Shaleah Jones, MD

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND, PHI BETA KAPPA HONORARY SOCIETY 1997, ACADEMIC ALL AMERICAN 1997, SCHOLAR ATHLETE 1997, VARSITY VOLLEYBALL CAPTAIN 1996-1997. University of Washington School of Medicine 1999-2003. Residency in Family Medicine with Obstetrics (emphasis on rural training) Greeley, CO 2003-2005, Chief resident 2005-2006. Attending Physician, Broken Bow, NE: broad-spectrum family medicine (OB with cesareans, ER attending, inpatient care, nursing-home care and outpatient clinic medicine) 2007-2012. Attending Physician, Pullman Family Medicine 2012-2020, full-spectrum outpatient medicine with OB/peds (including cesareans), and nursing home care. Hospice Medical Director 2019-2020. The relationships I forge with patients are what I most enjoy about practicing medicine. Over my 19 years of practice, I find it increasingly difficult to forge those relationships because of mounting barriers within the healthcare system. Year after year insurance companies create more barriers in the form of prior authorizations, co-pays, complicated billing requirements and check boxes. As requirements mount, healthcare clinics are forced to hire more staff to code, to bill, to triage patients, and to write office notes. All of this adds cost to the system and detracts from patient care. With increasing insurance mandates, overhead creeps higher, time with patients is cut, and there is no incentive to keep people out of the office, the urgent care or the ER. In other words, there are no financial incentives to keep people well. Patients feel those barriers as much as I do: on the phones, at the front desk, in the exam room where they wait and wait for just a few minutes of my time, and at the pharmacy where they may wait again only to find their prescription unaffordable. My goal in transitioning to direct primary care is to break down those barriers. By cutting out the insurance companies, I can provide care in a much more cost-effective, relaxed and accessible manner. I am excited to offer the many skills I have worked hard to acquire to a broad swath of patients in a sensible, affordable manner.