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There\u2019s still time to make a gift in 2025 to power BDN reporting for the year ahead. Make a donation now.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n For the second time in the last six months, a Northern Light Health provider, frustrated with the overall state of the health care system, is leaving the organization to open a direct primary care practice in Presque Isle.<\/p>\n Judi Pimental, a family nurse practitioner at Northern Light\u2019s Presque Isle walk-in care facility and former primary care provider at the health care giant\u2019s office in Fort Fairfield, is set to open Trinity Direct Primary Care at 167 Academy St. on Jan. 5.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It\u2019s another example of how the insurance-free, subscription-based direct primary care model has exploded in Maine and across the U.S. in recent years<\/a>\u00a0as patients and providers alike become disillusioned with the state of health care.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way that the system is set up, I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s really patient-centered,\u201d Pimental said. \u201cI\u2019m excited about being a patient-centered clinic.\u201d<\/p>\n Direct primary care is built around that patient-first ideal. The model sells itself on longer visits and greater access to your primary care provider, who is not strapped with the quotas and rigid schedules that burden traditional providers. <\/p>\n That\u2019s because most practices, like Pimental\u2019s, do not bill insurance. Patients instead pay a flat monthly fee for access to most things typically offered under the primary care umbrella without the surcharges added in the traditional \u201cfee-for-service\u201d model. For Trinity DPC, that fee will be $89 a month for individuals or $159 for couples. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone was hindering me at my employer\u2019s, but red tape hinders you when they\u2019ve got a quota to meet and the insurance companies have their bottom line,\u201d Pimental said. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to cutting loose from that bottom line and actually making sure I\u2019m worried about what [the patient] needs.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a reality she said is not always possible under traditional primary care. <\/p>\n A patient may have a 20-minute appointment. Of that, 8 to 12 minutes is spent with the nurse, leaving the provider 8 to 12 minutes with the patient, which isn\u2019t enough time to deal with chronic conditions. And people have to wait so long to see their providers that they have a list, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you don\u2019t have the time to really dissect what\u2019s going on with the patient, it\u2019s not just frustrating for the patient, it\u2019s frustrating for the provider as well,\u201d Pimental said. \u201cI left primary care because I felt like I wasn\u2019t able to do the job that I really wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Pimental\u00a0calls primary care her passion. But those issues caused her to leave it after five years in Fort Fairfield to become the director of the Mi\u2019kmaq Family Health Clinic in Presque Isle. She rejoined Northern Light on its walk-in care team in 2024, but primary care still called her. <\/p>\n In September, she decided to pursue her own practice. Three months later, Trinity DPC is preparing to open its doors. Pimental will accept around 400 patients, she said, and has already seen healthy preenrollment. Her practice will be for adults 18 or older, a contrast to the pediatric-based Lionheart DPC, Presque Isle\u2019s first direct primary care clinic<\/a>\u00a0that opened in September. <\/p>\n Maria Rutmann, Lionheart\u2019s owner and provider, also left Northern Light to open her practice and has helped Pimental as she launches her clinic.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s mentored me a tremendous amount throughout this whole process,\u201d Pimental said. \u201cAs soon as she heard that the bug was in my ear, she\u2019s been like \u2018You\u2019ve got to do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n