Instead of billing insurance companies for your medical care, which requires doctors to abide by many insurance regulations that are not necessarily in your best interest clinically, DPC brings back the simple and direct relationship between the primary care doctor and the patient. This means we do not accept any insurance. Instead, patients pay a monthly fee that gives them access to unlimited office visits, discounted prices for lab and medication, extended office visits (30-60 minutes), and direct communication via email, text or phone.

As a DPC patient, you will have a direct phone number to call or text us for any urgent matters outside of office hours. For non-urgent issues, you will have the ability to send a message through the patient portal. During office hours, texting will be available for anything urgent. Dr. Rietze may be with a patient, but she will check all messages 2-3 times a day to get back to any non-urgent messages. Of course, if it’s a medical emergency and you can’t reach us, we recommend going to your local Emergency Room for evaluation and treatment.

The monthly membership covers unrestricted, transparent, open access to Dr. Rietze. She’s just a call, text or email away. There is no one between you and your doctor. Dr. Rietze answers the phone. No answering service. No phone tree.

Dr. Rietze sees patients of all ages, including generations of families which is the true heart of Family Medicine.

One of the great things about DPC is full price transparency. Dr. Rietze contracts with local labs and imaging centers to ensure you the lowest cash price possible. Basic medications will be stocked in the clinic which can be offered to you at wholesale cost, with transparent pricing.

Well, that’s the goal, so nice work! Lilac DPC aims to keep you healthy and prevent illness. Sometimes, however, you need stitches, an antibiotic, a note for work, or have a quick question to run by the doctor. An urgent care visit for those stitches or antibiotic will cost you about what our monthly membership costs. And if you have a question for a doctor?  As a member, just call, text or email Dr. Rietze. Yes, it’s that easy and convenient.

Situations change, I get that. Not a problem at all. We just ask you give 30 days’ notice so we can tie up any loose ends and give you a chance to find another doctor. However, if you decide to come back to the practice, there may be a waitlist to join and there will be a reactivation fee.

No. A Direct Primary Care membership is a different way to pay for comprehensive primary care services and allows for relaxed, extended visits in a relationship-based practice rather than a production-based practice.

Yes. You can use your insurance to cover services that Dr. Rietze orders on your behalf such as medications, labs, imaging and specialty referrals. For those who do not have great insurance, Dr. Rietze will offer discounted rates on labs, many medications and most imaging studies, often up to 50-95% off usual prices.

Of note, there are a few HMO plans that require you to keep a primary care physician within their own network. Lilac DPC is not in any HMO networks. Such HMO patients can be seen at Lilac DPC through the membership plan and have access to all the DPC services listed, but they would still need to maintain a primary care physician within their own network for specialty referrals, etc. HMO’s tend to only accept referrals from within their network.

Since DPC membership is NOT insurance but IS a healthcare spending, one would think that we should be able to use HSA to cover for the membership fee, but as the current IRS tax law stands, HSA funds CANNOT be used for membership fee payment, which unfortunately includes DPC monthly payment. There is current work being done by DPC advocates to change this legislature.

In regard to FSA, how one can use those funds is up to the employer’s discretion, so please talk to your HR or Benefits department for clarification on whether they will allow payment for DPC fees to come from your FSA funds.

You should discuss the interpretation of Section 223(c) and Section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code with an accountant. Section 223(c) of the law has to do with health plans and Section 213(d) of the law has to do with qualified medical expenses.

Though Lilac DPC is happy to use your insurance on your behalf for outside services, we don’t use insurance to cover Dr. Rietze's primary care physician services. As a result, we are not constrained by any insurance company’s rules about how many issues we address in one visit, about the types of issues we are allowed to address at one visit, about the time a visit “should” take, or about how many visits it will take to help you be well, focus on prevention, manage chronic conditions, or take care of your acute illnesses and injuries.

Dr. Rietze is enrolled only as an Ordering, Certifying, and Referring physician with Medicare. She otherwise chose to “opt-out” of Medicare and “deactivated” her own ability to bill Medicare. She does not want any reimbursement from the government. Being an Ordering, Certifying, and Referring physician means that you the patient CAN use your Medicare benefit for outside services ordered by Dr. Rietze such as medication orders, lab orders, imaging orders and referral/consultation orders that she places for you. However, Dr. Rietze does not accept Medicare for the month-to-month membership which covers physician services within her own practice. Medicare beneficiaries who sign up for Lilac DPC must formally agree that they will not submit the invoice for the month-to-month membership fee to Medicare. Medicare beneficiaries will be asked to sign a Medicare Beneficiary Notice of Non-Covered Services agreement form upon registration.

Lilac DPC will have an account with LabCorp to be able to have lab work done at a discounted rate. When you get blood work done there, they will bill us the cash-pay price, and we will add the cost to your next month’s membership fee. We will charge a 10% fee for administrative costs, and you will know before you get the blood work done what labs were ordered and how much they will cost you. If your insurance has good coverage for laboratory tests, Dr. Rietze will make a note of that in her lab orders, so you would use your insurance for the costs of those tests. 

For pap smear and skin biopsies, Dr. Rietze will need to send out for pathologists to review them and give us the diagnosis. You will also know how much this will cost before you agree to the procedure. The procedure itself is covered under your monthly membership fee.

For imaging, Dr. Rietze will be able to give you a price upon ordering, so there are no surprises. Lilac DPC will have a contract with Inland Imaging for discounted prices. If your insurance has good coverage for imaging tests, however, you are still welcome to use insurance for this.

Lilac DPC will be able to dispense some common medications from the clinic at near wholesale prices. For the medication you need, we can always compare how much it is through your insurance, medication savings coupons (such as GoodRx), and the price we get through a wholesale company, to see what would work best for you. We charge a 10% fee for the supplies and administrative cost. An example would be 100 tablets of a certain medication such as metformin costs Lilac DPC $4 , so we would charge the patient $4.40.

Of note, Dr. Rietze will not be dispensing controlled medications from the clinic.

Lilac DPC does not charge copays for office visits. As a patient, you will pay for the actual cost of healthcare, instead of the inflated costs for labs, imaging, or medication. You can see your own doctor as soon as possible (within 2 business days) when you have an acute problem, instead of needing to go to Urgent Care or ER, or wait for 3-4 weeks for an appointment. The goal is you will become healthier overall with having your health taken care of by a provider who knows you well and can spend extra time with you.

As word of mouth spreads, the patient panel at Lilac Direct Primary Care continues to steadily increase.

In order to continue to provide excellent service, Dr. Rietze has decided to temporarily close enrollment at this time. You can join the waitlist by clicking the link at the top of the page.

Once enrollment is reopened, those on the waitlist will be notified via email. At that time, you will be able to book an introductory call with Dr. Rietze to answer any questions, or just enroll directly on the website.

We hope to see you soon!