Dr. Joan Lewis stands in a massage/exam room at Designed Health Options in Corrales. Argen Marie Duncan photo.
CORRALES — A new health-care practice in Corrales blends medication, counseling, homeopathy, massage, nutrition and more to find the best treatment for each patient.
Designed Health Options, based in a remodeled 100-year-old adobe home on Corrales Road, is taking new patients after receiving its certificate of occupancy in March. Patients can arrange in-person or telehealth visits.
Owner and founder Dr. Joan Lewis, a medical doctor and registered nurse, said it’s a “multi-specialty service provider for people who really want to have an integrative approach to their health.”
Lewis has worked in the medical field for 55 years, starting as a clerk in a medical office at age 16, just after graduating from high school and getting married. As she worked her way up to becoming a nurse and then a doctor, she moved from her hometown of Brooklyn, N.Y., to Los Angeles and other places before coming to New Mexico with her second husband, a native of the Land of Enchantment.
“I’ve done a lot of things,” Lewis said.
She was a nurse for 14 years, and has studied or worked in ear, nose and throat surgery; anesthesia; critical care; pain management; and blending contemporary and holistic medicine. She earned an American Academy of Pain Management national award for a study that followed patients with chronic pain for 10 years and used objective and subjective measurements to show that 30 percent of those people could eventually taper off their pain medication.
“I was trained to be a scientist and a researcher,” Lewis said, adding that she’s biased against anything she can’t measure and prove.
Designed Health Options offers primary and behavioral health care. Chronic pain is a special focus.
“It’s where my heart lies, because so many people are made dysfunctional because their pain is not addressed,” Lewis said.
The mental health care helps with depression, trauma, life transitions, women’s issues and more.
Seven independent contractors, including a physician’s assistant, behavioral health providers, massage therapists and a nutritional coach, work with Lewis. She said they share information among each other, with patients’ permission, to find the best tailored approach for each person.
The clinic has a handful of remodeled exam, counseling and massage rooms on the ground floor of the adobe house. Lewis hopes to turn the second floor into four apartments, living in one and renting out the others, and is working toward further remodeling projects.
In light of the pandemic, patients are encouraged to use telehealth options. If they come in person, their temperatures are taken before they walk in the door and they wash their hands immediately.
Lewis said each room has a separate heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system, as well as ultra-violet and ozone disinfectant systems. Staff members clean surfaces regularly.
Designed Health Options takes Blue Cross Blue Shield and United health insurance, as well as others, and approval for Presbyterian insurance is pending. Prospective patients should call to see if the clinic can work with their health plan.
Designed Health Options
• 5065 Corrales Road, Corrales
• 404-8154
• designedhealthoptions.com
950
September 23, 2023
