pressnews. com Health & Wellness • Thursday, March 20, 2025 Page 3
New clinic joins growing movement for direct primary care
By LAUREN FLAUM lauren. flaum @ apgecm. com
In 2019, longtime health care worker Alicia Bame-Anderson of Monticello was studying to be a family nurse practitioner, and was still figuring out what she wanted to do in the next phase of her career.
“ I knew I always wanted to start my own business, but I didn’ t know in what capacity,” she said.
Working as an emergency room nurse, she had noticed a troubling lack of resources for patients in primary care.
“ Many patients didn’ t have insurance and some didn’ t have a primary care provider, so they would come to the ER for things that would have normally been addressed in outpatient primary care,” she said.“ There’ s also not a lot of primary care practitioners, and patients can’ t get appointments.”
Looking to address this problem, a growing health care option known as direct primary care( DPC) intrigued her, and she began to research this alternative payment model, which cuts out the insurance companies and administrative middlemen. Patients instead pay a regular membership fee directly to the medical provider in exchange for unlimited care.
“ Direct primary care gives you direct access to your primary care provider,” Bame-Anderson explained.“ You pay a monthly fee to be a member and you get unlimited access to the clinic and your primary care provider.”
Eliminating billing and insurance hassles allows providers to spend more time with patients, a real win-win, as it leads to personalized care and better health outcomes, Bame-Anderson said— yet no one was offering this type of service anywhere near her hometown, where she grew up and is now raising four kids of her own.
“ I thought,‘ This is it, this is my calling’— and where better to offer it than where I grew up, here in Monticello?” she said.
The family nurse practitioner opened her own clinic, Motivity Health, this past September on East Broadway in downtown Monticello, with a focus on affordable, patient-centered, prevention-focused functional medicine and holistic care for people aged 0 to 64.
Motivity Health boasts 24 / 7 access to Bame-Anderson via phone, text or online portal;
Alicia Bame-Anderson’ s new clinic, Motivity Health in Monticello, seeks to do things differently than most medical practices— and that includes ditching the sterile atmosphere.
( PHOTOS BY LAUREN FLAUM)
Family nurse practitioner Alicia Bame-Anderson listens to a young patient’ s heart in the exam room of her new direct primary care clinic, Motivity Health.
comprehensive medical services; same-day or next-day visits; personalized attention, including longer appointments that typically last 30 to 90 minutes; in-office procedures; telemedicine, from text messages to video chats and phone calls; and even walk-in services for the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“ We’ re different,” Bame-Anderson said.“ We’ re very personable. We’ re part of the community and we understand the frustration with the health care system. And we provide an alternative and direct approach to meeting your health care needs.”
Membership-based model
While patients do not need to become a member to access some of Motivity’ s services— such as one-time acute care visits for $ 150, or physicals for $ 250, plus lab fees— membership certainly comes with a fair share of perks. Following a one-time enrollment fee of $ 100, membership costs $ 80 per month for adults; $ 40 for children; $ 60 for college students; and $ 300 for families. It includes unlimited visits with direct access to the primary care provider; a yearly physical with basic lab tests; discounted lab fees and medication; laceration repairs, cryotherapy, skin biopsies, strep tests, urine analyses and more. Once someone opts for membership, what can they expect?
“ I do a lot of education with our initial new patient visit,” Bame-Anderson said.“ I really get to know all about them. I want to know them on a personal level so that we can take a holistic approach to reach optimal health.”
While patients come to Motivity for all manner of health needs, one popular program is for those looking to shed some pounds.
“ We have a lot of people on our medical weight loss plan,” said Bame-Anderson, who has a personal interest in nutrition that has led her to take a deep dive into the subject through additional coursework to keep up with her nurse practitioner license.
“ I’ ve learned a lot about these different specialties: nutrition, functional medicine, gut and brain health, exercise and diet, holistic medicine,” she said.“ Those are the things I focus on when I do my extra education hours.”
Weight-loss management is just the tip of the iceberg at Motivity, which covers all manner of everyday health needs— from DOT and sports physicals to EKGs, skin procedures and chronic disease management, along with wellness exams and urgent care visits, among other primary care services.
Direct primary benefits One of the biggest incentives
See Motivity, Page 5