“Healthcare is the number-one cause of bankruptcy in the United States.” These striking words from Dr. David Tusek, founder and CEO of Cloud Medical Center in Boulder County, unfortunately, ring true for many people who feel they pay an exorbitant amount of money for primary care, which includes pediatrics, gynecology, adult medicine and urgent care. “They’ll go to a doctor who will prescribe, say, $400 worth of supplements,” he adds. “Well, is the doctor actually prescribing them or selling them—marking them up for profit?”
With Cloud Medical, Dr. Tusek aims to reform the healthcare system by offering his patients what he calls direct primary care: concierge-level primary care without copays and with 24/7 access to a provider. The idea for his business model came to him in a dream nearly 15 years ago after the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, which he initially supported but then felt was simply an expansion of Medicaid.
“One hundred percent of our revenue comes from a monthly membership, which costs the same as a daily cup of coffee,” Dr. Tusek says. “Everything else is either free or at wholesale cost, so people can generally get very expensive supplements or Botox or platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatments for an incredible cost savings.”
Many of his patients who’d like more catastrophic coverage choose to combine their Cloud Medical membership ($129 per month for individuals; $229 per month for couples; plus several family membership options) with an independent HealthShare program that helps with hospitalizations and surgeries.
Another area of focus for Cloud Medical is the principle of proactive, not reactive, care and cultivating a healthy mindset from a young age. “We should be teaching people how to thrive, not to wait until their blood pressure is high and then put them on a pill,” he says. “If you can identify the things you’re doing and eating that spike your blood sugar levels in your 20s and 30s, you can very powerfully avoid and prevent diabetes from occurring in your 40s and 50s. When you’re 80, are you going to be flying to Paris to climb a mountain, or having your diaper changed?”
Dr. Tusek is also an advocate for functional medicine, which applies to a wide range of treatments. For example, instead of immediately prescribing an antidepressant for someone who feels depressed, a functional doctor will examine underlying challenges, whether it’s fatigue or mood shifts, to figure out if the person might have too little of something good (i.e. a mineral or vitamin deficiency) or too much of something bad (i.e. a gluten intolerance) that could be causing symptoms of depression. This approach is what attracted family nurse practitioner Vanessa Fitzgerald to Cloud Medical, which she joined earlier this summer to accommodate an exponentially growing patient waitlist.
“It’s a special place,” she says, “because it’s a primary care practice that embraces all of the global healing traditions. They believe health is a cohesive balance of body, mind, emotions and spirit, and they bring together the best of conventional, integrative and natural medicine.”
Once a pioneer in his way of thinking, Dr. Tusek says there are now more than 1,500 direct primary care practices in the nation, and he hopes even more physicians will join his mission to transform healthcare into a more affordable and transparent business.
“Several years ago, there was a day I knew we were up to something good when one of the wealthiest people in Boulder came to me and said, ‘Thanks for building Cloud Medical; I think it’s the best healthcare money can buy,’” he says. “My next patient was a kid in his 20s who had three nickels to rub together. He said, ‘Cloud Medical is the only thing I can afford.’ To have them say these things, from each end of the spectrum, made me feel honored and humbled.”
“One hundred percent of our revenue comes from a monthly membership, which costs the same as a daily cup of coffee, everything else is either free or at wholesale cost, so people can get generally very expensive supplements or Botox or platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatments for an incredible cost savings.” - Dr. Tusek
