Gregory “Reid” Lancaster

“Patients are frustrated with healthcare. So are the doctors and providers,” Dr. Gregory  “Reid” Lancaster observes.  “We’re rushed. We don’t want to rush. … We’re not able to explain things even though we want to explain. It’s a really hard system, and I was stuck in that.”

At the time, Lancaster was a physician assistant in family medicine in Palm Desert, seeing 25 to 30 patients a day. That experience inspired him to start over. He packed up his life, moved with his wife across the country to attend medical school in Pennsylvania, and returned to the desert with a plan for a different kind of practice.

Lancaster runs Ethos Modern Medicine, a direct primary care practice in La Quinta that offers a subscription-based model (“like Netflix,” he explains) with same- or next-day appointments, hourlong visits, and direct access to his cellphone. Patients pay a monthly fee with no co-pays, giving them time to explore issues more fully and build trust.

The most rewarding moments are the ones where that time changes lives. He recalls a man who came in shortly after leaving the hospital, in severe pain from uncontrolled diabetes. “Everyone had basically said, ‘You’re out of luck bud,’ ” Lancaster recalls. With more time, he found a simple solution — an over-the-counter supplement — that eliminated most of  the man’s pain. “Those are the kinds of moments where you think, we did the right thing,” he says.