ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Direct Primary Care providers have revolutionized the image of healthcare. They paved the way for a more patient-centric approach, emphasizing fostering long-term healthcare provider-to-patient relationships.

Direct primary care differs from the traditional health insurance framework, so there is a direct financial arrangement between the direct primary care provider and the patient. It removes the insurance providers in the process, thus skipping the “middle man.” It saves the patients and clients from the hassle and the expense of filing insurance claims.

Direct primary care works such that payments come in monthly fees – unlike the regular health insurance premiums or copays.  The perfect avenue to get affordable healthcare is direct primary care. Direct primary care helps get you the essentials, such as diagnostics, laboratories, and medicines.

Direct primary care providers do not bill insurance companies and usually refuse any form of insurance. Because of that, direct primary care patients enroll in a high deductible health plan.

The main advantage of having direct primary care is the continuity of care between the healthcare provider and the patient. Healthcare providers get to know their patients on a deeper level, spending more time for each visit or consultation. An opportunity for more customized and personalized management is knowing the details of a patient’s health history.

Direct primary care also charges bills upfront. There is no room for surprise medical bills, as the case is with typical health insurance plans.  You might need health insurance to cover unexpected hospital admissions,  not included in your direct primary care agreement. But, the presence of having a direct primary care clinic saves you from guessing how much your healthcare provider’s visit costs you. It even gives you direct access to your healthcare provider at any time of the day just by paying for a membership cost. 

Continuity of care plays a significant role in disease prevention and control. Hence, having a healthcare provider who you can rely on as a constant partner in looking out for a better quality of life will save you from the burden of having exorbitant hospital bills. This quality of life serves the patients who suffer from chronic illnesses because, in this group of individuals, the best way for a longer and better quality of life is through prevention and control.

The long-term healthcare provider–patient relationship is probably the best aspect in direct primary care. A standard service among direct primary care providers is 24/7 access to same-day or next-day visits. The advent of telehealth and telemedicine further enhanced this provision. This feature is difficult to achieve through health insurance because it would be difficult to bill patients for phone consults or video call consults. 

And for employers, a better way to look out for your employees’ health and welfare is to shoulder their enrollment and monthly dues in a direct primary care program. This program assures employers that their employees are well-taken care of, looked after, and their employees would not receive surprise medical bills even for just a simple consult. Healthier employees would mean more significant revenue for a company, hence direct primary care as an investment is a must.

Direct Primary Care providers in New Mexico 

1. Well Life ABQ - Best Direct Primary Care Provider

Location: Albuquerque

Katherine Devine Raver, a former army veteran nurse and a certified nurse practitioner with over 25 years of healthcare experience, heads Well Life ABQ, one of the best direct primary care providers in New Mexico. 

The clinic prides itself in offering a cost-effective membership maximizing the relationship between the patient and the healthcare provider. It promotes integrative medicine, integrating conventional western therapy, and evidence-based alternative therapies to care for and manage common illnesses and ailments. 

Well Life ABQ believes in transparency and has established partnerships to offer its members amazing discounts on common medications and labs. It especially encourages business owners to look after their employees’ healthcare needs, such that employees and their families get well, stay well, and live well. 

Well Life ABQ offers multiple services generally classified under these categories:

• Healthcare for the Whole Family
• Discounted Medications
• Vitamin Infusions and IV Therapy
• Chronic Disease Management and Acute Care
• Discounted Labs
• 24/7 Telemedicine

Employee or individuals can apply through its website. The clinic features therapies including, but not limited to, the following: 

• Primary Care for Adults and Children
• Integrative Medicine Options
• Allergy Testing and therapy
• Weight Loss 
• Nutritional Counseling
• Women’s Wellness (including GYN exams)
• Non-narcotic Pain Management
• Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement
• Hormone Pellets
• Neural Prolo Therapy Injections
• Vitamin B12 Shots
• Non-steroidal Injections for knee, foot, elbow, and small joints 
• Pediatric Wellness, including food allergies, asthma, infections
• Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)

Well Life ABQ is also uniquely offering hormonal metabolism support for patients who choose to undergo bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Supplements are also available for members at discounted rates, and these are readily available at the clinic and may also be purchased online. 

Well Life ABQ’s website is user-friendly and can be easily navigated. To know more about the services offered by this one-of-a-kind direct primary care provider, click here. 

2. HomeTown Doc, LLC

Location: Sta. Fe

HomeTown Doc, LLC, just like any direct primary care clinic, offers direct access from the healthcare provider to the patients. The clinic refers to itself as cutting the “red tape of bureaucracy.” 

It services the communities of Arroyo Seco, La Mesilla, La Puebla, Nambe, Pojoaque, Jacona, Jaconita, El Rancho, San Ildefonso, and Cuyamungue. 

Led by Dr. Stephanie Lucero, HomeTown Doc LLC offers the following services:

• Phone, Email and Video Visits
• Urgent and Sick Care Visits for minor illnesses and conditions (such as colds, flu, sprains/ strains, urinary tract infections, small wounds requiring minor stitching) 
• Chronic Condition Management (including but not limited to diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, thyroid conditions)
• Comprehensive Physical Exams for All Ages (including well-woman exams, well-child checks, annual physical exams for school and employment requirements)
• Sports Medicine, Joint Injections 
• Skin Biopsies, Freezing of Lesions, Cosmetic removal of lesions
• ​Seasonal Allergy Shots 
• Basic Mental Health Management 
• EKG’s
• ​Urinalysis, Pregnancy Testing
• ​Pap Smears, Women’s Health, Including Nexplanon & IUD Insertion and Removal 
• Care Coordination 
• Healthcare System Navigation and Advice
• Additional Services for Members (which include 24/7 phone and email access, home visits for home-bound patients, and pre-operative evaluations)

3. Natural Medical Solutions Wellness Center

Location: Roswell

The Natural Medical Solutions Wellness Center, administered by Dr. Gail Ravello, an integrative medicine healthcare provider and a naturopathic healthcare professional, provides services to patients. Services at this clinic are in-line with naturopathic medicine, emphasizing the patient’s spiritual, mental, and physical well-being. 

The patients can navigate the clinic’s array of services using the search feature for symptoms, conditions, or therapy options at the landing page. For a more customized approach to a patient’s queries, the site also provides a contact request form for patients to fill up.

4. Taos Whole Health Integrative Care

Location: Taos

The Taos Whole Health Integrative Care is a one-of-a-kind direct primary care clinic that introduces a collaborative and holistic healthcare approach. Run by a team of healthcare providers, nurse practitioners, and therapists, the Taos Whole Health Integrative Care combines, under one roof, several types of medical practices. Each consult starts with a benchmark of a patient’s current health, individual risk factors, annual exams, and medications, as part of the typical practice in Eastern and Western medicine.

Founded in 2016 by healthcare providers Lilly-Marie Blecher and Joanna J. Hooper, the clinic offers the following services, to wit:

• Eastern and Western Primary Care
• Acupuncture
• Core synchronism
• Craniosacral Therapy
• Massage Therapy
• Myofascial release therapy
• Naturopathic medicine
• Nutritional Therapy
• Oriental Medicine
• Yoga Therapy

The clinic’s website features online access to Wellevate, an online store providing direct access to recommended vitamins and supplements, setting up automatic refills, and receiving other communications from the provider. This type of convenience encourages patient compliance in terms of medicines and follow-ups. 

5. Sunny Health DPC

Location: Las Vegas

 A Korean board-certified Family Medicine healthcare professional, Dr. Ga Geong Lee, runs Sunny Health DPC. She has also completed a fellowship in Women’s Health and takes a special interest in Bioidentical Hormone Management and Weight loss.

Sunny Health DPC offers the following services, among others:

• Simple/affordable membership pricing
• Same-day or next-day scheduling 
• Bioidentical Hormone Management 
• Extended, relaxed office visits (30min – 1 hour) 
• Direct communications with your healthcare provider by phone, text, email, as well as video call 
• Ongoing preventative and wellness visits 
• Physicals including completion of school, sports, work, DMV forms, and FMLA
• Pre-Operative Clearance 
• Chronic care management
• Courtesy House-calls for members
• Discounts on wholesale labs and prescription prices (savings of up to 50-90%) on certain medications
• In-office procedures such as:
• EKG (Electrocardiogram) 
• Spirometry 
• Breathing therapies
• Incision and drainage of skin abscess 
• Urinalysis, Urine pregnancy, Rapid Strep test, Flu swap test
• Injections of anti-nausea medications
• Antibiotic injections 
• Steroid injections 
• Ear Lavage

Furthermore, the clinic strictly advises it does not offer the following: pregnancy support, surgeries that go deeper than the skin, childhood vaccines, and the prescribing of pain medications or other controlled substances.

6. Direct Primary Care of Boca Raton

Location: Boca Raton

The Direct Primary Care of Boca Raton prides itself in giving a new and innovative healthcare delivery approach.  Roshini Singh, APRN, and Rachel Huerta, APRN, both board-certified nurse practitioners focusing on Family Medicine, run Direct Primary Care of Boca Raton. 

The clinic guarantees that a one-time, flat fee covers about 90% of a patient’s medical care, including routine and preventive care, sick visits, weight loss management, chronic disease management, and pediatric care, among others. 

The clinic also offers a Telehealth platform and also makes house calls as needed, at an additional charge. ,, However, the clinic warns it does not provide any pregnancy or prenatal services, hence recommends pregnant patients transact with their OB-GYN directly if the need arises.

Membership includes access to the clinic’s dispensary, which, as they claim, are always below pharmacy prices. The ability to purchase medications at affordable costs is one of the main advantages of members. Almost all medications in the clinic’s extensive inventory are generic. If the patient opts for branded medications, they should obtain their prescriptions from another local pharmacy. The clinic also advises the public they do not dispense any DEA-controlled medications, narcotic pain medicine, sedatives, or stimulants.

The clinic’s website also features a patient portal, and lab testing costs up to 90% less for members. The clinic also has ongoing collaborations with specialists they readily contact when necessary for optimal patient care.

7. Medicina del Sol

Location: Las Cruces

Like most direct primary care providers, Medicina del Sol offers affordable, convenient, accessible, and personalized healthcare under the motto, “People Helping People.” Dr. Deborah Thorne, who first received a bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology in Canada, followed by acupuncture certification, manages the clinic. She expanded her medical training and moved to New York, including managing cases under orthopedics and sports medicine. 

Medicina del Sol offers three major categories of services, to wit: 

Wellness Visits includes:

• School/sports physicals
• Wellness & prevention
• Screening tests
• Weight loss counseling
• Smoking cessation
• Travel advice
• Telemedicine consultations

Acute Care & Injuries, such as: 

• Colds & flu
• Nausea and vomiting
• Strains & sprains
• Simple fractures and small joint dislocations
• Simple lacerations & minor wounds
• Rashes & skin abscess

UTI & yeast infections:

• Chronic Conditions
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Thyroid disorders
• Asthma & COPD
• Allergies & eczema
• Depression & anxiety
• Migraines
• Back and joint pain

8. ZIA Access Healthcare

Location: Silver City

Zia Access Healthcare claims it is the last small privately-owned family practice in the area and Gregory Koury, M.D., and his wife, Lori Koury, R.N, manage the clinic.

The clinic specializes in primary care, improving health, maintaining good health,  managing chronic illness, and wellness exams for the newborn to adult. It guarantees availability to members 24/7, utilizing telemedicine in consults. 

The clinic strongly emphasizes the primary care’s key principles as its ultimate guide, specifically service, patient choice, elimination of fee for service, advocacy, and stewardship. Enrollment to the clinic’s services can be quickly done via the website as well. 

Services offered include: 

• Annual Exam (Adult/Pediatric) 
• Urgent Care Visits 
• Sports Physical (under 18 years of age) 
• After hours/weekend medical care & prescriptions 
• Prescriptions sent without an appointment
• B12 Injection 
• Circumcision 
• Ceftriaxone Injection (an adult and pediatric antibiotic) 
• Destruction/Removal of Pre-Malignant Lesion 
• Dexamethasone Injection (for croup) 
• Ear Lavage 
• I & D, Simple 
• Joint Injections
• Kenalog (allergy injection/anti-inflammatory) 
• Solumedrol Injection (anti-inflammatory for asthma) 
• TDaP injection (booster vaccination, adult) 
• Toradol (pain injection) 
• Trigger Point Injection(s) 
• Urinalysis 
• Vasectomy

9. Primary Health Partners

Location: Carlsbad

Primary Health Partners identifies itself as a comprehensive, professional medical practice dedicated to evaluating, preventing, and dealing with multiple medical conditions. The clinic promotes three major sets of services: family medicine, geriatric medicine, and internal medicine. 

The clinic uses healthcare providers and nurse practitioners, namely: Dr. Perrin Curran (Internal Medicine), Dr. Michelle Gonzales (Family Practice), Dr. Wilson Liu (Family Medicine), Dr. Andres Zimmermann (Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine), Maurine Satterwhite, NP, and Lisa Oborne, NP. 

The clinic prides itself in f establishing an extensive network of medical and surgical specialists to guarantee its patients more specialized therapy plans. 

Services include: 

• Acute illnesses
• Age Appropriate Preventive Health Screenings
• Chronic Disease Management
• Preventive Health
• Weight Management
• Medication reduction
• Work, sports, physicals
• Injuries
• Annual wellness exams
• Nutrition counseling
• Well-Woman Exams, Breast Cancer Screenings

10. Farmington Family Practice

Location: Farmington

A group of five healthcare providers and four nurse practitioners, all committed to delivering quality primary care services, run The  Farmington Family Practice. The clinic’s own primary care subscription program uniquely features a partnership with the United Allergy Services to provide skin testing for allergies and immunotherapy therapy.

Aside from that, the clinic also offers overseas immunizations, particularly typhoid, yellow fever, and for Japanese encephalovirus. Their website also provides direct access via a patient portal.  The clinic also has its own pharmacy, which offers curbside services aside from being located just beside the practice.

The clinic’s services include: 

• Acute problems
• Annual physicals
• Chronic problems
• Colonoscopy
• Dermatology
• Geriatrics
• Women’s health
• Well-child check-ups
• Airborne allergy testing & immunotherapy therapy
• Orthopedics
• Sports Physicals
• Lab and  X Rays
• Overseas immunizations
• Vasectomy

There you have it! New Mexico reveals its direct primary care providers clinics’ gifts geared towards providing the best care for its constituents. If you have a specific service in mind, you can navigate these clinics websites to know more about their services. Rest assured, these services come at affordable costs, and most importantly, these clinics aim at having a long-term patient and provider relationship to foster continuity of care.

There are no excuses for getting the best and affordable healthcare for you, your family, and your employees! Get enrolled in a direct primary care clinic now!