INTRODUCTION TO DIRECT PRIMARY CARE

You are starting an exciting and innovative new concept  in medical care.

I’m doctor Rodney Snead. After being board certified in both Emergency and Family medicine, working local Emergency Departments for 20 years and founding  Cares Medical clinic, in 2016, I began investigating the new concept of  Direct primary Care as a better way to help our dysfunctional  expensive healthcare system.

direct primary care Direct meaning no middleman interfering with your care.   Primary because it’s the first place you go. Care because your provider actually has time to care.

The simplicity of an inexpensive monthly membership allows us to provide better primary care. Just like it doesn’t make sense to pay for expensive insurance policy on your car tires, insurance can be used for its intended purpose, to cover catastrophic expenses outside primary care.  This results in major cost and waste reductions so providers can spend more time with you instead of paperwork.

That drastic reduction in overhead results in free, unhurried office visits with minimal waiting room time. Access by text, telephone, and email, and tele-visits as appropriate. We negotiate outside testing that is also streamlined. A chemistry profile or a CBC or lipid profile for under $5. An MRI is about $350.00.  Many insurances charge you both a high premium and still makes you pay a $250 to $300 copay after your $3000-5000 deductible.

The membership model makes it in both our interest to keep you healthy, so we provide free yearly preventative physicals and lab test and encourage early treatment of illnesses.

Direct primary care patients need expensive hospital or emergency Department visits 40 to 60% less, because the longer times spent with your provider results in better care. And when you start feeling sick, you don’t wait until you are half dead trying to avoid copays, long waits and missing work before you get treatment.

Jennifer, our nurse practitioner has extensive experience at the regular CARES office emergency departments, and other pediatric offices.

Mary Beth, our care coordinator at CARES and the Direct Primary Care office with a BS and X-ray tech degree.  She does the scheduling, billing, the lab work, and is an expert in helping you navigate the medical system for better care at better prices.

Both these ladies go the extra mile to help. Their favorite activities are being with their spouses and children.

We can usually make appointments for in office visits or telehealth visits either the same or next office day. Our office hours are nine to four on Monday and Wednesday, 9 to one on Tuesday and Thursday, during which we answer calls but prefer texts. 

After hours, urgent texts or calls are addressed as our time allows. Please add our phone number and email to your contacts so that you don’t miss us. There is one simple number for text calls, voicemails, and faxes 2156 963-9441.

By planning ahead to request refills and visits a couple of days in advance, you avoid the $10 after hours charge. If you do need us urgently after hours and we’re not able to manage your medical problems by phone, we can direct you to an urgent care or ER and sometimes reduce your outside cost by sending records or calling the provider there are ahead of time.

We work with your present doctor or specialists and will refer you to any appropriate provider   for consultation but can also sometimes save you money and long waits by getting a timely Rubicon MD Service online consultation service.

Your comfortable medical home is on 1330 Leighton Avenue in Anniston.

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Please help us to keep everyone’s costs low. 

  • No-show appointments cost everyone money so there is a $10 reminder fee after the second one.
  • We use a credit card on file for incidental fees, to streamline billing. We will try to give you the cost of those incidental, such as labs or xray before ordering them.
  • Repeated credit card denials raise everyone’s expenses so there will be a $15 reminder fee for  denials.
  • We are happy to assist in using any insurance you have to cover outside testing, if they require time consuming prior authorizations, there is a $15 fee.

We bill automatically each month. Changes on your credit card should be submitted to us prior to the 25th of the preceding month to avoid bank fees.

Prescriptions are faxed to your pharmacy. You may have to remind them to check their fax.

Our rates for care or $60 per month for an individual $100 a month for couples and twice that for the over 65 group.

Some forward-thinking companies may pay a portion of your membership.  They frequently do a payroll deduction for your portion and let you use your credit card for incidentals.  Children under 18 are $30 per month for sick care availability. Their pediatrician should continue to keep up with growth and development issues and immunizations.

We want you to be totally happy with your membership, so there is no long-term commitment.  The $100 continuity of care unenrollment fee is waived after three months. We congratulate you on your move to a better model of healthcare.