FRONTIER DIRECT CARE

A Monthly Subscription Plan to Care

by Jillian Cameron | photos provided

There’s a subscription for just about anything you can imagine these days. From streaming services to food delivery to gym memberships, the United States is a country that likes to subscribe. Subscriptions provide the benefit of access to goods or services for a low monthly fee. Why shouldn’t the healthcare system adopt that model? Frontier Direct Care is doing just that.

“It’s Netflix for your doctor,” said Bibb Beale, CEO of Frontier Direct Care.

“You pay a monthly subscription fee of around $60 to $70 a month per person and you get unlimited access to your primary care doctor. That's through phone calls, text messages, FaceTime, or in-person visits, you get unlimited access. You can visit as many or little times as you want for the same monthly fee,” Beale said.

“Frontier Direct Care really started out as an idea from a doctor who's my co-founder. He used to work at just a regular primary care office, and I walked into the primary care office and waited three hours (to see the doctor). I got so upset after waiting around two hours, 45 minutes. I told my assistant to create a $3,000 invoice and send it to them, to basically bill them for all of my waste of time,” Beale said.

Dr. Peter Lazzopina, the doctor Beale was waiting to see, heard about the incident, and personally connected with Beale to address the issue.

“He reached out and said, ‘Hey, I'm really sorry. Why don't you come in the back door of our practice and I'll see you in my office?’ I went in the back door and saw him, and he gave me his cell phone number and said, ‘You just call me, if you ever have any questions,’” said Beale.

“After five or six times seeing him, he sent me to his office one day. I had been coming in through the back door the whole time (to see him directly), and he said, ‘Hey, what I've been doing (with) you is called direct primary care. And it's this model where you pay a monthly subscription fee, and you can get unlimited access to me, kind of like what you've been doing,’” Beale said.

Even though Dr. Lazzopina had not been charging Beale, he explained how he had been wanting to try out this method of “direct primary care.”

Beale encouraged Dr. Lazzopina to start the business on his own. Dr. Lazzopina decided to do a four-month trial with four other families. He shared his cellphone number and practiced the kind of direct care he had been giving Beale and his family. It was a huge success.

Dr. Lazzopina asked Beale to help him start the business, and although Beale was hesitant at first, he ended up diving in and taking the lead as CEO.

Frontier Direct Care has grown rapidly since Dr. Lazzopina’s idea in 2018. The company now has more than 17 medical providers, 17 nursing staff, and 64 employees, and continues to expand today. Over the next five years, Frontier Direct Care plans to open up 100 locations across Texas. By the end of 2027, the company is expected to be in all markets across the state and potentially outside the state.

“We have same-day appointments. So you just go online or you text your doctor and say, ‘Can I see you today?’ You can see the available time, and you pick a time and show up to one of the Frontier locations,” Beale said.

“Our wait time is, on average, less than two minutes, and our visit time is, on average, around 37 minutes. The reason the doctor can do that is because they only have a maximum of 800 patients.”

Frontier Direct Care gives doctors the freedom to spend time with patients, not paperwork. The company is working to create a more efficient system that can be effective in making changes for American healthcare.

For more information, contact Frontier Direct Care at 956-983-9272 or info@FrontierDirectCare.com.