What if you could see your doctor as much as you wanted and never have to pay a deductible or co-pay? What if your doctor was not paid based on how many patients they see on a given day?
This week, Dr. Felecia Sumner joins me to talk about the Direct Primary Care model of healthcare. It’s the Netflix of Healthcare. You pay a monthly subscription fee and get to see your doctor as much as you need to without dealing with insurance providers.
This can be a great thing for stroke survivors and other folks with chronic conditions where you have not only complex needs and more of them than the general population, but you also need a provider who is interested in staying on top of your complex medical history.
Bio
From Dr. Sumner’s website: https://drfsumner.com/about-me/
Dr. Felecia Sumner is a family medicine physician, national speaker, best-selling author, and wellness strategist dedicated to improving the health and overall wellness of her patients and their communities. She is also the co-founder and Vice President of Synergizers Inc – a health and wellness service company.
Dr. Sumner completed her undergraduate work at Saint Joseph’s University and obtained her medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM). While at PCOM, Dr. Sumner earned the highly coveted Student National Medical Association’s PCOM Member of the Year award.
Dr. Sumner is actively involved in community health education and has presented across the country at a number of community, school, and church-related events about healthy lifestyle, nutrition, and disease prevention.
Dr. Sumner’s medical philosophy is inclusive of both traditional and alternative therapies and is focused on providing patient education and explaining things in non-technical language. Thus, her patients gain an increased sense of personal management of their own health, and family members are invited to attend appointments. She is particularly interested in medical media and preventive medicine, in addition to women’s health, nutrition and wellness.
Of personal note, Dr. Sumner lives in Pennsylvania, with her husband and two young daughters. In her free time, Dr. Sumner enjoys reading, singing, cooking, and spending quality time with her family and friends.
Is Racism Real?
This is one of the questions Dr. Felecia answers on Instagram and Facebook about race.
Dr. Felecia mentioned the Tuskegee Experiment. You can read more about that here: https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
Here’s an article that talks about several books exploring the history of gynecological care in the US and how it started with brutal experiments on enslaved women: https://www.aaihs.org/black-subjectivity-and-the-origins-of-american-gynecology/
It’s August 2020 and protests are going on in Seattle and around the country. Before our interview, I reached out to Dr. Felecia to see if race was something she wanted to talk about on the podcast. She agreed.
The medical field, like many has failed many times to take care of folks based on race. Differences in care based on race, gender identity, disability, and more continue. Since disparities in treatment can happen even when most providers mean well, it means there must be an unconscious bias at play.
Sharing stories and listening to the stories of others is just one way to address this.
The Real Rx
The Real Rx is where I first hear Dr. Felecia. I started listening because one of the other co-host is Dr. Kimberly Brown, an Emergency Room physician who was a guest on Strokecast back in episode 40.
The Real Rx describes itself as “Real problems. Real talk. Real doctors. Talk to our group of women physicians just like one of your girlfriends. It is like having a virtual house call!”
I enjoyed listening to season one, and I learned stuff. It’s a nice balance of the personal and the professional.
The show is currently on hiatus, but it’s worth going back and listening to the back catalog in your favorite podcast app.
Links
| Dr. Felecia Sumner’s website | |
| Dr. Felecia on Facebook | |
| Dr. Felecia on YouTube | |
| Dr. Felecia on Twitter | |
| Dr. Felecia on Instagram | |
| One of Dr. Felecia’s posts on Instagram about Racism | https://www.instagram.com/p/CBNym5ehV4H/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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| Synergize Direct Primary Care | |
| Synergize Direct Primary Care on Facebook | |
| DPC Frontier | |
| The Real Rx Podcast | |
| The Real RX on Facebook | |
| The Real Rx on Instagram | |
| Dr. Kimberly Brown on Strokecast | |
| Tuskegee Experiment | |
| Black Subjectivity and the Origins of American Gynecology | https://www.aaihs.org/black-subjectivity-and-the-origins-of-american-gynecology/ |
Where do we go from here?
- Visit the links above to learn more about Direct Primary Care and see if it’s right for you and your family.
- Share this episode with three other people by giving them the link http://Strokecast.com/dpc
- Subscribe to the Strokecast in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode.
- Don’t get best…get better.
Strokecast is the stroke podcast where a Gen X stroke survivor explores rehab, recovery, the frontiers of neuroscience and one-handed banana peeling by helping stroke survivors, caregivers, medical providers and stroke industry affiliates connect and share their stories.
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