It’s a whirlwind starting a new business, but for Dr. Marisa Hoyne of Kalispell Direct Care, the hard work has been worth it, as it has allowed her to provide better care for her patients. 

Kalispell Direct Care is a clinic for adult primary care and obesity medicine that follows a direct care model, a membership-style payment that forgoes traditional insurance. Hoyne started the practice about a year ago. 

After working at Logan Health’s Woodland Clinic, now called Logan Health Primary Care, for about a decade, she started to notice a trend that went beyond the Flathead Valley to all corporate medicine on a national scale — primary care was becoming more like urgent care, where patients get really short visits from their doctor.

“I just felt like that was not the way that I could be a good doctor and actually take good care of people,” she said. “To have adequate time to get to know my patient and listen to their concerns so they actually feel heard. I think that’s generally how you get to the right diagnosis and treatment.” 

To be the kind of doctor she wanted for her patients, it was clear she needed to do something different. So, she started looking into how to open her own practice.

“It’s been interesting, I honestly never expected to do this. I thought I’d be employed by someone else forever,” Hoyne said. 

Helping others has always been at the core of why Hoyne got into health care. When she went to college as an undergrad, her parents wanted her to be an engineer. But in her first introductory engineering class, she realized that “these were not her people.”

She thought engineering was cool but learned quickly that she needed to work with people and do something that felt important and valuable. 

Hoyne felt lucky that her next thought was “I should be a doctor.” Growing up she knew a primary care doctor and so that was always in the back of her mind as a possibility. 

“So having a role model like that really helps too,” she said. 

Opening Kalispell Direct Care was a bit of a learning curve, she said, as it takes a lot to start a new business. Thankfully, there are resources out there for health care providers who want to take the leap. Hoyne said there are doctors in the Flathead Valley and across the country that she turned to when learning how to open the practice.  

She knew she wanted to have the business follow a direct care model, which she chose because it gave patients more transparency about costs and gave her a reliable source of income. 

Kalispell Direct Care charges $125 per month for primary care or obesity medicine. 

She still recommends patients hold some kind of health insurance for catastrophic incidents, adding that direct care may not be the best choice for everyone, depending on what is going on in their life. 

But for people just seeking help with obesity or needing primary care services, there isn’t much convincing to do. 

“I think more and more people are going through the health care system and they’re finding that the things I didn’t like about the doctoring part are the same things they don’t like as patients,” Hoyne said. 

She said the model has been sustainable for her and believes it will be adopted by more primary care providers over time. 

“It kind of makes sense that you just pay for (primary care) more regularly and then have some insurance to cover something that is unforeseen. On the other hand, I’ve got plenty of patients who see me because they’re so medically complex,” Hoyne said. 

Even when patients are seeing lots of specialists, having a good relationship with their primary care provider can get them better outcomes, she said. Just sitting and chatting with her patients can yield information that becomes critical to their care. 

Occasionally, their conversation will reveal something important. 

“It turns out that whatever is going on is something that’s really important to that problem, but they didn’t make that connection. And now it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s the puzzle piece that makes all your symptoms make sense.’ It’s just so important to have time to do that,” Hoyne said. 

On top of more one-on-one time with patients, obesity medicine is something Hoyne is proud to offer at her practice. She said she got into it for her own health, due to blood sugar issues coupled with problems losing weight. 

From personal experience, she knew that diet and exercise alone don’t always help people manage obesity. 

“Most people blame themselves for having a weight issue or for having diabetes, and to actually be able to help people to reverse some of those conditions or make it more comfortable for them to wear clothes or to walk around Costco, has been really, really awesome,” Hoyne said. 

To learn more about Kalispell Direct Care, visit kalispelldirectcare.com.

Reporter Taylor Inman may be reached at 758-4440 or [email protected].