FAIRMONT – Looking to make healthcare more affordable and less of a hassle, Cornerstone Clinic is working with North Risk Partners (NRP) to partner with local businesses, offering direct primary care and $0 visits.

By going through the Direct Primary Care route, NRP Vice President Skip Lowe said they are looking to provide another option for businesses to provide employee care via a subscription-based model.

“We establish a fee per employee per month, then we bake that into a health insurance plan,” he said. “We don’t require the patients or the members of health plans or employers to come to Cornerstone. We give it to them as an option.”

In offering this to businesses, it does not replace or remove any component of their current insurance. It serves as an added option for primary care.

Cornerstone Physician Assistant Nathan Reyelts said they offer medical care from the cradle to old age.

“We want to make sure that people are getting their healthcare needs met,” he said. “We offer full physicals. We do mental health, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, we do stomachs, anything with your stomach. We certainly do a lot of musculoskeletal things, unique things to Cornerstone like our trigger point injection. We try to blend functional medicine into traditional Western medicine.”

Everything done within Cornerstone Clinic, besides care handled separately like Department of Transportation physicals for truck drivers, is covered under the $0 visit program.

“Your kid is sick, we take care of them for free,” Cornerstone Co-Owner Samantha Farnum said. “You’re coming in for your diabetes follow-up, we take care of that for free. Anything that we can see patients for on a daily basis, we see these patients for as well, without them having to come to the front desk and pay their co-pay or pay a large fee or worry about a high deductible.”

NRP Risk Advisor Colton Storla said everything got started with a conversation between NRP, Cornerstone and an employer.

“An employer was fed up with seeing increase after increase from a large insurance carrier,” he said. “Cornerstone and ourselves, with the insurance background at North Risk Partners, said, ‘We can move you to more of a customized plan where we can dictate your own terms.’ There’s still a catastrophic plan in place, but now we layer in Cornerstone Services and that direct primary care model.”

A catastrophic plan refers to urgent and emergency services, such as surgeries, hospital visits and other immediate care. Reyelts said Cornerstone still offers regular health insurance, just as they have before, and is not switching to direct primary care only.

Reyelts said they started with one company last year, and it has seen great success in the trial period. Now, they are in talks with several businesses and looking to spread this model further.

The feedback received thus far by Storla has been that of turning back the clock.

“That small town doc feel,” he said. “They were able to get me in, they spent time with me. It wasn’t this mad rush of ‘get me in, get me out.’ There’s just been a lot of positive feedback from both the employer and the employees, because now the employer sees this as being a recruitment and retention tool.”

By being able to offer this type of healthcare in Fairmont, Farnum said it’s allowing her to continue to take care of her patients and meet them where they are.

“This program allows us to continue to take our time with our patients, get to know them, and get to the bottom of what’s really happening in their healthcare, which has been what we have always wanted to do.”

For more information or to inquire about the program, call Skip Lowe at 641-528-6088 or Cornerstone Clinic at 507-399-2100.