Congressman Smith talks direct primary care at EBO MD in Fredericktown
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Jason Smith visited EBO MD Direct Primary Care in Fredericktown last week to talk about the advantages of the model. Matt Morey, Democrat News
Congressman Jason Smith stopped in Fredericktown on Feb. 18 during his most recent tour of the 8th district, where he spoke with EBO MD Direct Primary Care (DPC) about health care options.
DPC is a healthcare model that allows customers to pay a flat monthly subscription or membership fee for primary care services. It means there is a “direct relationship with the patient,” EBO CEO Tony Thompson said.
Thompson talked about his primary care business in Fredericktown, on 605 Lincoln Dr. near Fredericktown High School. For an affordable monthly rate, it offers an alternative to Marketplace services, Thompson said. Customers can get most services at 80-90% savings compared to traditional costs. Since EBO doesn’t use Medicare or Medicaid, Thompson said, they have more flexibility on the prices. Child dependents can be added to the plan at minimal cost, and telehealth is available to family members, even those out of state.
“It’s a smaller footprint of what we do in Cape Girardeau,” Thompson said, which has numerous providers and is contracted with Cape Central High School with a discounted business rate. He said the school uses a third-party insurer for catastrophic needs or specialists.
Thompson said he has worked in health care since the 80s, first as a pharmacy tech and as a sales director at Johnson & Johnson.
“Especially in our area growing up in Jackson, the cost just kept going up, and providers kept locking people out,” he said.
With an opportunity to open his DPC, he said if he could open one in rural Missouri, “we could do it just about anywhere.”
Thompson said EBO covers most of the same things as any other primary care physician.
“Cough, cold, flu, diabetes, blood pressure, everything you do at your primary care doctor,” he said. “So if you get stitches, you can get them done here as a member. There’s no charge; you don’t have to go and incur the emergency room.”
With no co-pays and fewer regulations, EBO also offers full lab tests at an affordable rate through its Quest Diagnostics contract. EBO also uses “AB-rated” drugs, which are the “bio equivalent” of non-generic, but many have the same manufacturers. Thompson said they can carry more medicine in stock directly to patients than under the barriers of the other model, which can delay the process for a few days if they are in short supply.
Smith said one of his provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) that passed last summer allowed customers to pay for DPCs or some gym memberships using a Health Savings Account (HSA). He said it’s been an issue “the whole time he’s been in Congress,” for over a decade, and Thompson thanked him for it.
Smith said he was having a committee meeting on Tuesday to focus on rural healthcare, and said, “Fredericktown’s better” when it comes to health care providers.
EBO’s nurse practitioner, Melissa Jordan, said she heard “great feedback” from kids and parents. All of the appointments are 30 minutes, Thompson said. Even though it’s not a primary care, they usually take patients in same day, he said. Melissa has worked in Fredericktown for 15 years and as a school nurse for three.
“I still have the time to spend with patients, so they feel like their needs are getting heard,” Jordan said. “It’s more personable. They’re not herded in and out.”
Thompson said EBO’s monthly membership averages about 400 in Fredericktown and the surrounding area. They have 6,000 memberships across their four clinics, the others in Jackson, Cape Girardeau, and Poplar Bluff. He said the model could help supply primary care doctors, where there is a shortage of 95,000 by some statistics. He opened an imaging center in Cape Girardeau, which he hopes to expand beyond X-ray services and to include a DXA Scan [bone density assessment], recommended for people over 65.
Jason Smith visited EBO MD Direct Primary Care in Fredericktown last week to talk about the advantages of the model. Matt Morey, Democrat News
Smith said he visited with the “five largest CEOs of health insurance” three weeks ago, who he said “all raised their hands” when asked whether they owned pharmacies, banks, or health care practices, and three of them brought in trillions of dollars in revenue from their businesses.
“They’re not health insurers. They’re health care empires,” Smith said.
Smith finished his tour of the building and continued to St. Francois for a visit at Brockmiller Construction Company and then to Ste. Genevieve County for a visit at Mid States Wood Products.
For more information about EBO MD and the DPC model, visit their Facebook page or the website doyouebo.com.
