Interview: The Cove Has the LGBTQ+ Healthcare for You

Dr. Aaron Block and John Waters, APRN, opened The Cove Concierge Medicine, an LGBTQ+ membership-based healthcare practice in Castle Rock, in August of 2024. As a married couple new to Colorado, they are still getting the word out about their family practice and the healthcare services they provide. We sat down with the two of them to discuss their small business, the state of LGBTQ+ healthcare, and the types of services they provide.

When did The Cove start?

John: The idea for The Cove Concierge Medicine was born in late 2022 after we moved to Colorado from Dayton, Ohio. It took us some time after that to get on our feet, but we’ve been accepting patients for about a year and a half now. 

We are affiliated with Ms. Medicine, which focuses on the healthcare of middle-aged and menopausal women, another population that has been overlooked for quite some time. Being a part of that network fits in perfectly with our idea of providing quality healthcare for everyone. While we have a special place in our heart for the Q+ community, we also strive to be somewhere anyone can feel safe and seen and get the good, high-quality care they deserve.

What does it mean to practice holistic family medicine?

Adam: There are a lot of challenges in corporate medicine these days, one of which is the lack of personal relationships between patients and providers. I would say that even outside of the LGBTQ+ population, it’s sadly rare in America for any patient to have a relationship with their doctor. There are fewer private practices these days, with medicine becoming more corporate and larger organizations buying them up. 

In our healthcare system, time is the biggest inhibitor. Patients often don’t realize the types of time pressures that providers face on the business side of medicine, either. All of these constraints don’t even factor in the challenges that many people in the LGBTQ+ community face to even be able to build trust and speak with a doctor openly about their healthcare needs and goals. 

It’s hard when you are part of the majority population to understand what types of challenges the Q+ community faces and what questions to ask. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the LGBTQ+ community itself is a collection of other, small groups. That’s one of the big reasons why we use the term Q+. It feels more expansive and inclusive than LGBTQ+. You can add as many letters to the acronym as you want, and there are still people who feel like they don’t belong. We want to provide care for anyone, no matter where they fall on the gender or sexuality spectrum. 

We practice holistic family medicine because we try to look at the whole person and what their relationship is like to their health and body. We really want to know how a person is feeling and what their goals are instead of just going through a checklist.

And let’s be honest, LGBTQ+ can be a mouthful. Walk me through what it’s like to be a patient at The Cove.

John: Once someone has been connected to the office, potential patients will be invited for a meet-and-greet. This is an opportunity where they can come to see our space and spend some time getting to know us. This usually consists of us sitting on comfy chairs, answering any questions they may have, and seeing if The Cove feels like a good fit.

If the patient wants to move forward, then we start some paperwork and take payment. We will then schedule the first 90-minute visit, the first half an hour of which is spent working with our nurse, and then the remaining hour is an intensive medical review and opportunity for us to start working on some medical goals.

It can be a few sessions before some of the immediate goals are achieved. We then schedule a 60-minute, head-to-toe physical exam with a deep dive into systems review and preventative health discussion. We check your blood sugar, blood pressure, order labs, check your skin, and do any relevant screenings for cancer or other medical issues. 

From that point, all care plans are individualized based on the patient’s needs. Every year, we repeat the physical exam to continue long term prevention and wellness goals.

 What is it like to run a small LGBTQ+ business in Castle Rock, Colorado?

Aaron: When you talk to a lot of people who aren’t part of the Q+ community, like many folks here in Castle Rock, many of them don’t have a positive or negative association because they just don’t have an association. We really try to lead by example and be good citizens, great neighbors, and fun people to talk to at a party. 

We try to rely on average, decent Americans to really care about who we are as people rather than what our identities are. I think that it’s really important during times like this to rely on your community but also your allies and all the decent people out there who care more about how you are as a person than what makes you different. It can also be a healthy way to reframe things because when you start thinking about how much you’re different and how that segments you off from other people, the world starts to feel like a much smaller and scarier place.

Castle Rock is changing as well and becoming younger and more progressive, even in the last few years. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback and support, especially from other small businesses in the area, so that’s encouraging! A big challenge for us is just getting the word out about our business and the fact that Castle Rock is only a quick 45-minute drive away from Denver!

 Does the current political landscape raise any concerns about your practice?

We may come off as kind of gentle, but when we have to go to bat for patients, we will go to bat. I think it can help empower our patients to feel like someone is willing to fight for them. Obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty in our community because the upcoming administration isn’t interested in pushing LGBTQ+ rights. But I also think it’s going to be really difficult to go backward, especially in a state like ours.

The federal government is going to want to push things back to the states, which can be a positive thing for those of us here in the progressive state of Colorado. It makes me sad for what that might mean for folks living in a state like Ohio that has gone from being pretty balanced and blue to purple to pretty hard red right now. But we want to remain a beacon of hope and a safe haven for our patients. 

Because even if bad things begin to happen from a larger corporate point of view, The Cove is a small, independent practice, and we have our licenses. We will continue to practice medicine in the way that we see is right. And if patients begin to become concerned about their access to care in the big hospital networks, there is always a place for them here. We don’t have to answer to anybody, so they can’t take anything away from us or our patients.

Anything else you’d like for people to know about The Cove?

The other thing that we’re really interested in getting the word out about is that we can offer a unique healthcare model to other small businesses. We can work with your business to provide really good healthcare at a much more affordable rate than worrying about insurance and employer-sponsored care.

One of the things that we can do is find a financial balance together where we can create a cost per employee and then provide a level of care based on that cost. We can offer a membership level where everything is covered within access, or you can do a much lower annual cost. 

If you can’t quite afford decent healthcare, but you want to have access to two providers who care so much about the Q+ community, including all the proper screenings, mental health evaluations, and sex-positive care, The Cove is a great option. We are always happy to talk with you and do what we can to help out other small businesses with the people in our community.

Photo courtesy of The Cove