By Renee Young
As a naturopathic doctor—since 2002, and in Los Gatos since 2004—I have always operated outside traditional insurance models, avoiding chaining my practice to a “sick care” system that treats preventive wellness as unnecessary. I love medicine, and I deeply care for my patients. When insurance only kicks in after you are already sick, how is our community supposed to thrive?
Choosing a direct-care model initially made me an outlier in the South Bay. Today, more practices are breaking free from insurance handcuffs to offer patients the uncompromised care they truly deserve. Direct care restructures payment around a fundamental commitment to put your health first.
In an insurance-based practice, the insurance company is the true customer, not you. It dictates what gets covered, limits what the doctor receives and effectively controls how much time you get. The entire system rewards rapid turnover. Dedicated clinicians struggle within a high-volume assembly line that inevitably reduces complex human beings to 15-minute time slots and standardized billing codes.
You know what that visit feels like: You describe six months of feeling off, a standard panel comes back, and you are told your numbers are normal for your age. Quick chat, “Good luck,” and, “See you next year.”
Providers are not walking away from insurance for financial gain. We leave because we entered medicine to solve health puzzles and genuinely transform lives. But the traditional system penalizes us for taking the time it takes to do so. When a visit is priced by a restricted code rather than patient need, a doctor spending forty minutes untangling a complex health issue falls behind. Add the relentless battle of prior authorizations, claim denials and arguing with insurance adjusters who have never set foot in the room, and the verdict is clear: the insurance company has no business standing between you and your care. Cutting those ties is how we reclaim our focus for the patient.
Patients follow for a simpler reason. They are tired of being fine on paper. They have done the annual physical, the standard panel and the referral loop, and they still wake up feeling off. What they want is a doctor who will hear the whole story, take it seriously, and stay on it until something changes. They have worked out that the extra time is not a perk. It is the part that was missing.
What you buy
In direct care, you are the priority. Without an insurance intermediary dictating terms, we have the freedom to design a strategy tailored specifically to your longevity, wellness and root-cause healing. At our Los Gatos wellness center, initial visits run closer to an hour than a quick quarter-hour, dedicated almost entirely to hearing your full story. We map out a proactive plan built for your body, not a restricted list of covered codes, so that your health goals determine the care you receive.
The relationship keeps going, too. Follow-up is not a separate billable event that has to earn its place. We can take our time, making sure questions are answered, concerns are eased and the patient feels in control of their health.
Direct care is not cheaper: anyone who tells you that has something to sell. You pay up front. If you have a PPO, you get an itemized receipt, called a superbill, and you submit it for whatever out-of-network reimbursement your plan allows. If you have an HMO, plan on very little coming back.
And it is not for everyone. If you are healthy (and feel healthy) and a yearly check is all you need, an in-network doctor may serve you well for less.
The people it is built for have usually been through the system already. Three specialists, a dozen visits, a binder of results, and still no answer. Or they have simply had enough of being told they are fine while they feel terrible. For them, the extra hour is worth the additional investment to finally get to the answers they have been searching for.
Where I land
None of this is anti-insurance or anti-conventional. I can prescribe and order labs just like any other doctor, and I want my patients’ wider healthcare team involved regardless of their billing practices. Direct care is simply a structure, and it works when it lets a doctor do the basics properly: hear the whole story, treat the person in front of them, and stay with them long enough to know whether it worked.
I love having the freedom to truly partner with my patients. I am proud of other medical professionals who are taking a leap of faith, trusting that true, patient-centered care is truly valued. Above all, I feel immense gratitude for the overwhelming support from the thousands of local community members I have had the privilege of caring for over the past 22 years in Los Gatos. In the Bay Area, we invest in every aspect of our future, and no investment is greater than breaking free from systemic limitations to secure a long, vibrant, and healthy life.
Renee Young, NMD, is the founder of Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness, which has been caring for Los Gatos patients since 2004. She was one of the first Naturopathic Doctors licensed in California. Young specializes in HRT, functional medicine, and longevity.
