For over 10 years, since graduating residency, she has worked as an independent contractor serving rural communities in Kansas and Missouri as a physician in the Emergency Department. In serving the community in this capacity one of the things she realized was the gap in healthcare for working families. “[In the ER] I noticed that I was seeing many working adults and families with conditions that could be treated in an outpatient setting. But for many, access due to long waits for appointment times and inability to be seen at times that didn’t adversely affect a patient or parents income were not easily obtained. This creates a dynamic in which people either show up and spend more than necessary for non-emergent things or wait too long to be seen for more serious conditions that could have been prevented with proper primary care.”
In creating the area’s first on-location Direct Primary Care practice Dr. Long’s goal is to change that lack of access to your primary care provider when you need them. “With Golden Direct Primary Care my goal is to return to the golden age of medicine when the physician came to the patient, not the other way around.” In utilizing both on-location visits and modern technology through tele-visits and mobile communication Dr. Long plans to create a practice where patients feel connected and cared for as individuals not numbers. “I know what it’s like to be busy with many hats to juggle in caring for my own family, aging parents and working. Too often we get so busy wrapped up in taking care of everyone else that we leave our own care out of the equation. My goal is to help streamline healthcare for individuals and families so that they can be the healthiest and most productive versions of themselves.