that can compliment a person’s insurance. DPC focuses on decreasing their patient’s need for specialty care, ER visits, and hospitalizations by focusing on health and prevention. Doing so can (and does) reduce the need. With Direct Primary care we are delivering a higher level of care at a known price.

If you are in the process of open-enrollment, consider a better plan- Direct Primary Care (DPC) with Health Insurance. I often get the question, “How does direct primary care work with health insurance?” This post is the first of a two-part blog post where I detail how anyone, regardless of their coverage of insurance our level of income would potentially stand to benefit from direct primary care (DPC) services. Check my blog post regularly for the second part (and other cool things too… like the recipe for a Dorito Taco Salad, because why not?!).

Figure out your Monthly Costs: Known as a Premium
Premiums are what you pay on a monthly basis to be insured. Premiums vary on the type of plan you choose. As example, you’ve done your homework and picked a health plan that costs $150 per month. You are paying $1,800 for essentially an insurance retainer, a cost to keep your insurance active. You’ll need to pay your premium on time every month.

Direct Primary Care has most membership fees are between $50-$100. The pricing for membership fees at my clinic, Beyond Primary Care, can be found here. This gets you full access to your doctor, regardless how many times you need to be seen. You could pay around $600 a year. The cost of a DPC membership is often significantly less than just the cost of having the insurance, let alone using it.

Reaching your Deductible
Deductibles are what you have to pay out of pocket before your health care plan kicks in. You may also have different annual deductibles for different types of care (as example: hospital care, laboratory tests, medications, etc). As example, you pick a plan with a $1,000 deductible meaning you are on the hook for all medical bills up to that amount before insurance kicks in.

Direct Primary Care provides you with with primary care services without government or insurance involvement. Your membership to a DPC practice does not influence your deductible. As example, you see your DPC doctor because of a mysterious symptoms. That visit was covered by your membership. When a person goes to a traditional fee-for-service practice, they won’t know the cost of care upfront, and labs and medications are potentially much more expensive than we offer. The predictability and transparency of cost is what makes DPC appealing.

Understanding the Relationships between Premiums and Deductibles
If you are healthy, you may want to dish out as little money as possible on the monthly premiums (to keep more in your own pocket), but still have coverage in case of an accident, sudden illness, or life change. Be aware, the less you pay for that monthly premium, the higher your annual deductible. Some folks may want a low deductible, but your premium will be thousands of dollars a year.

Direct Primary Care offers these healthier people improved access to care. Just because you are assigned a doctor by your insurance doesn’t actually mean you get to see your doctor, let alone in a timely fashion. DPC does not charge more for complicated patients, or management of difficult or chronic medical conditions that require more frequent trips to see the doctor.

Co-Insurance
This is a fixed percentage of your medical bill you share with your insurance company once you have reached your deductible. As example, you have a 80/20 plan. This means if you have a doctor visit after you reached your deductible, and their fee is $150, you are on the hook for $30 while your insurance covers the rest. You still have your copayment though.

Out-of-Pocket Maximum
This feature is just as important as premiums and deductibles, and is a term for the total amount your insurance plan will require you to spend on medical care in a single year. If you reach this amount, your health insurance will cover the rest of your care. Note, you may have reached your deductible, but are below your out-of-pocket maximum, you will still be required to pay some of your health care costs.

Seeking Transparency in Health Care Costs
No wonder health insurance is so frustrating and confusing for most people. Using automobile insurance as a parallel, health insurance has done the equivalent of paying for gas, oil changes, windshield wipers, and other car repairs in addition to covering collision and liability. Using insurance would allow these things to have artificially set prices which are unreasonably high (since it’s covered by insurance). The cost of your routine maintenance would go up, and insurance could dictate what shop or gas station you could go to for service. But in reality, consumers are already motivated to do those things and will pay out of pocket to maintain their car so as to avoid needing to use their auto insurance at all.

Health insurance is suppose to be a hedge against financial disaster, but people are seemingly are using insurance to cover every ache, pain, anxiety, and pill resulting in artificially inflated prices. How can a outpatient clinic charge $600 for 1-hr procedure? Or $90 for a generic medication? Because unlike bananas, Americans and most doctors have NO idea what an one hour procedure or generic medication should cost- and ultimately how much they will be on the hook for- until they decide to get it done. For better or worse, this has created a demand for transparency among individuals. Direct Primary Care can help fill that void. Check back soon for part 2 of this blog post.

Hello and thank you reading my blog at Beyond Primary Care and trying the BPC Good Eats recipes. This featured recipe is a Doritos Taco Salad. These recipes are my attempt, in a way, to bridge that Doctor’s adage of “Eat Better & Exercise More.” In this post, I will showcase a healthy meal made on a budget, my pictures are pretty decent, and that is how I got into this food endeavor.

Doritos Taco Salad
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time:  30 minutes
Adapted from: Emily Bites

Ingredients
1 lb lean ground beef
taco seasoning, to taste
1 large head of iceberg lettuce, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 large tomato, diced
4 oz sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
5 oz Doritos, broke up a bit into bite sized pieces
1 cup catalina or french dressing

Instructions
1) Brown the ground beef in a skillet over medium heat, breaking it up into pieces as it cooks. Once 90% cooked, cover skillet and drain cooking juices over sink, return to stove.
2) Add taco seasoning to beef and stir until cooked and well coated. Set aside, cover to keep warm.
3) Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine lettuce, tomato, cheese.
4) Add beef to large bowl along with doritos and dressing, toss to coat.

The picture is a plastic suction bulb, or ‘booger sucker’ as newborn parents like to say. You can find these in most stores, typically in the newborn section for $1-2. Why am I posting about this you ask? Suction bulbs allow us to do nasal rinses. The traditional method has been the net pot, but I prefer the suction bulb. Nasal rinses are an ancient practice that has been shown to have benefit relieving both allergy and cold symptoms.

Essentially, it involves sending a stream of saline (salt-water) solution up one side of your nose and back out. No, I do not believe it has to go in one nostril and out the other. Gag! The act of bathing the turbinates and sinuses in saline water is all this is required, along with a thorough blowing of the nose afterwards.

You can buy individual packets to mix with water, but because my readers are thrifty- I suspect they want to make their own. To make your own:

1. In any container, combine 2 tablespoons of household table kosher salt (iodine free) or sea salt, 1/8 teaspoon baking soda, and 1 cup (8 oz) of lukewarm sterile or boiled (but cooled) water.
2. To do the rinse, stand over the sink.
3. Place the tip (not entire nose piece) of the nozzle into the nostril aiming slightly away from the septum (the midline wall the divides your nostrils).
4. Lean your head forward, and squeeze the saline water aiming for the back of the eyeballs.
5. Repeat with the other side, allow the water to drain, and blow your nose with tissue.

Yes, what comes out is disgusting and you may get a salty taste in your mouth, but you will feel better. I typically advise people to rinse x4-8 per day. The bottom line is the more you do this, the better you will feel- quicker.

Hello and thank you reading my blog at Beyond Primary Care and trying the BPC Good Eats recipes. This featured recipe is a Apple Harvest Salad. These recipes are my attempt, in a way, to bridge that Doctor’s adage of “Eat Better & Exercise More.” In this post, I will showcase a healthy meal made on a budget, my pictures are pretty decent, and that is how I got into this food endeavor.

Apple Harvest Salad
Adapted from: The Seasoned Mom
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients for Cider Vinaigrette Dressing
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon onion powder
4 teaspoons Dijon mustard
4 teaspoons maple syrup
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

Ingredients for Apple Harvest Salad
4 cups spring mix (or other greens of choice)
2 apples (a variety you would enjoy), diced
Juice from ½ of a lemon
1 cup dried cranberries
4 ounces crumbled blue cheese
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped and toasted

Instructions:
1) Whisk together dressing ingredients in a small bowl or measuring cup until completely combined, set aside or divide into smaller containers for individual lunches.
2) Place diced apple in a small bowl and squeeze lemon over the bowl. Toss apple in lemon juice to coat (this will prevent browning).
3) Divide salad ingredients among the containers, layering in the following: greens, apples, cranberries, and cheese.
4) When ready to serve, empty the dressing containers onto the salad, top with pecans, and toss to coat.

Did I mention that at Beyond Primary Care in Ann Arbor Michigan, we aim to bring affordable blood work to you by being 100% transparent about our pricing? I have mentioned this before about individual medications, but after all, there is more than just medications to be transparent about. 

Can you remember an instance where a doctor advised you to get blood work done, but they didn’t know if your insurance would cover it or even how much it would cost? There are examples of this occurring all the time in the news. Such as a $17,000 bill for a urine drug screen or owing $478 dollars for a complete blood count and comprehensive metabolic panel (Our shameless self-promoting plug, Beyond Primary Care’s total price for these tests is $17.28). As a personal example, my wife recently got blood work for what the doctors described as a nominal cost. Yet, the explanation of benefits we received stated the insurance would not cover the tests, which are priced at 4-figures! Upon discovering this and discussing with both the insurance and the doctor’s office, no one has yet to give us reassurances or answers. No transparency there. 

The jury is still out on my personal experience, but you can avoid the headaches and uncertainty of this type of disjointed healthcare. At Beyond Primary Care, if lab work is needed, Dr. O’Boyle will discuss with you the reason for the blood work and discuss the total costs of the blood work before beginning. Dr. O’Boyle performs his own blood draws (naturally at no additional cost to you), and then finally sends them out to be interpreted at those agreed upon reduced costs.

What about those affordable blood work results? Dr. O’Boyle will communicate with you what the laboratory study means, perhaps in office, through a phone call, or a text- just to give you peace of mind. That is comprehensive family medicine.