Table Health providing a different model for mental health

Sep. 10—TRAVERSE CITY — As a track star at Elk Rapids High School and later at Wayne State University, Dr. Jill Butryn excelled at gliding over hurdles and breaking down barriers.

As president of Table Health, a primary care medical office at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons in Traverse City, Butryn continues to help her patients hurdle the challenges and barriers of navigating the complexities of the country's health care system — and recently expanded those efforts into the area of mental and behavioral health.

"In a lot of ways I'm still a hurdler," Butryn said. "If a hurdle comes up, how do we help people get over it?"

Butryn and her team of medical professionals that include primary care physicians, mental health counselors, a dietitian, a physical therapist and others have built a membership-based health care practice over the past four years that offers accessible, lower-cost and transparent health care services for hundreds of northern Michigan families.

"Those of us who started it had been in the conventional medical world for a long time, and were getting to a place in our careers where we had the freedom to do something different," Butryn said. "From my part, it was wanting to contribute back to the community."

Butryn's team identified various health care barriers that included access, cost, transparency and strong patient relationships as challenges they wanted to improve on. The medical practice, which opened in the summer of 2018, initially focused on patient wellness, but soon began receiving more requests for primary care services, which eventually lead to a major pivot in its operation.

"We thought that people would use would use this as a supplement for their insurance," she said. "But our patients kept saying to us over and over again, 'can I just see you as my doctor?' "

Butryn said the health membership model had been used successfully in other parts of the country, but hadn't caught on in northern Michigan.

"We did it because our patients were really enjoying their experience here and wanted more from us," she said. "We were basically responding to the community's need."

Table Health launched its primary care membership services in April 2020 — just as COVID-19 pandemic was setting in. The practice remained open through the pandemic and expanded on its virtual health delivery services, and has grown to 800 members, with another 500 patients who are also treated there without memberships.

"Our growth since we started has exceeded the national averages of growth," she said. It's now staffed by four primary care physicians and also opened an office in Petoskey in the fall of 2022. It's also working with several employer groups in the area as the primary care provider in employee health plans.

"The mental health thing came about, again, because we were responding to community need," Butryn said. Table Health's primary care physicians encountered more of their patients who would benefit from counseling, but couldn't find timely access to those services. So it expanded its membership model in April to include mental and behavioral health counseling, both through in-person visits and virtual sessions.

Butryn said the mental health service targets patients who need immediate help but often face long waiting lists to receive mental health services, and those needing affordable health care options even if they have private insurance.

"The Mental Health Membership seamlessly integrates professional mental healthcare with our primary care services, sparing patients the ordeal of long wait times for individual therapists," said Dr. Vince WinklerPrins, one of the primary care physicians at Table Health.

Table Health's mental health team includes Ali Fitzgibbon who offers more than 20 years of counseling therapy specializes Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), and Joanna Heinz who also has 15 years of professional experience and also specializes in CBT and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). They can offer assistance in areas including depression, anxiety, trauma-related symptoms, family counseling, substance use and addiction, and relationship challenges.

The service offers a three-month introductory membership for $187 per month that includes five virtual counseling sessions that can be shared among family members. The annual membership costs $140 a month and offers up to 15 shared counseling sessions a year. There's also a $200 sign-up fee, and information on both the mental health and primary care services is available through the Table Health website at tablehealth.com

Butryn started her career as a family practitioner in Traverse City, but stepped back from her family practice to take more time to help raise her children. She later worked for Disability Determination Services as a medical consultant, and helped manage her husband's ophthalmology clinic where she learned other facets of the medical world including staff management, patient flow, billing and insurance issues. It gave her a closer look at how complex — and at times frustrating — the medical world can be both for health care providers and their patients.

"That administrative background gave me a tremendous inside look at what does and doesn't work," she said. "And it gave me a heart for people's struggles .... the lack of transparency in the system is horrendous."

Butryn also sees growth opportunities through working with local employers to expand their primary care and mental health services to their employees. Their business clients include TentCraft in Traverse City and the Manthei Development Group in Petoskey.

"The lack of accessibility in primary care and behavioral health has led to higher costs for employers," she said. "They're looking for better ways (to provide insurance)... they want to and it makes them more competitive."

Butryn also said the practice's virtual capabilities have it poised to expand its services beyond northern Michigan.

"We'd love to expand to the rest of Michigan," she said. "We wanted to start local and make sure we're meeting the need locally before we do that."

Butryn said she consistently reminds her employees of Table Health's mission statement that it "redefines healthcare through transparency, authenticity and value" — a theme that will continue to drive the business going forward.

"We're always trying to break barriers and help people get over the hurdles," she said. "That's really what we're trying to do — make it a better experience, and more cost-effective."