Old is New at Destination Health

Think about the future. After midlife, those senior retirement years could be spent traveling, in the company of loved ones, and in full command of body and mind. To help each patient reach those goals, the board certified physicians at Destination Health in Southlake, Texas, offer a unique model of healthcare made possible through personalized attention and cutting-edge technology.

Drs. Carl DuCharme and Eric Freitas encourage the public to reject nursing homes, wheelchairs, and hospitalizations as an inevitability of old age. Instead, they passionately advocate for patients hoping to optimize energy and strength levels. For the doctors, an experience of vigor similar to that experienced in youth is fully achievable with a carefully planned roadmap, reverse-engineered to meet a patient’s ideal lifestyle goals.

“We tell patients that 80% of chronic diseases are fully preventable. It just depends on how we live our journey along the way,” said Dr. DuCharme. His office uses a pithy slogan to describe its work, and a detailed explanation of the medical approach used to achieve results. “The cure for common healthcare” as defined by the service at Destination Health finds roots in targeted analysis of each patient.

Top Five

Destination Health is focused on reducing the risk of confronting the top five causes of death after age 60. Namely, heart disease, cancer, stroke, frailty and falls, and neurodegenerative disease present as common but serious dangers to the elderly. Mitigation offers dramatic improvements in life quality.

The proactive concierge medicine model at Destination Health produces these outcomes by diving deep. At the practice, patient health is assessed with specific blood work to target genetics, inflammation, hormones, and nutrient levels. Cutting-edge technology allows members of Destination Health to undergo an advanced assessment of organ function alongside a determination of muscle mass and strength levels. Inflammatory fat and flags indicating unforeseen aneurysms or cancers smaller than your fingernail do not escape scrutiny, affording patients an often otherwise unavailable but life-altering, crucial head start in tackling emergent issues. Since heart disease is the number one killer in America, the practice pays special attention to the area with precise cardiovascular assessments and by implementing individualized prevention or treatment strategies depending on risk.

Armed with this information, each patient at Destination Health receives a customized health plan to optimize their current level of health and increase the quality of their life. Along the way, frequent check-ins with a personal physician continue optimizing health and making necessary adjustments to a tailored, dynamic plan.

Meet the Doctors

Providers at Destination Health are experts in the fields of heart disease, aging and longevity, hormones, metabolic health, and nutrition. To arrive where they are today, they walked varied paths punctuated by similar awakenings to their future careers.

A board certified internal medicine physician with certifications in age-management medicine and peptide therapies, Dr. DuCharme told us that while he was growing up, his mother was a caregiver at an assisted living facility in a small Minnesota town. As a young teenager, he often rode his bike to the center and interacted with the elderly community.

“I woke up one day when I was 15 and I knew I wanted to be a doctor,” he said.

A board certified family physician, Dr. Eric Freitas told a similar story of awakening to his desire to care for others. As a youngster in California, he told us he idolized his cousin. The boy was older, could play football, had a girlfriend, and could drive – all the things a younger cousin would see as “cool.” After the older boy was tackled in a game and had four ligaments damaged, he ended up in a hospital. His younger cousin visited, of course.

“He said, ‘Eric, I am in the best hands right now, and there’s nothing to worry about.’ I remember thinking, ‘I want to be able to inspire that confidence. I wanted to be able to make a difference.’”

While the doctors make impressive claims about their ability to help patients age well in a world of chronic disease, they base those claims on methods developed by other expert physicians.

The Bale Doneen Method

In the 2000s, Cardiologist Dr. Bradley Bale and nurse practitioner Amy Doneen “realized that one of the key drivers for heart disease is inflammation and oxidative stress,” said Dr. DuCharme.

With their system, now called the Bale-Doneen method, doctors can examine the root cause of heart problems proactively.

“We look at specific blood values and utilize a targeted ultrasound,” said Dr. DuCharme. “This allows us to see inflammation levels within the carotid artery. We can then treat inflammation to prevent heart disease,” he said.

“The other piece of that equation is that we can look at specific genetics to see if each person is at an increased risk for heart disease,” he added.

Using a combination of diet, exercise, stress management, and proper sleep, the doctors address many habits that can lessen the risk of disease. Additionally, hormones are addressed and pharmacologic therapy, supplements, and medicines are utilized as needed.

Access to Longevity

Comprehensive care at Destination Health is underscored by the fact that annual patient physicals are often three-hour visits. But that doesn’t mean that patients will wait to be seen. As a full-scale primary care office, Destination Health can service needs for same-day acute visits, after-hours and weekend calls, unlimited office visits, annual flu shots, hormone replacement therapy, weight loss, vitamin injections, lab work, and much more.

Annual membership unlocks this care in a serene, upscale, concierge medical setting in the heart of Southlake. Intentional limits to the number of members who can join the exclusive practice allow ample time for each of those members to develop a partnership with their physician.