Welcome!

At Blue Ridge Family Practice, we care for adults and children of all ages, newborn on up. We provide care for both acute and chronic illnesses and also provide preventive services, including well child checks, sports physicals, and gynecologic exams. Our comfortable clinic is conveniently located on Route 250 in the Crozet area.

A Personal Relationship With Your Own Physician

Do you want a physician who will take the time to get to know you as a person and develop a treatment plan that is right for you? If you have urgent questions or concerns, would you like to be able to speak with your own physician, who knows you? Would you like to know that you can see your own doctor in clinic when you need to be seen, for a non-rushed appointment that starts on time? Does this sound too good to be true? It is possible, through an innovative model of care known as Direct Primary Care.

Direct Primary Care is the Key

In the Direct Primary Care model, no insurance is billed for your primary care. For an affordable monthly membership fee, your routine primary care needs are covered and you have direct access to your own physician. By not billing insurance, our office is able to significantly decrease administrative costs, and most importantly, to make sure that decisions about your health are made by you and your doctor, not the insurance company.

Use Your Insurance for Labs, Imaging, Specialists, Hospitalizations, and other services

In the Direct Primary Care model, insurance is used for what insurance is intended to be used for–rare, potentially financially catastrophic events. Imagine how expensive your auto insurance would be if it also had to cover gas, oil changes, and routine maintenance. This is what has happened to traditional medical insurance. As medical insurance has expanded to include routine health needs, its cost to each individual has increased dramatically. The use of insurance in a primary care setting also means that many primary care practices need to spend about $40 out of every $100 just to pay for the administrative costs of billing insurance. At the same time, many insurances have also decreased their reimbursement rates to primary care practices. Practices have responded to this by trying to see more and more patients per day and billing higher and higher charges for each visit, just in order to break even. Direct Primary Care is an idea that is genius in its simplicity–eliminate the insurance middleman, and we can bring cost down significantly, while providing excellent service and quality. You can still use your insurance to pay for labs, imaging, specialist referrals, surgeries, hospitalizations, or other services as needed, which can be obtained at any local health system–the choice is yours to make with your doctor.

Direct and Reliable Communication with Your Physician and Nurse

We are an intentionally small practice with two physicians and one nurse.  Each patient is followed by one physician who they see for routine and urgent visits.  For medical questions or concerns, you can communicate with your physician and nurse through phone, email, text, or your secure electronic medical record, and you will receive a prompt response.  Many primary care physicians in traditional insurance practice have 2500-3500 patients in their care (this is necessary to generate enough income to support most practices, given the enormous amount of overhead that goes to billing and documenting for insurance), and you can imagine that it would be quite difficult to provide this level of service for that many patients. In Direct Primary Care practices, since the overhead is so much lower, physicians are able to care for a smaller group of patients–hundreds instead of thousands–allowing us to provide a higher level of service to each individual patient.

Convenient Care

For medical conditions that can be safely managed over the phone, your own physician will promptly return your call or portal message, talk with you, and make treatment recommendations without you needing to take time away from work or home to come in to clinic. For in-person appointments, appointments are spaced throughout the day so that you can expect your appointment to start at the time it is scheduled.  We leave openings in each day’s schedule so that we can accommodate urgent needs for our patients with same or next day appointment availability.

Affordable Monthly Fee

The monthly fee covers all in-office and phone visits at Blue Ridge Family Practice. It also gives you access to Blue Ridge Family Practice’s negotiated lab pricing which can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year on needed testing if you have a high-deductible plan or no insurance. Your monthly fee will be securely withdrawn through a checking account or credit card. You may end your participation in Blue Ridge Family Practice at any time after the initial 6 months. Say goodbye to confusing bills and not knowing costs ahead of time, and say hello to affordable, transparent pricing for your primary care!

OUR DOCTORS

Dr. Maura and Dr. Tim, pictured with their children before the practice opened in 2016.

Dr. Maura McLaughlin grew up in a small town in Illinois. She attended college at Georgetown University and received her medical degree from Loyola Stritch School of Medicine. Following medical school, she pursued a Family Medicine residency at the University of Virginia, where she served as Chief Resident from 2005-2006. After residency graduation, she completed a Faculty Development Fellowship at UVA. Dr. Maura then stayed on as faculty at UVA, caring for patients of all ages at Stoney Creek Family Medicine, and teaching UVA medical students and residents. She received the Steven Meixel Teaching Award from the UVA Family Medicine residents in 2013. Dr. Maura, with much support from her husband and family, opened Blue Ridge Family Practice in January 2016.

Dr. Tim McLaughlin grew up in Western Albemarle county, where he attended Henley Middle School and Western Albemarle High School. He then attended the University of Virginia, where he studied Biology and Environmental Sciences. After graduation, he worked for two years as an environmental consultant in northern Virginia.  He then returned to this area to attend UVA for medical school and Family Medicine residency. Following residency graduation, he worked at UVA Stuarts Draft Family Practice for seven years, and then at the UVA Family Medicine clinic in Crozet for eight years.  Dr. Tim joined his wife as a physician at Blue Ridge Family Practice in January 2020.

Drs. Maura and Tim met when they were both Family Medicine residents at UVA. They love this area and were fortunate to be able to remain here following residency. They are blessed with two wonderful boys who keep them active and laughing, most of the time. They are also fortunate to have both sets of their parents in Crozet. A beagle pup joined their family in 2016. They love spending time outdoors as a family. Dr. Maura enjoys running, live music, good food, and reading almost anything. Dr. Tim enjoys bicycling, hiking, fishing, and acoustic music. They are very grateful to be able to work together in the community in which they live, and look forward to caring for you and your family.

OUR NURSE

Michelle Huggins, RN, pictured center in the orange sweater, surrounded by her family.

In October 2020, we were thrilled to welcome Nurse Michelle to our team. Dr. Tim and Nurse Michelle worked closely together for eight years at the UVA Family Medicine Clinic in Crozet before they both joined Blue Ridge Family Practice. Michelle is an extremely knowledgeable, experienced, and compassionate nurse. While at UVA, she won the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses. Prior to working at UVA Family Medicine, Michelle worked in the Emergency Department at Augusta Health.  She is very skilled at drawing blood, and many of our patients have told us that her blood draw was the most comfortable they have every had.

Michelle enjoys crafting of any kind, hiking, gardening, being at the ocean, and spending time with family. She and her husband have raised two wonderful sons.  Her sons are now married, and so Michelle and her husband now also have two wonderful daughters, and have welcomed two granddaughters to the family.

A LETTER TO OUR PATIENTS

To our dear patients, past, present, and future,

Thank you for allowing us to care for you.  Being a physician is a privilege and a responsibility that we each take very seriously, and it has been one of the great joys of our life.  We strive to provide thorough, compassionate, evidence-based medical care that is tailored to meet the individual needs of each person.  We firmly believe that primary care is best delivered in the context of a personal relationship between a patient and their physician, where there is time for us to get to know each other, talk, listen, answer questions, and think.  Direct Primary Care is an innovative care model that allows us to practice in this way.  We are very grateful to be able to work together at Blue Ridge Family Practice, where we are able to practice family medicine–the way it’s meant to be.

As one of our sons said to the other, one afternoon as they were playing with Legos, “Let’s start building our world!”

With gratitude,

Maura R. McLaughlin, MD and Tim McLaughlin, MD

WHAT IS DIRECT PRIMARY CARE?

As explained by the Direct Primary Care Coalition, “The defining element of Direct Primary Care is an enduring and trusting relationship between a patient and his or her primary care provider.  In Direct Primary Care, unwanted fee-for-service incentives are replaced with a simple flat monthly fee.  This empowers the doctor-patient relationship and is the key to achieving superior health outcomes, lower costs and an enhanced patient experience.”