R-Health, an innovative direct primary care option that restores the lost doctor-patient relationship and puts primary care at the center of health care prevention and treatment, opened in Yardley Oct. 7.
R-Health Yardley, part of a network of direct primary care practices in the mid-Atlantic region, is located at 301 Oxford Valley Road, Suite 1501, and is the second R-Health location in Pennsylvania.
R-Health is a primary care option for New Jersey public sector workers and their family members at no additional cost, and with no changes to their health plan. Many workers who live on the Pennsylvani side and commute on the Scudder Falls Bridge to New Jersey will now have an R-Health doctor close to home.
Pennsylvania residents who have been seeking better primary care will have the option for a doctor that offers same-day and next-day appointments for urgent issues, longer appointment times, little to no wait, evening and weekend hours, and access to the doctor in the office and out of the office via phone consultations, video visits, and a HIPAA-compliant app for text messaging and photo uploads.
R-Health is not concierge medicine and not prohibitively expensive. A monthly membership costs about the same as one moderately priced family dinner out per month.
R-Health is not insurance. It is a membership model that provides a full range of primary care services including preventive, urgent, and sick care; health and wellness coaching; chronic disease management; and care coordination. With R-Health there are no co-pays, no waiting and no gatekeepers between doctors and patients. Each doctor has a maximum number of patients that is less than half of a typical primary care doctor.
Dr. Jacqueline Slakoper Delessio, a board-certified, family medicine physician with over 20 years of experience in primary care, has joined R-Health Yardley because she believes that a strong physician-patient relationship is the key to constructive and beneficial treatment.
“I believe that a strong physician patient relationship is at the core of a patients’ medical care,” Slakoper said. “I treat my patients the way I would want my family members to be treated because at the end of the day, I look at my patients as my extended family.”
There are many occasions when a question can be addressed over the phone, text or video visit without requiring the patient to come into the office.
“Sometimes the most challenging part,” addded Slakoper, “is convincing the patients that it is okay to reach out to me directly and after hours. Patients are accustomed to long waits, barriers and gatekeepers between them and their doctor, but we operate in a completely different way.”
While membership for individuals is available for $79 per month, R-Health is a primary care option for New Jersey public sector workers and their family members at no additional cost, and with no changes to their health plan.
R-Health Yardley is now accepting enrollment of new members, with sign up available at r-health.md.
