Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Anastasia (Staci) Benson.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
As a child, I grew up without health insurance and saw firsthand, how broken the healthcare system was. As much as my parents tried to hide it, I felt the financial struggles as they saved up to pay medical bills. The lack of transparency and hidden bills is not the way any business or system should operate.
I entered college with the dream of becoming a family physician with aspirations to help families like mine. After getting into medical school, I became involved in health policy as I learned more about how our system is designed to benefit the insurance industry and not protect the patient. Throughout residency, I continued to be disenfranchised with how our system works and saw firsthand how it was providing subpar care to many members of my community. I became a doctor to be a doctor and help my patients improve their lives. I didn’t become a doctor to check boxes and follow rules set by an insurance industry that’s purpose is to generate profits for their shareholders, which in many cases is not aligned with the health and wellbeing of its patient members.
I opened Paradigm Family Health, a direct primary care (DPC) clinic in January 2017, with the vision of providing high quality and affordable primary care to my community through a monthly membership fee. I made the decision to leave the traditional health insurance model and promote free market, transparency in pricing/agenda and most importantly, the patient-physician relationship. My clinic does require a paradigm shift in how a physician is paid for their services but it also opens the door to a completely different experience. I practice “routine” family medicine just like I would in the traditional system but because I don’t bill insurance nor require the staff to assist me, I have a lower overhead, thus, able to contain costs and believe in full transparency so have all my pricing posted straight on my website. Because my patients pay me on a membership basis and not a la carte, I’m able to offer extended visits up to 90 minutes, same/next-day appointments and expand my telemedicine services.
In addition, I work to negotiate pricing for patients on services I cannot offer directly from my clinic, such as labs, at substantial savings. For example, a recent pneumonia patient went to an urgent care where they were billed $51 for a CBC. This same lab through my clinic is $3.57. The urgent care billed $162 for a breathing treatment. I include this in my membership fee but in full transparency, the mask costs me $1.40 and the medication $0.20 with the nebulizer at a sunk cost (its reusable) at $20. So, what an urgent care billed for $162 cost me $1.60 plus my time. And the most important part of this story is the physician-patient relationship and ability to have follow-up. With my direct care clinic, I am able to actually get to know my patients. I wasn’t able to do this in the traditional system where 5-10 minute visits are the norm. In addition, cost isn’t prohibiting follow-up care as it’s already included in the membership. And, I’m not getting any incentives to have 30 patients run through my clinic in a day. Instead, I’m able to discuss many problems in each visit and really learn about the health of my patients.
One of my favorite and unexpected things about running this practice model is what I’ve been able to do outside the general scope of the clinic. When hurricane Harvey hit Texas, I was fortunate enough to raise over $30,000 and used that to assist medical shelters and clinics in need of medical supplies, with my clinic functioning as a distribution center and working with private plane owners to fly the needed supplies across the state. These efforts continued after Irma and Maria made landfall and for several months, our clinic was a makeshift home for supplies as donations and needs continued to come in.
As my practice grows, it will continue to evolve to best serve its members and I am excited to see what the future holds for Paradigm Family Health and health of our East Dallas community!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Coming from a medical background, I didn’t have any experience or real training in operating a business. This was a steep learning curve and a burden that I was fortunate enough to have somewhat alleviated by my husband and family members as they are non-clinicians with more business experience.
The second major bump I found was marketing. You can imagine it was often a difficult conversation to explain this new concept.
Me: “I’m a doctor and I charge $65 a month to join my clinic…”
Me: “No, I’m not insurance.”
Me: “Yes, I understand you already pay for insurance…”
I often found myself explaining the clinic’s model multiple times before someone would understand it. Which I anticipated on some level, as this was and still is a completely new way to think about financing your healthcare.
Please tell us about Paradigm Family Health.
Paradigm Family Health is a family medicine clinic based on a monthly membership model, priced at $25-85/month. This fee includes all visits to the clinic (including texting/email/phone calls) and most procedures done in-house (e.g., breathing treatment, EKG). I am a board-certified family physician and I am the clinic’s only employee. I answer all the phone calls/emails, clean the floor, draw bloodwork and do all my general practice management and business development. Currently, I am the only family medicine clinic of its kind in East Dallas.
I have been open since January 2017 and over the last 14 months have continued to grow and expand our membership numbers. I am proud of so many things that I’ve accomplished over the past 14 months including our membership growth, helping other physicians across the country open similar practices and engaging in health policy work on a local, state and national level to promote better access to healthcare (including a trip to the White House). Most importantly, I have been able to help members of my community get the healthcare that they deserve – which was the ultimate purpose for opening my practice.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
This is a tough question but probably start marketing earlier (many months pre-opening) to my community. Looking back on the past 14 months, it’s been a fun roller-coaster ride and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Contact Info:
- Address: 6301 Gaston Ave.
Suite 445
Dallas Tx 75214 - Website: www.paradigmfamilyhealth.com
- Phone: 2148103553
- Email: drbenson@paradigmfamilyhealth.com
- Facebook: facebook.com/paradigmfamilyhealth
- Twitter: @ParadigmFamily
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