Local health care provider expands access for uninsured

If you are not on Medicare or Medicaid and you don’t have health insurance through a commercial provider, Wellspring Health Services in Culpeper has a membership program that could provide you health care access. And now, Wellspring has added another tier to their service called “member on-the-go,” which allows an individual or family to try out their services and enroll later.

“Wellspring was started initially to create access into the community and access to health care,” said Sandy Boone, Wellspring’s executive director. “Dr. [Khalid] Athar felt like … there just weren’t enough [health care] providers in the community, and then it was that there was no access for people who had no insurance … so as a team we created this membership program so there would be something for the uninsured.” Dr. Athar, an anesthesiologist by training and practice, founded

Wellspring in 2016.

The program, which starts at $99 per month, gives members access to comprehensive medical care. “It provides an annual u shot, if you’re a female it includes an annual gynecological exam,” Boone said. Wellspring also has 12 full-time specialists, including a podiatrist, a dietician, a behavioral and mental health specialist and a pulmonologist.

“We cover a lot,” Boone said. “The nice thing about coming to us is if you have unmanaged diabetes and you need to see an endocrinologist, we have one on sta . If you’re having pain that you’ve not been able to manage, we have an interventional pain doc on sta … migraines, we have a neurologist.”

Boone added that some patients travel from as far as Virginia Beach to receive their care from Wellspring.

For more information, visit Wellspring’s website at www.wellspringhealthservices.com