What If you can’t afford Health Insurance Yet you make too much money to qualify for government subsidized programs like Medi-Cal? Believe it or not this describes some 60 million Americans and over 50 thousand in San Luis Obispo County. With the recent changes in the economy these numbers have been rising rapidly and are likely to continue to grow in the foreseeable future. Healthcare in emergency rooms and urgent cares can be quite expensive with long waits and sometimes suboptimal outcomes.  Individuals without health insurance are at risk for being subject to unreasonable charges when presenting to these institutions for treatment of urgent medical problems. For example, an average emergency room visit bill is for $3,000 but will be reimbursed at $400-600 by most insurance companies with patients not responsible for paying more. However, for those without any insurance coverage the entire $3,000 is due at the door. We have broken with this tradition of unfair billing practices aimed at those who can least afford to pay the price. We offer all of our services at the same rates to insured and uninsured patients. Additionally, we now offer telemedicine services at rates discounted to 50% below office visit rates in order to offer a yet less expensive way for those in need to obtain advice and treatment for minor medical problems. We also offer walk in appointments between 2-4 pm every day so our patients don’t have to wait for appointments and or have to go to ER’s for their care. For avoiding some of the most expensive emergency room visits we now offer many services traditionally associated with hospitals and high acuity urgent cares. We can provide these services because of our extensive background in critical care and laboratory medicine and because we have made the investment in infrastructure that sets us apart from any other medical practice known to us. These include ability to administer intravenous fluids, antibiotics and pain medications, asthma inhaled therapies and pulmonary function testing, suturing and skin biopsies, on site clinical laboratory, stress testing and ultrasound. Learn more about our Telemedicine services