A business that got its start as a mobile urgent care clinic recently found a brick-and-mortar home.

The transition comes with an increased focus on patient wellness.

Remedy Health and Wellness, which moved to a permanent Richland location this February, aims to provide direct primary care.

In 2018, Joe and Geri Poston founded the business then known as Remedy Urgent Mobile Medicine. They’ve done house calls for the past six years, mostly providing urgent care.

Joe Poston, currently Remedy’s sole provider, said that part of the reason for the switch to a physical location was the fatigue of the mobile business. He’s a family nurse practitioner and the owner; Geri is the CEO. 

“You’re stuck in a truck, eight, 10 hours a day, six days a week,” he said.

But another motivation for seeking the change was wanting to shape his own practice.

Poston has worked in health care for 23 years. He served as a medic in the Army, then worked for a hospital in Idaho for 10 years.

During that time, he saw his community-owned hospital switch to a for-profit company. Witnessing different delivery models of health care pushed him to pursue his own. 

“We get into health care to help people,” he said. “Sometimes big corporate goals don’t align with our goal of helping people.”

Personal care 

Remedy Health and Wellness provides a level of personalized care that traditional health care cannot. Poston characterizes Remedy’s services as offering “superior access and availability.” 

Patients can make appointments to see their primary care provider within a day or two instead of waiting weeks or months. 

Poston said that he works to touch base with patients often, and to try to see them at least every three months. 

“We want you to come in, and we want to see you,” he said.

Patients also have access to a HIPAA-compliant messaging system to contact the provider when they have a concern.

“We even get back to them after hours a lot of times, if they are having something that we can address after hours without seeing them in person,” Poston said.

On his side, direct primary care means that he has the space to set hourlong appointments for patients instead of the 15-minute appointments he has experienced in other health care systems. 

“That’s not my idea of health care,” he said. For him, health care is about people, not tight time slots to see thousands of patients. His goal is to better understand the needs of his smaller group of patients.

“Personally, I’m only going to take 350 patients, that’s it,” Poston said. That group will become “my tribe of patients I’m going to take care of as best I can.”

Joe and Geri Poston

| Photo by Rachel Visick

Membership style

To provide direct primary care, Remedy Health and Wellness has stepped outside of the traditional insurance model.

“In my opinion, in the insurance model, there’s one winner, and it’s the insurance company,” Poston said. 

Instead of taking insurance, Remedy’s services are membership-based. Individual, couple and family plans are available, and patients pay on a monthly basis. 

“It gets any third party out of the way, and I’m working for the patient,” Poston said. “I’m not working to see if insurance is going to pay me.”

To help get the business going, the first 100 clients receive a membership discount. Poston has set rates that he anticipates he won’t have to raise for three years. He also has partnered with some businesses in the area so that they can offer plans to their employees. 

For healthy people who may never meet a high deductible in a given year, Poston anticipates that Remedy’s plans could help them save money.

Not everyone who wants to use Remedy’s services needs to be a member. Walk-in appointments for primary or urgent care are available where patients pay for that individual appointment.

Health savings account, or HSA, credit cards can’t typically be used to pay for the clinic’s membership because of the program’s regulations about coverage. 

However, HSA cards would work for non-members who make appointments, and may sometimes apply to certain products or procedures.

A wellness focus

Remedy Health and Wellness’ new location and patient-focused care also is linked to another focus: wellness.

“People aren’t sick, but they don’t feel great, right? They’re fatigued, they’re overworked, they’re stressed,” Poston said. Emphasizing wellness means being able to treat issues related to lifestyle choices rather than illness. 

Some of the wellness services Remedy offers include help with weight loss, stress and sleep management, hormone optimization, IV fluid replacement and minimally invasive aesthetics.

Poston makes plans with individual patients to bring them in as many times as needed to reach the improvement they seek.

Of course, sick patients also can receive care at Remedy. 

To maintain the personal aspect of his services, Poston plans on hiring more providers as Remedy gains more patients. In the next few months, he plans to hire a provider who has a focus on health as well as functional medicine. 

The clinic also may look for a way to offer some mobile services alongside what it provides at their physical location, but for now, Remedy Health and Wellness is settled in at 112 Columbia Point Drive, Suite 102 in Richland.

“We’re growing at an appropriate rate,” Poston said.

Remedy Health and Wellness: 112 Columbia Point Drive, Suite 102, Richland; 509-265-6321; remedyhealth.clinic.