Yes. We do not activate/charge memberships until a Member Coordinator has had a chance to talk with you, answer any questions you might have, and confirm your membership choice. After you sign-up (before you are charged), you will be directed to an online calendar to set up this “Discovery Call” at your convenience, which can be audio only or include video (your preference).

Dr. Fredette is happy to offer a 15 min free virtual visit to anyone who would prefer to meet her first before membership activation. Please call the office or email hello@momentamedical.com with your request.

Absolutely. We want to keep you healthy; that's the goal! The current healthcare system has trained us to only access our doctor when we are really sick. We want to offer you a relationship with a provider that you trust, to ensure that your core needs are being taken care and help you live beyond the urgent needs of your health.

There are minor issues and important health questions that you are welcome to address anytime and with this kind of membership, that is easy to do. In the rare case that you do get sick, we can help take care of you!

We have same day or next business day appointments to cover your more urgent needs or injuries. There are procedures or labs or imaging that we can provide you at lower cost. Having a team that knows how to advocate for your health needs and expedite your care, or even save you one unnecessary trip to the emergency room, would be worth more than a year of membership cost.

Knowing that you have excellent personalized care will help you think of your healthcare as a tool to thrive, not just survive.

Yes! We love families and want to help support yours! Adding family members automatically gives you a discount on each of the memberships, including your own. Children up to age 21 automatically qualify at the child rate. Some discounts are applied after you sign up during the discovery call. For example, we can apply additional discounts if you are a single parent, have a household of more than 3 kids, or have a dependent adult child with disabilities living with you. Be sure to ask us during your membership call about additional discounted rates that we can apply. We want to help support you in the hard work you are doing to care for your family.

All memberships include free sports physicals and well child checks for our members. We believe in preventative care and good screening before school sports.

We also want to provide a service to the kids in our community who need to get scheduled for sports physicals in a timely way, so we hope to soon provide non-members a cash pay option for sports physicals.

Better Care: We want our visits to be longer, readily available, and focus only on you.

Insurance-based primary care practices require their physicians to see 20-40 patients a day and to spend valuable time worrying about things unrelated to your health (like tracking and paying the bills).

Reduced Cost: Insurance-based practices need more staff to handle the complications of managing an insurance-based system. We have simplified our systems so that documenting, communicating, and billing exist solely to serve you, our patient. We do not waste time and resources serving the insurance administration or middle-man, dealing with insurance regulations, or processing insurance claims. This allows us to make our monthly fee about the price of a cup of coffee a day.

Improved Access: Many people are still uninsured, or worse, they have insurance but avoid seeing a doctor because the deductible is too high. Our office visits are always available without co-pays or 'administrative fees'. You can also keep your doctor regardless of what employment or insurance changes may happen.

Although we do not bill or use insurance, we do pair well with people who have insurance, especially high deductible plans and health share plans. We recommend everyone have insurance or a health share plan for catastrophic events such as traumas or severe illness requiring hospitalization (heart attack), extensive treatments (like cancer), or complex speciality procedures and care. Insurance works really well for the rare, expensive event, but creates unnecessary complexity and cost for primary care services. After all, you don’t use your car insurance for oil changes or to fill up your gas. Why use health insurance on primary care?

We recommend that you have "wrap around coverage" like health insurance or medical cost sharing, which would cover you in the case of a heart attack, emergency, or cancer care. We see everyone regardless of insurance status.

For those with regular health insurance: Insurance can still be used for labs, imaging, medications, and specialists. With our competitive member prices, many patients end up spending less on labs, imaging, and medication without using their insurance. Insurance works best for big, catastrophic events like hospitalizations. Our Premium Membership pairs well with a high deductible plan.

For those with a health share: Both of our memberships pair well with all the existing health share plans, and you can choose a membership coverage with us depending on what you have covered. Some health shares have broader reimbursement coverage or offer discounts for members with a direct primary care practice. Other health shares only reimburse larger illnesses and incidents and do not cover preventative care or counseling. Check with your health share plan to see what is offered and what you need. Your patient portal allows you to easily view and print bills for services, so that you can submit for reimbursements.

Uninsured: We strongly recommend everyone have some sort of insurance or health share. However, if you are unable to do so, we will still see you and provide high level primary care.

Medicare: See FAQ: Do you take Medicare?

We believe in building a long term relationship with you, and so request a 6 month initial commitment (can be paid monthly). We do understand that situations change and you should find the best healthcare practice to fit your needs, so there is only a month-to-month commitment after that. We ask that you give us a 30 day notice at any time you want to cancel. This allows us to tie up loose ends while helping you transition to your new provider. If you pay quarterly or annually, you will be refunded the remaining difference.

Re-activating cancelled memberships: We would need to charge our simple registration fee for returning and new members to cover administrative costs, which only applies if you restart membership after cancellation. Upgrading from a Health Essentials membership to Premium is not considered a cancellation, there are no fees to do that, and can be done at any time.

Charges for your membership start just before your first appointment, on the next billing cycle, which will be either the 1st or the 15th of the month.

In short, yes. A High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) is the least expensive and closest thing you can purchase to what used to be known as ‘catastrophic health insurance.’ Some people benefit from HDHP’s, but a lot of our patients find they qualify and benefit more from a health sharing or medical cost sharing plan (a health insurance alternative). We recommend that you have one or the other, for adequate coverage of those rare times but crucial times when catastrophic medical emergencies might occur. We can provide you a list of names of health share plans to explore that pair well with DPC membership pratices.

In regard to FSA, how one can use those funds is up to the employer’s discretion, so please talk to your HR or Benefits department for clarification on whether they will allow payment for memberships or other fees to come from your FSA funds.

Direct primary care membership is not insurance and is a healthcare spending, and as the current IRS tax law stands the monthly membership recurring payment cannot be paid for with HSA funds. However, you may able to use your HSA funds to pay for your healthcare spending that is not in a monthly payment, which of course includes medications, labs, imaging, and other charged services. We recommend that you check with your employer or accountant to see what is allowable for spending under your current plan. There is current work being done by DPC advocates to change this legislature so that monthly membership fees can be paid with HSA funds.

You can discuss the interpretation of Section 223(c) and Section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code with an accountant. Section 223(c) of the law has to do with health plans and Section 213(d) of the law has to do with qualified medical expenses.

No we do not bill or take any insurance, including Medicare. However, patients who have regular Medicare may find that having a membership with us in addition, fills a gap in their healthcare needs that is well worth the additional expense*. Dr. Fredette is "opted out" of her ability to bill Medicare, but she can be an Ordering/Referring provider which still allows you to use your regular Medicare benefit for outside services (consultations, imaging, etc) ordered by our office. Medicare does not cover membership costs or charges from our office and will not offer reimbursement for those charges. Medicare rules require beneficiaries who sign up for Momenta Medical to formally agree that they will not submit the invoices to Medicare. Medicare beneficiaries will be asked to sign a Medicare Beneficiary Notice of Non-Covered Services agreement form upon registration.

*Please note that MedAdvantage programs and other types of Medicare plans can automatically disqualify you from being able to see Dr. Fredette as your PCP. You may benefit from speaking to a advisor to help you understand what combination of plans is best for you.

Membership pricing is set for 12 months at a time. We are committed to keeping this kind of care affordable for our patients, but we do also recognzie that inflation and the cost of practicing medicine and supplies are not under our control and will likely require us to raise the prices at least some each year. Signing up now does lock in your current membership rate for a whole year. We hope to provide additional discounts on special services and seasonal coupons, as time goes on.

Yes. All costs are transparent and discussed up front, with your agreement, before you are charged.