Mondays with your MD: Headaches and Migraines

2022-06-20T13:50:23+00:00June 20th, 2022|Adults, Family Practice, Health Care, Urgent Care|

June is Headache and Migraine Awareness Month.
Did you even know that was a thing?

There are many reasons people get headaches and most of us have had a headache at some point.

Today we review the most common causes as well as what the most concerning warning signs are and when you should seek immediate care.

Headaches can be due to allergies, caffeine withdrawal and even a life-threatening aneurysm.

Typical headaches are tension-type headaches and migraines.

Tension-Type headaches

Tension-Type headaches are most common and are often caused by the following 3 things:

excessive caffeine intake

alcohol intake

vision problems

Migraines

We discuss Migraines in great detail in our June edition of
“Monthly Health Tips”


Migraines can be debilitating.
We look at symptoms, preventions, and treatments.

It is important to know that headaches

can sometimes be a sign of a life-threatening emergency.

The following signs are reasons to seek care immediately:

You are having your worst headache ever
You have loss of consciousness
You have uncontrollable vomiting
Your headache is worst upon waking
You have loss of vision

Mondays with your MD: What is Direct Primary Care?

2025-08-04T17:32:37+00:00June 10th, 2022|Direct Primary Care, Family Practice, Health Care, Membership, Urgent Care|

People ask me all the time…. What is Direct Primary Care?

Focused on your health.

In a traditional fee for service primary care practice, doctors are paid based on how many people they see, number of tests they order, or type of procedures they do. This leads to our current system of rapid visits with many tests and quick referrals. Many times doctors cannot take the the time to really listen, or think about what is best for your health from the patient perspective. In the existing system, doctors are not reimbursed for emails or phone calls and this creates a system where it becomes difficult to speak to your doctor outside of a harried office visit that you may have been waiting a long time for.

In direct primary care, instead of paying for each visit or procedure, you pay a monthly fee. This monthly fee frees the physician from the model that promotes productivity over quality and allows your physician to focus on you and what you really need. This leads to more time with your doctor when you need it and convenient easy access outside the doctor’s “office visit” by phone, text, email, etc.

The doctor you call. The doctor you trust.

Direct primary care doctors are dedicated to provide the high-quality unhurried care that is essential for your wellbeing and ongoing maintenance of your health. You can see your direct primary care doctor for all routine and preventive services like checkups as well as urgent care and chronic care management. Many times having this relationship with your physician and the access it provides, can save you visits to more expensive venues like the urgent care, hospital or emergency room.

Mondays with your MD: Keeping medications affordable

2025-08-04T17:32:34+00:00June 5th, 2022|Adults, Direct Primary Care, Health Care, Membership, Prescription Costs|

Medications do not need to be expensive.

At Roots Health DPC, we are making medications affordable for our patients. How?

We buy medications at wholesale pricing and sell them to our patients directly at wholesale cost – without marking them up. We remove the profit takers, pharmacy benefit managers, and retail pharmacies between patients and their medications, effectively lowering the cost of prescriptions by 50% to 90%.

Examples of medications for under $5/month

Medication Dosage
Metformin 1000 mg
Ibuprofen 600 mg
Lisinopril 10 mg
Amlodipine 2.5 mg
Sertraline/Zoloft 50 mg
Lovastatin 40 mg
Sumatriptan/Imitrex 100 mg
Lortadine/Claritin 10 mg

A simple idea to solve a complex problem

DPC stands for Direct Primary Care – we deliver health care services, including medications, directly to our patients. We provide medications at these rates because we believe that the people in our community deserve fair pricing on the medications they need to stay healthy. At Roots Health DPC, we are uniquely qualified to partner with our patients to determine which medications will best treat their medical conditions.

Mondays with Your MD: Health Insurance is not Good Health Care

2025-08-04T17:32:28+00:00May 22nd, 2022|Adults, Copays, Family Practice, Health Care, Membership|

How accessible is health care in the richest nation? Why Health Insurance ≠ Health Care.

Many patients tell me that they love their doctor but that they cannot get through easily or book an appointment quickly. They pay thousands of dollars annually for “health insurance,” but are frustrated with their inability to access appropriate “health care.” Patients often go to an emergency room or an urgent care to be seen because it is the only option in the existing health care model.

The result: Americans visits the doctor less frequently and have the highest rate of avoidable deaths.

The United States spends 2x as much, per person, as other high-income countries, yet the US continues to have the lowest life expectancy and poorer health care outcomes when compared to other countries. Americans pay hefty premiums to health insurance plans every year. Where do the dollars go and why is health care access awful?

Traditional physician offices incur a large cost for taking care of patient needs outside of the actual patient office visit. For example, making a phone call to provide patient care is not compensated by insurance companies. Several other similar services that are instrumental to good health care include completing forms for patients, ordering and/or reviewing labs, and writing prescriptions. Restrictions placed by insurance companies make it difficult to take care of patients outside of the visit.

What if health insurance was the same as other insurance products?

A good example is car insurance. You expect to pay out of pocket for your gas, oil change, and maintenance/repairs. You have a high deductible low premium insurance that covers you in case of a car accident. In the analogous healthcare model, patients have catastrophic health insurance coverage with low monthly premiums and a high deductible.

Pairing health insurance with health care, through a physician direct primary care office, lowers out of pocket expense and improves health outcomes by providing access to obtain discounted screenings, preventative services, urgent care services, labs, and medications.

Health insurance companies have come between patients and their health. The health system in the United States is broken as evidenced by the out of control spending and health outcomes. Direct primary care offers an alternative that works. Direct primary care aligns values to prioritize patient health care needs with lower costs and better health outcomes. Find a direct primary care near you by searching https://mapper.dpcfrontier.com/

© Copyright 2020 Roots-MD LLC, dba Roots Health DPC
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