It’s as simple as it sounds - direct care between a physician and a patient with no involvement from third parties. Thus, we do not contract with any insurance companies. At Connected Internal Medicine, 100% of your care is delivered by a board-certified internal medicine physician, and uniquely, our pricing is transparent, so you can plan your life accordingly.

A board-certified internist is a physician with 3+ years of specialty training in the field of Internal Medicine. While there is a role for other providers in the practice of medicine, there is a difference in training level amongst physicians vs different providers, with NP/PA providers having less than 10% of the training or knowledge of physicians. Board certified physicians typically have completed 4-year university studies at the top of their class, 4 years of medical school (approx. 16,000 hours of study), 12,000-28,000 hours of residency training as licensed physicians, and a rigorous board certification exam before even becoming eligible to practice medicine out in the community. Dr. Correa additionally practiced full-scope primary care Internal Medicine at Hoag for nearly 6 years, and completed her training and board certification in Obesity Medicine in 2021. So yes, physician-led care is worth it.

No. Concierge medical practices bill insurance and also charge a membership fee to the patient. All the same copays, deductibles, co-insurances, etc apply in concierge medicine. Dr. Correa believes insurance should be used for emergency/catastrophic care, and that with proper primary care, patients in the direct primary care model remain healthier and often save money on office visits, specialty care, testing, and medication costs.

Maybe.

Our practice has negotiated private deals with labs, imaging centers and medication vendors to keep these costs extremely low for our members.

Practicing within this model felt like being a ski instructor at the top of a double-black diamond slope, but only having 10 minutes to teach. It felt like shoving the students down the double-black diamond only to reassure the poor students “but there’ll be an ambulance waiting for ya at the bottom just in case!” Trying to help people down the double-black diamonds in the traditional healthcare model left her feeling chronically behind, helpless and drained. Dr. Correa believes that a better method would be to take several hours to teach each student to their level, moving up from green slopes, to blue slopes, to black diamond, then double-black diamond, so everyone learns how to navigate the double-black diamond safely, and never actually needs the ambulance. She believes that every patient that comes and sees her for health, arguably the most important thing in life, deserves a doctor in the best version of herself.

Maximum, 100. The whole reason Dr. Correa left her old, beloved practice at Hoag was to spend more time with her patients. The average primary care doctor in the traditional system has 3,000+ patients. Concierge doctors on average care for 400-800 patients.

No.

Yes, she is accepting a limited number of new patients as of February 2024.

Because the quality is better (we will only ever have 3-4% of the number of patients to care of in comparison to a typical insurance-based PCP), the care is better (your doctor works for you, not for the insurance company or a big corporation), and because we believe using health insurance for anything outside of a catastrophe is akin to trying to use your auto insurance to get your oil changed.

The traditional office model (fee-for-service) provides incentive for doctors in large organizations to make you appear “sicker”. A scoring system for coding disease called HCC scoring is now the standard. In a nutshell, the sicker a patient becomes, the more money that insurance will allocate. Instead of making patients sicker to make more money, Dr. Correa wants to make patients healthier.

Most typical patients would benefit most from a membership, with unlimited access to Dr. C to discuss issues as they arise. (See the Pricing tab.) However, for the occasional need, a 20-30 minute medical visit with Dr. Correa is priced between $200-300, considerably lower than the national average cost of a comparable insurance-based primary care visit, with zero surprise bills and almost zero wait. Follow up visits are done as necessary. We pride ourselves on transparent pricing, as we believe bills are the absolute worst type of surprise.

For you. Each patient walks away with a thorough medical note of what was discussed during the visit. It’s for your records, and for ours. It will be in medical-ese, so that other physicians can read it efficiently if you need them to review it with you.

Upon request, we can provide you with a coded receipt called a “super bill”. You can submit this to your insurance for reimbursement if you have out-of-network benefits. Not all insurance companies allow reimbursement for services - we cannot predict or guarantee if or how much you will get reimbursed. Please check with your insurance company regarding reimbursement rules. By law, Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries cannot submit for reimbursement.

No, but strongly recommended in case of a hospitalization, catastrophic diagnosis, accident or other urgent need that Dr. Correa cannot meet.

No, it’s healthcare. By now, most adults have come to the sobering realization that having insurance does NOT mean one actually gets healthcare. You can have an insurance plan and a card, but most doctors aren’t available for several weeks to months, and certainly not available over the phone.

Yes! We welcome you to experience the difference. We are currently not in contract with insurance, but we can help you to use your insurance plan for labs, prescriptions, and imaging (unless we can find you a lower price on a direct-pay basis). You may use your HSA or FSA card as payment for medical services in line with the administrator’s guidelines.

Traditional insurance-based primary care visits allow for 5-15 minutes of one-to-one time with a MD/NP/PA. Visits with Dr. Correa at her new practice are longer and unrushed, usually lasting 30-60 minutes.

If your appointment needs are beyond the scheduled amount of time, we will happily extend your appointment if time allows. However, we will never delay another patient’s appointment to extend yours and will reschedule you in that scenario. We respect all our patients’ time and try our hardest to stay on schedule.

We are proud to offer same-day and same-week appointments. Once you get to the office, you will experience minimal to no wait times to see the doctor..

No. You will always see a board-certified physician at every single visit.

Yes, Dr. Correa has been safely and judiciously prescribing the GLP1 injections for metabolic dysfunction including diabetes and obesity since 2018, long before the craze began. This includes Ozempic, Wegovy, Saxenda, Victoza, Mounjaro, Zepbound, etc.

Yes, she is well-versed in the treatment of adult ADHD and other neurological disorders. She always requires neuropsychiatric testing results and/or consult with a psychiatrist prior.

Yes, to educators, arts instructors, and healthcare workers.

Yes, she will visit you in the hospital if you are hospitalized at Hoag Hospital Newport or Irvine, where she has been on the Medical Staff for 6 years.

When Dr. Correa goes on vacation, she will still be able to get texts and emails, chat through a problem, send prescriptions, etc (even internationally). However, as a backup, she has arranged for another accomplished board-certified physician to care for any urgent needs or office visits while she is away.