New Practice

Salad, salmon, and electronic health records (EHRs) were the menu highlights at the recent Direct Care Dinner hosted by Elation Health and facilitated by Dr. Darin Charles. Held at the Winewood Grill in Grapevine, Texas, the dinner event focused on the operation and the benefits of direct care and EHRs in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

Dr. Charles launched his direct care practice, Hometown Health with the goal of offering the same level of care to his patients as he does for friends and family. He says that “by eliminating the complications of insurance, and implementing the latest technology,” he is able to provide high quality, personalized care with “immediate access, superior communication and expanded appointment times, with complete transparency, at a reasonable cost.”

The Direct Care DFW Dinner Event, held on February 5, 2020, also featured remarks from Elation’s Direct Care Growth Manager, Gabby Marquez, and Direct Care Growth Specialist, Julia Burgess. Throughout the evening’s presentation, Dr. Charles focused on several key topics, including the importance of:

• Establishing a solid membership price, emphasizing that direct care physicians need to “know your worth”
• Balancing the amount of individual memberships with employer contracts
• Establishing a budget for the first year of operations in a direct care practice.

Operating a successful direct care practice requires planning, financially as well as in terms of patient panel size. The attraction of direct care to the patient is the simplicity of the model and the affordability of the membership fee, but the provider is running a business and needs to be sure it can be sustained.

Hometown Health provides direct care services to small businesses as well as individuals. Many direct care practices work with businesses to provide healthcare to their employees, particularly as healthcare costs continue to rise. Using the right EHR solution can also make a significant difference in the quality of care provided to those businesses.

Dr. Charles emphasized the need for quality technology as a communication tool and as an effective tool for providing value-based care to all of his patients. He did an amazing job during the dinner event, facilitating conversations and giving a very informative and content rich presentation about his direct care practice and his route to success as an independent physician.

The great turnout at the dinner event included experienced physicians as well as those just launching their practice. One attendee noted with excitement, “As a new practice I would highly suggest using Elation. It is by far the best EMR!” At Elation Health, we look forward to working with this provider and many others who will soon be making the switch.