Local physician opens private practice following Beacon closures

 

EDWARDSBURG, Mich. -- In April, Beacon Health closed offices in Edwardsburg, Michigan, leaving some patients worried about their access to care.

However, it’s no longer a worry for most, as a new private practice has opened in its replacement in a familiar location with a familiar face.

“I had a dream that I could fly and help others fly right before Beacon sat me down and said they were going to close,” says Dr. Lindsey Lira, Physician at The Healthy Cocoon.

A sudden closure and a vivid dream is how The Healthy Cocoon in Edwardsburg came to be. 

On April 11th, Dr. Lira found out the doors to the practice she had been at for 10 years, Beacon Medical Group Edwardsburg, would be closing.  

“They sat me down, they said ‘Hey, we got news, it’s not good, we’re leaving Edwardsburg and we’re not going to continue to practice there,’” Dr. Lira explains.

“We as a patient, received a letter, and the letter was ‘We’re closing the office in Edwardsburg’, which was devastating,” recalls a patient, Dave Hanichak.

The next 90 days, she says, were filled with figuring out how to keep the doors open, knowing many of her patients would have problems finding service.  

“If all of these patients were then referred to Indiana to find a doctor, there would be a large portion of people that wouldn’t have care,” Dr. Lira says.

Going on her own to start a private practice is going against the trend.

According to a study by the American Medical Association, most physicians do not work independently.

“We all assumed there would be no physical office in Edwardsburg and we were on our own,” Hanichak remembers.

The Healthy Cocoon started seeing patients just three months after Beacon’s announcement, and it now offers a new, secondary line of service for patients in the form of a membership, rather than using insurance. 

Dr. Lira describes the last few weeks running her own private practice as ‘freeing’. 

“It’s a lot easier to make decisions without having to consult a whole bunch of people or wait for an agenda or meeting,” Dr. Lira admits.

It may not always be at the top of people’s lists to come visit their doctor, but at least for the patients here in Edwardsburg, when they walk up to the counter, they see a familiar face.

“Everybody in the community that goes to Dr. Lira that I know, they’re extremely excited that she’s able to start a new practice,” Hanichak says. “I feel more like family coming here rather than a number.” 

After seeing the benefits that come with operating independently, Dr. Lira predicts that opening a private practice will become more common for physicians.

She says she already has 600 patients charted at her practice just within a bit over two weeks being open.