Your Questions, Answered


Direct Primary Care

  • Direct Primary Care (DPC) is a healthcare model that focuses on establishing a direct relationship between patients and their healthcare providers. Instead of billing insurance for every visit, DPC operates on a membership-based system where patients pay a monthly fee. This fee covers unlimited access to their provider, ensuring personalized, immediate care. It fosters a more personal patient-provider relationship, eliminates insurance-related paperwork, and offers patients more time with their providers. It’s a win-win!

    It’s important to note that a DPC membership, while similar to concierge medicine, is much more affordable, and doesn’t include after-hours care. Typically, services that offer such care charge between $5,000 and $10,000 a year and also bill insurance on top of that.

  • For a reasonable monthly membership fee, our DPC members receive a comprehensive suite of primary care services. This includes unlimited visits, same or next-day appointments, and enhanced access via Telehealth, phone calls, or messages.

    Need to see us? No problem. Need to see us again? Come on in! Just have a question? Fire off a message and we’ll get back to you.

    Many minor procedures and in-clinic medications are included in the membership fee. Some in-clinic medications, tests, and procedures may incur an additional charge, but you’ll always know up-front and before committing to care.

  • Yes! We offer several plans designed for couples and families, and additional members can be added for a discounted monthly fee. Additional members must reside in the same household to be eligible for discounts.

    The latest word on discounts is always available on the Direct Primary Care page.

  • As our membership is not insurance, it does not cover third-party services or products such as hospitals, labs, imaging, specialists, medical equipment, and pharmacies. However, we’re dedicated to assisting our members in finding cost-effective options when external services or referrals are necessary. It’s always our goal to guide and support our members throughout their healthcare journey, ensuring they receive quality care at reasonable prices.

  • No, the Direct Primary Care membership is not an insurance or cost share plan. It’s a direct care model where patients pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to a primary care provider without involving insurance or government intermediaries.

  • We don’t bill insurance for our Direct Primary Care membership.

  • Patients from all walks of life are welcome to take advantage of our memberships and services.

    It is important to note that while we offer a wide range of primary care services, we may not be the best provider for certain treatments or conditions that require specialist involvement. Some examples include chronic pain management and cross-sex hormone therapy.

    We can certainly serve as the primary care provider for a patient undergoing specialized treatments, with the mutual understanding that we would refer a patient for concerns we believe require specialist care.

    Direct Primary Care can be a good fit for many people, and we’re always open to discussing individual situations to see if they mesh well with our offerings.

  • We recognize the importance of providing quality healthcare for small businesses.

    We’d love to discuss how an employer-sponsored direct primary care plan can save you and your employees money while providing access to quality, timely care.

    Please give us a call at (707)370-7000 to schedule time to discuss how this innovative solution can work well for your business and employees.

  • Yes. Please request one at the office or schedule a call with us if you have a question about the cost of in-clinic medications or procedures.

    We try to secure the best prices for supplies and medications and endeavor to pass those savings onto you.

Weight Loss

  • We get it. Trying to lose weight can be frustrating and after a while all the programs seem the same. Overpromise and underdeliver, right?

    We’re different.

    Before we recommend anything, we take a deep dive into your health history and past efforts at weight loss. We’ll recommend traditional medical labs and functional medicine tests (because we all know BMI doesn’t really tell us much of anything). Ever start a fad diet and wonder why it didn’t work for you? Stop guessing about what foods cause inflammation and thereby hamper your best efforts.

    Once we know your BMR – basal metabolic rate – we’ll know how many calories you burn while at rest. This is crucial information when designing a weight loss program that will actually work for you.

    Once we’ve collected the data from tests and lab work we’ll collaborate with you on a plan that will create lasting results. Whether you choose a natural path or add in medications, we’ll work with you to get you to where you want to be.

    At the end of the day, we have an absolute commitment to understanding the whole person, and we prioritize long-term health and sustainability.

  • All members receive discounts on our other programs. Just ask us what our current offers are!

  • While GLP-1 analogues and other medications can be a great adjunct to a weight loss program, they aren’t the magic bullets we’ve been led to believe. This can be especially problematic if you get a subscription from an online clinic and never receive labs, a quality consultation and follow-up care.

    That said, our Weight Loss programs may include medications if you and your provider mutually agree that they are needed to achieve lasting results.

    The key is to ensure that any weight loss medications are part of a more comprehensive plan. Are you getting more exercise? Changing key dietary habits? Are your stress levels under control? And is this or that particular drug even appropriate for you?

    The worst thing you can do is start to take a medication without a solid plan in place. You’ll be back at square one, except the same weight or heavier and on an expensive drug.

    If you’re ready, we’ll help you craft a sustainable, holistic plan specifically tailored to your body, lifestyle, and goals!

Functional Medicine

  • Functional medicine is a patient-centered approach to health that seeks to identify and address the root causes of diseases rather than merely treating the symptoms. By understanding the unique genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that contribute to health and disease, it allows us to develop highly personalized treatment plans to promote optimal wellness.

    Learn more on our Functional Medicine page.

  • While traditional medicine often focuses on managing symptoms, functional medicine strives to discover and treat the underlying causes. In short, traditional medicine is very good at solving specific issues, but tends to “paper over” the root cause. Functional medicine seeks to unearth these causes and treat them directly, thereby lessening the need to treat the symptoms.

    This holistic approach leads to a more comprehensive picture of your health, and allows for more targeted and effective treatments.

    As such, functional medicine complements primary care rather than replacing it. While primary care addresses general health needs, functional medicine provides an in-depth analysis and treatment plan for complex, chronic conditions. The key is to ensure primary care practices are employed to solve primary care problems, such as an active infection, while functional medicine practices are employed to solve functional medicine problems, such as why infections are occurring more often than would otherwise be expected.

  • Functional medicine often employs standard medical lab work but adds specialized tests to gain a comprehensive understanding of your health. These tests help us identify imbalances, deficiencies, and other factors contributing to health issues.

    For example, most traditional medicine doesn’t examine the microbiome in your gut, which we now know is essential to understanding your overall health. It’s now understood that an unbalanced gut microbiome can make it more difficult for you to lose weight. And every day we’re learning more and more about how gut health can impact mental health and well-being.

    Trying to solve chronic conditions without understanding the foundational causes often leads to expensive and unnecessary treatments that ultimately fail to solve our problems.

    To this end, we use a variety of tests that aren’t appreciated by the wider healthcare community even though they are based in scientific research.

The Fine Print

  • Yeah. We get it. We’ve tried to ditch as much needless complexity as we could. But, hey, healthcare is one of the most regulated “industries” on the planet. We’re trying to offer something that’s relatively new. And, you know, be less industrial about it. To us, you’ll be a person, not a number.

    Technically, this section isn’t even a FAQ. More of a… list of fine print. Not exhaustive. Nothing you read on this website is conclusive as to your care. None of this is medical advice. We are not your provider until we’ve signed a contract to be your provider, and you’re not a patient until you sign our contract to be a patient. Any legal obligations between us will be governed by those contracts, not by something you read on this here website.

    That said, we aim to be as open and forthcoming about our business practices as humanly possible.

    Yeah, told you it was fine print.

  • Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, protect, and handle your personal information and your rights in relation to this information.

    1. Information Collection and Use

    We collect information from you when you visit our website, register on our site, place an order, subscribe to a newsletter, fill out a form, or enter information on our site. The types of information we may collect include your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and other contact details.

    We use this information in the following ways:

    • To personalize your experience and to allow us to deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested.

    • To improve our website in order to better serve you.

    • To allow us to better service you in responding to your customer service requests.

    2. Cookie Usage

    Our website uses cookies – small files that are placed on your device to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymized tracking data to third-party applications like Google Analytics. Our third-party service providers such as Calendly will also use cookies if you make an appointment from an embedded scheduling app on our website.

    Cookies are designed to make your browsing experience better. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. By continuing to use our website, you consent to our terms and agree that we may store cookies on your computer unless you block them, and acknowledge that blocking them will disable certain functionality.

    Our website and business operations are California based. We do not serve users outside of California, and do not comply with international regulations. 

    3. Protection of Information

    We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your Personally Identifiable Information to outside parties. This does not include website hosting partners and other parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or serving our users, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release information when its release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property, or safety.

    4. Third-party Links

    Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third-party products or services on our website. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We, therefore, have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites.

    5. Consent

    By using our website, you consent to our privacy policy.

    6. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

    We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time and you should check this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the service after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy.

    7. Contact Us

    If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us.

  • Healdsburg Direct Care, an Advanced Practice Nursing Corp., is not in the business of offering or selling insurance or cost share plans, and none of our memberships, services, or programs are insurance, or designed to be a replacement for, insurance.

    In fact, we recommend you have, at minimum, a high deductible insurance plan to cover medical costs that we can’t help you with, such as ER and hospital visits, ambulance rides, specialists, medications, labs, imaging, and the like. If you don’t have insurance, there are cost share plans that can offset the costs for care we don’t provide to you.

  • Fine print with an asterisk. That’s great.

    We do not bill insurance for services offered under our Direct Primary Care membership, nor our other non-membership programs.

    Membership fees for Direct Primary Care plans are not typically reimbursed by insurance.

  • We cannot provide a superbill for our membership fees, or for non-paid services that are included as part of your membership (visits, non-charged procedures, etc.) as superbills are intended to provide you with a record of how much you paid your provider for a particular service or visit. Unfortunately, most insurers do not reimburse members for concierge-style membership fees.

    You should receive an email from Hint.com for each payment you’ve made to us, and you are welcome to submit those to insurance for reimbursement. If you need a receipt and can’t locate it, just “Spruce” us!

    In the rare instance where we may have seen you in a “one-off” visit, and you’ve paid us directly for services, we can provide you with a superbill.