Notre Dame graduate is changing the way Plymouth residents pay for doctor visits

A Notre Dame graduate is changing the way Plymouth residents pay for their doctor visits. Concierge Medicine of Marshall County is an eight-month-old clinic that treats patients on a month-to-month payment system.

Nurse practitioner and owner, Dan Tanner started this business model because he says primary health care is so expensive. Now, there are four primary care centers in Plymouth, not counting this one. Tanner broke down the payment model that makes this clinic different. “Billing insurance is very complicated so I wanted to make a model that’s accessible to everyone,” said Tanner

For $40 per member per month you have unlimited access to clinic visits. Tanner likens his model to a gym membership.
“It’s the same philosophy here, you pay me a membership fee every month, but then you have unlimited access to me, unlimited visits,” he said.

Patients sign up for a year commitment but have the chance to discontinue with a 30-day written notice, which, according to Tanner, no one has done yet. 

Dan Tanner a 2003 graduate from the University of Notre Dame says Plymouth has limited access to physicians, which can affect patients quality of life drastically.
“If you are a new patient and you want to see a physician sometimes its two to three weeks maybe longer before you can get in to see them,” he said.

But since he limits himself to 1,000 patients in his practice, he has the ability to see anyone who needs it. 
“Most family practices are between 3 and 5,000 patients, but because the practice size itself is not as big as others we can see patients the same day,” Tanner added. 

Tanner has been a nurse practitioner since 2011 and says eight generations of his family have serviced the Plymouth community. 
“Seeing people I’ve known for years and really helping them through difficult times and also helping them maintain or achieve an optimal level of health.”

Karen Calix, a medical assistant and translator at the clinic, says nothing else compares. 
“It’s not your typical clinic where you go and spend 10 minutes talking to the doctor. Dan will stay there more than 30 minutes and really find out what’s going on with them,” she said.

This clinic not only has a different payment method,  it’s also bilingual, something that Plymouth patients say they need more of.