What if healthcare providers had the time to come alongside patients to get ahead of the problem? Address the root cause sooner rather than later?  Those are exactly the kind of questions that Family Nurse Practitioner Spring Lane has been asking herself for quite some time.

Now she – and her patients – are getting answers. In 2021, the Louisiana House of Representatives paved the way for nurse practitioners to practice independently of doctors.

Exceptional Wellness, 4520 Nelson Road, is a clinic that offers what most patients expect of traditional primary care such as diagnosing, treating and making referrals for acute and chronic conditions – but with some remarkable differences.

Set new expectations

During her 20 years in the healthcare industry, much of it in the hospital setting, Lane heard quite a few patients say, “ I just met with my doctor the other day, and he said everything was fine.

“They were not fine, but everything the doctor was looking at that day in the five minutes they got to see him or her, was fine,” she said, adding that in her experience doctors do care, but today’s health system almost dictates seeing a patient every 10 minutes.”

Spring Lane believes that “fine” isn’t good enough.

“We want people to raise their expectations of their health.”

Exceptional Wellness health providers take a comprehensive approach to wellness, including more time during the initial office consultation and access to 3,000 labs across the country that deliver results beyond the routine, plus taking time to talk through those results with patients.

“We don’t order a test just to order a test,” Lane said. “Our aim is to educate, equip and empower our patients,” she said.

Generally, patients benefit from optimizing the seven main areas of  health, which can include hormones, nutrition, gut health, sleep, fitness, inflammation and detoxification.

“We have specific plans which address each area,” she said.

New patient KiKi Trahan has never had a health provider take such a personalized approach to her concerns.

“She even gave me her cell phone number and I can send her texts if I have questions about anything,” she said.

Trahan has been taking “baby steps” since her first Exceptional Wellness appointment, learning what, when and how to eat.

“I’ve lost 12 pounds, and I have so much energy now,” Trahan said. “I didn’t come in for weight loss. I came in because of an immunity problem. One of the issues that Spring looked into right away was why I suffered from inflammation.”

Lane doesn’t stop at putting the latest and most useful  information and tools in the hands of her patients. She also hosts free community clinics. Last week, she drilled down into optimizing blood pressure, cholesterol and sex hormones – using language the group could understand – and she told how these three biomarkers  interact.

“On March 7 at 6 p.m., the topic will be GERD, optimizing the gut microbiome and gastrointestinal health, and the public is invited to attend.”

Take small steps

Lane is curating a group of healthy living vendor partnerships, a health network willing to discount products and services to patient members, for instance IntegratIV Hydration, Mayweather Boxing and Fitness Classes and Fontenot Grass Fed Beef. Members may also get discounts on supplements, meal prepping services and Infrared Sauna sessions.

The Infrared Sauna heat is dry and the infrared light, on the invisible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, warms the body. Heat penetrates deep without the discomfort of the typical steam or wood-burning sauna heat. It can help skin, improve blood circulation, relieve pain, reduce some symptoms of depression, improve sleep quality, boost performance and fight oxidative stress.

“Achieving exceptional health can often seem like the need to check off endless boxes, the right exercise, the right foods and the right healthy therapies. Making changes, even when you know you need to do so can feel overwhelming. I am here to tell you, you can do this,” she said during her February free community event. “It doesn’t have to be hard. Take baby steps today and a year from now, you’ll be in a whole different world.”

Perhaps the most remarkable difference between Exceptional Wellness and other medical and wellness models is Spring Lane. (Yes, that’s her given name and it fits her personality, which exudes warmth, the perfect accompaniment to her credentials and experience.

Lane sees a variety of patients, at all ages and stages of their health journey. Some are looking for help to put into practice lifestyle changes healthcare providers have encouraged. Some are looking to go beyond the “everything looks fine” level of health.

Some want to reduce the need for medications. Others focus on increasing physical strength or performance with nutrition and other therapies that work synergistically with their medications.

Exceptional Wellness writes prescriptions and provides primary medical services, but it does not partner directly with payers, but can provide receipts that can be submitted to insurance providers.

“The need is tremendous for this type of care and systems have shown that well coordinated prevention focus can reduce total cost of care by up to 50 percent,” Lane said.

She’s out to disrupt the status quo, build hope and light a fire for others to be able to go into the gap that currently exists between healthcare and disease care.

“Over the years, I spoke with providers, CEOs, CFOs and directors of insurance payers and heard over and over how there’s no time to help people the way that they need to be helped in order to prevent disease. I don’t believe that’s true. I tell patients, we are building folks who are hard to kill. If they are no longer with us, it’s because something drastic happened, not because life snuck up on them while they were asleep at the wheel building lulled by the “everything is fine” mantra.