“How can we make care as accessible as possible to as many people as possible?”
That’s the question that motivated Heather Hogan and Caroline Neill, two certified nurse-midwives, to start Haven Health, an independent practice shaped by their years of experience serving the community and their desire to offer a different approach to care.
Midwifery is often associated with assisting in the labor and delivery of an infant. While Hogan has delivered more than 1,000 babies during her 18 years of practice, that’s not what she and Neill will be doing here.
“From a midwifery perspective, we’re very different because we aren’t providing prenatal care or births,” Hogan said. “We’re providing that other side of midwifery that we can do.”
Midwives can oversee care for the whole person from puberty to the end of their life.
“As midwives, we are trained in a different way, in a different mindset, of how we take care of people,” Hogan said.
“We know you, you know us,” Hogan said.
That’s the type of comfort the pair wants to offer.
In addition to routine gynecologic care, the clinic rounds out patients’ needs with other services, including fertility and preconception support, menopause management, sexual health services, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and early pregnancy care. These services can be difficult to access all under one roof, and the team wants to offer them without the financial and logistical hoops that people typically have to jump through.
“So much of healthcare, especially locally…is so corporatized,” Hogan said, as hospitals continue to consolidate. That limits what type of care is available, she said. She points to UNC Health’s decision to stop providing gender-affirming care to patients under 19 years old to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order last year to cut support for those under 19, even though state law only prohibited it for those under the age of 18. Atrium Health has done the same.
“If you’re in a practice that’s owned by these gigantic groups, you just have to follow those rules because you’re part of that whole system,” she said. “That was a big, eye-opening moment where we were just like, ‘Oh my gosh, now where will people go?’”
Hogan and Neill have worked for years within hospital systems and community-based practices in Greensboro, making Haven Health already strongly embedded in the community.
In North Carolina, 28 of the state’s 100 counties lack a single OB-GYN provider. By offering telehealth visits as well, they’re aiming to bridge the gaps.
Hogan said that she and Neill want a personal and accessible approach.
“We wanted to build something different, an independent practice where clinical decisions are guided by patient needs and grounded in evidence-based care,” Neill said.
The clinic accepts most major health insurances, including BlueCross BlueShield and Cigna, but offers affordable self-pay options.
At some of the places Hogan worked previously, patients would often ask her how much services would cost without insurance.
“From the patient perspective, that information always feels so nebulous,” Hogan said.
Now, as their own clinic, Hogan and Neill have control over those prices. That’s also why they wanted to put that information on their website so patients can have clarity, peace of mind, and no surprises when they get the bill.
New patients can expect their visit costs to range from $60-$200 depending on the services required, and $40-$100 for established patients. Visits can be scheduled now for appointments starting April 15.
“In many healthcare settings today, providers simply do not have the time to build meaningful relationships with their patients,” said Hogan. “We created Haven Health to offer a different model, one where patients feel heard, supported, and actively involved in their care.”