Why I Chose Direct Primary Care: Valley Care DPC.
Written by: Dr. Frannie Koe, MD
Edited by: Breanne Brazeale
I have a family practice clinic in Collinsville, AL called Wills Valley Family Medicine. I opened a Direct Primary Care clinic, Valley Care DPC, in the same building over seven years ago, and I love it. I wanted to explain a little about what drove my decision.
I love being a family practitioner. But the hardest parts about it are keeping up with clinic notes and having enough time with my patients. When I was seeing 15 to 20 patients a day, sometimes even more, I would work 70 – 80 hours a week to see patients and finish all the clinic notes. I would get up at 6 am and work on them, then take a shower, eat and go to work. When I got home at night at about 5:30 pm, I would have to work until bedtime around 8-9 pm on notes just to keep up.
Sometimes I would be several hundred notes behind if I were to do other activities on the weekends or after work. Tim never got a lot of time with me, and when he did, all he saw me do was complete my clinic notes. Of course, I took time for myself; when I did, I got behind. When I went on vacation, everything would pile up. I would have to prepare for vacation a few weeks in advance and then come home to more work after vacation. I could only take one week off a year. This went on for about 5 years until I got a nurse practitioner, but we both struggled to keep up with everything. I think notes are the main reason physicians get burned out!
I did not know there was another way until I heard one of my previous medical school and residency classmates who lives Mississippi told me about DPC at a party. DPC stands for Direct Primary Care. When I heard about this way of practicing medicine, I immediately tried to figure out how I could do it. I could spend an hour with a patient and my notes would be fast and free typed, done when we walked out of the room! I could put the most important information in the note and leave out all the extra that was required by insurance.
Since deciding to add a DPC clinic (Valley Care DPC here in Collinsville) and hiring a team of trusted nurse practitioners to work with me at Wills Valley Family Medicine, not only has my quality of life improved, but I feel as though I’ve been able to reach many more people and help uninsured patients who otherwise could not afford reliable treatment.
Would I go back to just doing a regular insurance clinic full time? No! I hope I never have to, because of how much I value the DPC clinic and all its benefits.
