Indiana's Doctors Picked a Direct Primary Care Physician as Their 180th President

A few years ago, Teresa Lovins was thinking about leaving medicine.

Not retiring. Leaving. She worked in a group practice owned by the local hospital, and the ownership came with quotas. Patients were limited in how many complaints they could bring to one visit, so she could move on to the next one. She once sent a patient to a dermatologist to remove a basic skin lesion. She knew how to do it. Her schedule didn't have room. The patient got another appointment, another doctor, and another bill. In her words, she was "overwhelmed, burned out and wavering on leaving clinical medicine."

Then she went home to Columbus, Indiana, and opened her own direct primary care practice. A monthly membership. No insurance billing. New patients get 90 minutes. Follow-ups get 60. The shortest visit on her calendar is 30.

Last month, at its 177th annual convention, the Indiana State Medical Association elected her president-elect. In September 2027 she becomes its 180th president.

Sit with that. The state medical association is not a fringe club. It is the house of organized medicine. And it just picked a doctor who walked out of the quota system and built something smaller, slower, and better.

Her own association's policy manual is already waiting for her. 4 resolutions name direct primary care. 2 of the asks have landed. Indiana took direct care agreements out of insurance regulation in 2017. Washington let HSA dollars pay direct care fees starting in 2026. The one still on the list is a pilot letting Medicaid patients and state employees use direct primary care, to see if it lowers state spending.

That is the right test. Run it.

I am not anti-insurance. Keep a policy for the wreck. I am anti a system that burns out a family doctor with 30 years in her hometown and calls it productivity. Direct care didn't just keep Dr. Lovins in medicine. It handed her the podium.

The 180th president of Indiana's doctors will be one who got out of the quota business. That isn't a symbol. It's a direction.

Source: www.ismanet.org/ISMA/About_Us/News/Dr_Lovins_chosen_as_next_ISMA_president.aspx and www.aafp.org/about/blog/lovins-dpc