Bringing humanity into healthcare at MBody
Melissa said the practice’s name is a “play on words,” with “M” standing for Major.
They provide primary health services, such as wellness visits; chronic disease management, such as high blood pressure; simple dermatology; injections; vasectomies; X-rays; telemedicine; and lab work – “anything you would go to your primary doctor for,” Melissa said.
Mike, who also studied as an OMT (chiropractor), can provide those services as well.
However, they do not provide inoculations, as there are cheaper resources, such as pharmacies, for patients.
The Majors celebrated their recent opening with a Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce-sponsored ribbon cutting at their office Tuesday, Feb. 15.
They adopted the direct care model of providing medical care, with which they can see fewer patients, spend more time with them and even “do house calls.”
Direct care is a medical care model in which providers contract directly with their patients, without using insurance companies, by having patients pay a monthly – or yearly --- membership fee.
“For a monthly membership, we provide a wide variety of all-inclusive primary care services,” Mike said.
“We do a discount if you pay for the whole year, but it’s cheaper than many gym memberships,” Melissa added.
For more information, call 865-399-6026, e-mail to office@mbodyhealthcare.com or visit online at mbodyhealthcare.com
Mike and Melissa have been in the medical field for 20 years. “He was a primary care doctor in the Air Force for 17 years,” she said. “I did rural health nursing in Georgia, Mississippi – in the backwoods, where people don’t have electricity – for a very long time.
“That was my following, if you will,” Melissa added. However, when she married Mike, she followed him to
Idaho, where he was stationed. She went to work in a
hospital and returned to school to get her nurse practitioner’s degree.
When Mike was honorably discharged from the military four years ago, he found a position at Tennova North in Knoxville, where she also started working as a hospitalist.
After having worked a year at the hospital, Melissa
recalled she really missed
the time she spent with her patients.
“That’s really what kind of pushed this practice, the desire for something different,” she said. “In 15 years of home health, where you sit in someone’s living room, face-to-face, you go through all their Ziplock baggies of pills, you educate and then you go back the next week and see what happened and what they still need.
“There was just a very human element, a connection, in that type of work,” Melissa added.
Mike, who was in primary care before working at the hospital, also realized he wanted more for his patients.
The two sought another alternative and came across direct care. With that model, “you can spend an hour with someone and you can still pay the bills,” Melissa added.
“It’s really an answer to a lot of issues in healthcare.”
