Physician hopes his new kind of direct-care clinic catches on around Wichita

The new Premonition Health is the result of internal medicine physician Matthew Bezzant’s desire to see health care work a new way.

“I think that primary care is fairly broken,” he said. “It’s pretty rough out there.”

Bezzant said he wants health care to be functional for both patients and providers.

“My current practice is a test bed.”

He said he’s experimenting with two direct-care models — one with insurance and one without.

Bezzant said there are a number of direct-care practices in town that are based on cash, not insurance. They’re also known as concierge clinics.

Premonition has a hybrid model that charges patients with insurance $50 a month or patients without insurance $65 a month instead of using a traditional fee-for-service system.

This helps the clinic offset the uncertainty of when it gets paid.

“We have a consistent monthly income,” Bezzant said.

He said that uncertainty is a major issue for physicians.

They may bill for a certain procedure, and insurance then pays them back 60% to 70% of what they’ve billed about two or three months later, “which makes it very, very hard to stay in business.”

Also, he said time-based codes for reimbursement mean lower pay for doctors who are forced to keep visits shorter because of that billing.

Doctors and their patients suffer from shorter visits, Bezzant said. He said doctors overschedule short visits in order to maintain revenue. Bezzant called those microcharges.

Bezzant said another plus for his system is that he’s also negotiated cash rates for lab work.

“We can get them for you for much, much cheaper.”

Bezzant said a lot of clinics don’t take new Medicare patients because reimbursements are too low, but that’s not the case at Premonition.

“We built this hybrid model to allow people with Medicare to be seen,” he said. “That monthly fee is really key for us.”

He said that’s what will keep his clinic’s doors open. If he receives insurance money on top of the monthly fees, he said he can use it to reinvest in the clinic.

The way Bezzant’s system operates allows him to spend an average of 30 to 60 minutes with patients, he said.

Those visits follow an initial visit that can last an hour or two, where the clinic gets a patient’s medical history and identifies areas of concern that need to be addressed.

Bezzant said that allows for complete and compassionate care that’s still affordable.

He said he’s also wanting to work with businesses that struggle to provide health insurance to employees.

Premonition has monthly plans that cost between 15% and 30% of what businesses normally would have to pay for insurance.

“This offers a really good opportunity, particularly for small businesses that are having trouble providing benefits.”

Bezzant said if his system works, his “hope is to distribute it free to other providers.”

“I think there’s a number of things that make it very attractive to doctors,” he said.

Premonition is at 1431 S. Bluffview Dr. next to Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph, which Bezzant called a central area for south Wichita.

He said his goal is to serve adults such as the working poor, people who medically are underserved, the elderly and people with a lot of health needs.

Bezzant, who also is a hospitalist at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis among other places, said a big difference between Premonition and other direct-care clinics is that usually those clinics have family practice physicians, whereas he’s an internal medicine physician.

“We offer higher-level services.”

For conditions such as diabetes or heart or kidney failure, he said, “We manage all those in house.”

Bezzant said that’s not to take anything away from family practice doctors at other direct-care clinics that treat children and adults.

He said he’s a big fan of those doctors, many of whom helped start the direct-care industry.

“They’re the pioneers.”

Bezzant said the key to direct care now is creating a new kind of system that benefits patients “so we can . . . reset patient relationships.”

That’s in part why he chose the Premonition name.

“I’m trying to give people a peek of the future of what I hope primary care will look like.”