Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Flourish Medical is an “elevated boutique, membership-style primary care” practice through a “metabolic and hormonal” lens, according to owner Mackenzie Shireman.
“So it’s a root-cause approach to general wellness, so whether somebody needs a primary care provider, I can kind of offer that, all the works, essentially, or if somebody has a primary care home and they just need some help with weight management, perimenopause, post-menopause care, I can offer that, too,” she said.
Flourish Medical has been open since Aug. 12. Thursday afternoon, the business at 112 E. Center St., Warsaw, had its ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce.
As for Shireman’s background, she said she is a doctoral-prepared, family nurse practitioner. She’s board certified, holds advanced training in menopause care, as well as obesity medicine and is working toward her functional medicine certification. With her tele-medicine experience, she’s multi-state licensed.
Flourish Medical is Shireman’s first time owning a business.
“I’ve been in the healthcare world for about 15 years now, 10 years as an advanced practice nurse. I’ve worked in health systems, private practice and then most recently the tech start-up world,” she said. “So I’ve seen a lot of different angles of care and what works well and what doesn’t, and at the end of the day what I’ve kind of found is that people need that time and attention and access is a huge thing, to be able to get to know your provider, but also when you need them, they’re there and they’re available. You’re not jumping through those hoops.”
Right now, she is by appointment only, Mondays through Saturdays.
“So what they will do is they will book through the website, complete their medical intake form, consents, etc., and I will reach out to schedule them. And they’re not charged until after that visit,” Shireman said.
There’s no pressure if someone decides it’s not a good fit for them or they decide to stay where they’re at.
Flourish Medical is cash-based for the consultation and membership. For the initial consultation, a person can use their Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA). Membership is not HSA or FSA eligible. A person can use insurance at Flourish Medical for labs, medications and diagnostics.
“This is a boutique, or concierge practice, and so my prices are probably going to be a little bit higher than like a direct primary care approach, and the reason being is my panel will be a lot smaller. So direct primary care is also something I highly value because of the smaller panels and access. They generally have about 400 to 800 patients, and I’ll probably only have about 200, just myself,” Shireman said.
With Flourish Medical being a membership practice, she said there will come a point in time when she will meet people after hours at the office. “That’s for my primary care patients,” she stated.
She will work with local health systems as needed.
Membership is required because she doesn’t charge per visit. “That maintains that when you need to call, text, have a question answered or you need to come in for a visit, you can kind of expect what to pay every month versus paying as you go. So I try to be transparent in that sense, and then it also protects your time and mine,” Shireman explained.
While she’s been a female-only practice only so far, she said she does see men, too. She currently doesn’t see children under the age of 18, but that may change down the road as she can and has taken care of children in the past.
The patients she’s seen so far in her first two weeks of business have been women looking for more out of their primary care physicians.
“I’ve had a few who just wanted a primary care home and ... wherever they were before, it was just hard to get in, it was hard to get a hold of somebody and they also just felt like it wasn’t as human as maybe it once was, so they wanted more of that. That relationship-based care, that’s really what I emphasize. I’ve had a lot of women coming in for perimenopause, postmenopause support, and some people who are just feeling off - they’re tired, their energy’s low or maybe they’re trying to do all the things and their weight isn’t budging. I’ve seen a lot of that, too,” Shireman said.
Originally from Terre Haute, she’s lived in the area for the past 10 years. Her husband, Nathan, is from the Valparaiso area and they met at Purdue University. They lived in Virginia for a couple years while Nathan was at graduate school at Virgina Tech. They ended up here after he took a job at Maple Leaf Farms, though she said he no longer works there.
“That got us to this area. We lived here a couple years, moved to Goshen, I worked for the health system up there, and then we moved back after we started having children because we felt like this was home,” Shireman said, noting they’ve been back for about four years.
“I’ve been around, I’ve seen a lot of things, what works, what doesn’t. I’ve had the honor to take care of a lot of patients throughout my career, but also manage and support the providers that also take care of the patients, so I have a lot of leadership experience and operational experience, kind of what works on the backend, what doesn’t, where are the sticking points,” she said. “The reason that I became a nurse is because I really enjoy people and taking care of people. I know it’s very cliche, but it’s true, and so coming back to this allows me to provide that human care that I always wanted to provide and have a relationship with my patients and not make them rush through their story. Also just listen to them, too.”
The website for Flourish Medical can be found at flourishmedicalwarsaw.com. There’s also Facebook and Instagram sites for the downtown Warsaw business.
