Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Strickler.
Hi Jordan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Like so many of us, what I’ve been able to achieve is thanks to the many wonderful people around me. For instance, my parents told me when I entered medical school that “Lauren Porter (now Lauren Hughes) also went to KU Med and became a pediatrician. You should keep her in mind if you need someone to reach out to.” While this Lauren person and I had never met, my father was best friends with her uncle growing up, and we were all from the same small town. It seemed silly to suggest I reach out to her at the time because I didn’t even know what kind of physician I was going to become. Even if I did decide to pursue pediatrics, I would be surrounded by pediatricians at KU who actively take part in medical student education. Thanks, but no thanks mom and dad. I don’t need to reach out to this random stranger. Fast forward 7 years, though, and it turns out I would be doing just that.
When I was in medical school at KU, I had the opportunity to see patients at a family medicine direct primary care clinic. What is direct primary care, you ask? It’s a medical business model that does not bill through insurance. It takes out the “middle man” in the patient-provider relationship. Appointments can be longer than 15 minutes in a direct primary care model because the physician doesn’t have to see 25-30 patients in a day. The physician in this clinic had time not only to listen to her patients, but also talk to ask about non-medical things. It felt like a more genuine way to get to know the patients in her practice. Not to mention, patients could come back without having financial pressure because it doesn’t cost per appointment. Every decision the provider was making was what was best practice for the patient, not what insurance was mandating. It made me feel like this is a better way for our medical system to work.
As I progressed through medical school, pediatrics became the path for me. In retrospect, I should have known already. I had already worked as a youth swim coach, theater camp instructor, and spent two of my five years at K-State studying how to become a high school band director. No offense, but kids are fun and a lot of adults are boring.
My pediatric training at Children’s Mercy Hospital was intense, transformational, exhausting, valuable, and so many other adjectives. Residency training is difficult no matter where you go and what specialty a person chooses. However, residency made me the pediatrician I am today. As I got closer to graduating, I knew I was going into primary care pediatrics, but didn’t know where. That’s when Lauren Hughes’s name made it back to me again. She was hiring at her direct primary care office. This was it! The opportunity I needed to find a practice that fit me. A place where I can feel like I give patients the time they deserve, follow evidence-based medicine, and don’t have to work around the rules set up by insurance. I was ecstatic to be offered a position and have been a physician at Bloom for two fantastic months. The moral of my story is: even when you think your parents are crazy, they’re usually right.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Making it through medical school and residency have been the biggest struggles towards getting to where I am now. Medical school was filled with endless tests, and is often described as having to drink water from a fire hydrant. Residency was where every physician starts taking on the demands of being a physician. Work weeks are typically 6 days long, sometimes more. There is a lot of switching between day shifts and night shifts. I worked some shifts that were 24 hours. Being the medical decision maker for a panel of 15+ patients for that long was draining. Not too long ago, the shifts could be as long as 36 hours – though I never had to experience that. Every 4 weeks you step onto a new medical service where you have a different attending physician, you are expected to know and learn the specifics of different areas of medicine, and you have to learn the expectations of your role all while providing good medical care to the patients and families. It’s like a pressure cooker, but for most in a good way.
We’ve been impressed with Bloom Pediatrics and Lactation, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Bloom Pediatrics is similar to other pediatric offices with regards to our providers following evidence-based pediatric medicine. We can take care of kids from birth and beyond covering the general scope of pediatric primary care. However, our office does not bill through insurance. Instead, payment is done like a gym membership, with families paying a flat fee every month. It does not matter how many times a child is seen that month – the cost is the same. Our typical well child check is scheduled for 60 minutes to ensure that we have time to cover any medical concerns that need to be discussed. Additionally, every family that signs up can call or text their provider 24/7 for any concerns. Sometimes we are able to give advice that the family can do at home and prevents them from having to come in for an appointment, sometimes we recommend the family come in to be seen, and in rare cases we have to tell families to go to an emergency room. We do not have nurses or front desk staff at Bloom, so you are always talking to your child’s physician directly. In the office, we can test for flu, COVID, and strep throat, etc. with at no cost to our members. If we need blood draws for labs or an imaging studies (x-ray, ultrasound, etc.) we have direct pricing with lab and imaging centers so we can tell you what the cost will be rather than getting a surprise bill from insurance. Home visits and full scope home care is also an option that we provide to families.
As health insurance prices rise, our practice may be a good fit for families who can’t afford/don’t want to pay for traditional insurance. We still recommend having a high deductible plan that could help with emergency room visits and potentially specialists, though, since primary care physicians can’t treat every medical condition by ourselves.
As a primary care pediatrician, I provide well child checks and sick visits. I’ve managed medical issues ranging from ADHD to asthma. My goal with primary care was to develop long lasting relationships with my patients and their families. I’m from a small town and want my practice to have the level of familiarity you get in a small town.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
I have to thank the providers and residency program at Children’s Mercy Hospital for providing excellent resident education that developed and sharpened my skills as a pediatrician. Specifically, I have to thank my attending physicians of Dr. Lilly Nguyen, Dr. Brandi Morrison, Dr. Bryan Wohlwend, Dr. Alex Beardman, and Dr. Courtney Winterer for being my mentors in primary care medicine. My fellow residency class made my experience at Children’s Mercy even better as they made the work even better and we all pushed each other to become better physicians.
Dr. Lauren Hughes, Dr. Jodi VanGundy, and Dr. Jen Diltz are my fellow physicians at Bloom who have been intensely supportive as I’ve started my practice at Bloom. They have created an environment that is welcoming and collaborative, which benefits all of our patients.
Finally, I need to thank my husband for going through the medical school and residency journey with me. It has been a long road to get to my full-time position at Bloom, and he has helped me to get through it in more ways than he will ever know.
Pricing:
- Children 0-2 years $150/month
- Children 2-5 years $110/month
- Children 5 years and older $80/month
- There is a 20% discount for any family with 3 or more enrolled children.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bloomdpc.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjordanstrickler/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583383062294
