It's Baton Rouge: Out To Lunch

When it comes to quality of life measures, Louisiana ranks near last in every category – especially health-related categories like life expectancy, and rates of diabetes, cancer, hypertension and heart disease. And we have some of the worst outcomes of any state in the U.S. But entrepreneurially-minded medical and health experts are trying to help address this by using new models of health care delivery, and coming up with inventive ways to engage underserved communities. Dr. Charles Sasser is a primary care doctor based here in Baton Rouge, whose practice, Sasser Direct Primary Care, represents a new and intriguing business model for health care delivery. Instead of a traditional fee-for-service model - where a doctor’s visit or hospital stay is paid for primarily by a third party like an insurance company - with Direct Primary Care, you join the group, pay a monthly fee that, depending on your age might be $50 or $75, and then when you need to see the doctor, you schedule and that’s it. No co pay, no bills!