Step into a winter wonderland of twinkling lights and holiday cheer at Hometown Hutchinson Zoo’s 9th annual holiday light show, Nights Before Christmas 2024.
With festivities starting Dec. 12, join the Hutchinson Zoo for a spectacular showcase of lights that will dazzle and delight visitors of all ages. Thanks to the collaboration between the Blue Dragons of SkillsUSA and Hutchinson Community College, some of your favorite areas in the Zoo have been transformed into extraordinary displays through digital enhancements.
Prepare to be mesmerized as the Zoo becomes a magical wonderland with dazzling lights and creative designs.After immersing yourself in the mesmerizing light show, be sure to warm up with some delicious cocoa and cookies, the perfect treat to share with family and friends. Don’t forget to take the opportunity to visit with Santa Claus and share your holiday wishes!
The event runs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Dec. 12-14, 20-21 and 27-28.
Tickets are $10 per person. Children 3 years old and under get in free.
A Wichita family physician is trying to make primary care more affordable and accessible through a subscription-based model called direct primary care.
Trying to get in touch with a primary care doctor can be difficult. You call, meander through the automated prompts, and oftentimes don’t speak to your doctor directly.
This is for good reason: there’s a nationwide shortage of primary care physicians. Family doctors generally have to take on a lot of patients and have limited time to field questions.
A facility in Wichita is taking a different approach from top to bottom. Instead of relying on insurance, the group offers a subscription service. For a monthly fee you get care and what patients say is easier access to physicians, like directly texting a doctor.
“It’s personal. You don’t have to wait. You can text them if you have questions,” Wichita resident Randi Krier said. “It’s so easy to contact your doctor.”
Krier goes to Antioch Med in Wichita. It’s what’s known as a direct primary care practice – they don’t accept insurance. Instead, members pay a monthly fee that tops out at $250 per family.
According to a 2021 study published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, this model is growing. People who champion direct primary care argue it allows more autonomy for doctors and gives them more time with their patients, allowing for a better experience on both ends.
Dr. Brandon Alleman, co-founder of Antioch Med in Wichita, is working to make direct primary care more accessible and affordable for Kansans.
How direct primary care works
Instead of billing on a traditional fee-for-service model, where doctors are paid for each service they perform, like appointments or lab tests, direct primary care offices bill monthly. Membership typically grants people direct access to their doctor, by appointment, phone, text, email or video call and some preventive care.
At Antioch Med, membership costs $39 a month per child (ages 0-17) and $79 per adult, with a family cap at $250. Members can see their doctor on demand at no extra cost and have access to steeply discounted prescriptions, wholesale lab tests, imaging and basic procedures.
Krier has three children with a fourth on the way. She sees Alleman for prenatal care and takes her kids for pediatric care.
The transparent pricing and affordability are just a few of the things Krier likes about Antioch Med. She said if one of her kids gets sick, she’s able to call or text and bring them in for treatment the same day.
“Really, for the most part, they can do everything here,” she said. “I know exactly what it’s going to cost and I just trust the people here to do it.”
Krier went to Antioch Med recently for a pregnancy checkup. She walked in and was shown right to the exam room, which she said is normal there. She said she’s never had to wait in the waiting room and the environment is calm and relaxed.
“With other doctors that I’ve gone to previously, I’ve always felt super rushed and felt like I couldn’t ask questions because they were ready to move on to the next thing,” Krier said.
But the clinic can’t do everything.
Krier said on top of membership costs, her family also has to pay for insurance to cover anything Antioch Med can’t do or emergencies.
“That’s probably the only thing that I wish I didn’t have to do … mostly because I never use it (insurance),” she said. “If I really need anything, I come here.”
Antioch Med’s story
Doctors Alleman and Nick Tomsen founded Antioch Med in 2016. Alleman said even in medical school, he knew he wanted to work at a direct primary care practice.
Alleman said during his PhD program he studied medical tourism, where people from the U.S. travel internationally to get medical procedures at a lower cost.
“When you added up all the cost of things, it was much less than the price if you went to a hospital,” Alleman said. “But it was in the range of what a hospital would take from certain payers for these procedures.”
That made made him feel like the U.S. has it wrong in how it operates its health care system, with complex billing systems and negotiated prices between insurance companies and care providers.
“There is no transparency in what things cost,” Alleman said. “There is no transparency and access. Everything is kind of defined by what billing code we can put in.”
When Antioch Med opened, the direct primary care model was still kind of rare. He said there were only about 200 other direct primary care practices in the nation. Now, there are nearly 2,500, dozens of which are in Kansas, according to DPC Frontier, a group that maps direct primary care offices.
Survey data from the American Academy of Family Physicians shows that not only are more doctors practicing direct primary care, but they’re happier. About 94% of direct primary care survey takers said they are happy in their jobs, while only 57% of doctors who don’t work in the direct primary care model are.
“Physicians are realizing this is a more fulfilling way to practice medicine, and then consumers are realizing this is a better way to access primary care as well,” Alleman said.
One of Antioch Med’s major goals, according to Alleman, is to be a patient’s “medical home.” Alleman said he and the physicians at his practice maintain close working relationships with their patients. He said they want to know about a patient’s daily life and family so they are better able to understand their health issues.
Part of that relationship, Alleman said, is answering questions and helping explain diagnosis even when patients leave Antioch to go to specialists for things like cancer care.
“We want to be the place where if they have questions … if we need to have a phone call, if we need to go over their diagnosis, we’re that medical home for them,” he said.
Patient rosters
Direct primary care offices intentionally have smaller rosters of patients than traditional fee-for-service practices. Alleman said a family doctor’s roster includes patients they’ve seen in the last three years.
At other primary care offices, Alleman said a physician has about 2,000 – 3,000 patients on their roster. At Antioch, physicians see about 600-800 patients.
“But our goal is, we want to do 90% of the care for those 700 patients, those 600 patients, not just do 20% of the care for the 2000 patients,” Alleman said.
Alleman said the direct primary care model is criticized for the smaller patient load. But he said with the lighter load, doctors are less likely to experience burnout and patients are less likely to utilize urgent or emergency care.
Dr. Tina-Ann Thompson is the senior vice president for the primary care service line at Emory Healthcare, an academic health care system based in Atlanta, and the division chief of family medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.
Thompson said every physician has a threshold or preference for how many patients they see and it doesn’t make one physician better than the other.
She said direct primary care is one solution to physician burnout.
“They may be seeing less patients, but at least they’re seeing patients. Some of these people would have left medicine,” Thompson said.
Another criticism of direct primary care is that it may not be accessible to everyone. Thompson said people below the poverty line may not be able to afford direct primary care membership fees.
“But it can be cheaper than one trip to the emergency room for those folks who may not have access to insurance,” Thompson said. “So I think that it still serves a purpose to me and definitely fills a need in our community.”
A solution to make direct primary care less cost-prohibitive would be if it was subsidized by governmental programs, if individual direct primary care offices set membership fees on a sliding scale or for employers to cover membership costs.
Although she works for a traditional health system, Thompson said she supports the growth of direct primary care.
“We are all necessary. None of us are competing — the minute clinics and the urgent cares and the direct primary cares,” Thompson said. “We’re all in this together to try to take care of the population of patients.”
Getting direct primary care to more Kansans
Back in Wichita, Alleman recently started a health insurance advisory firm, called Candid Health Advisors. He said when he started at Antioch Med, he expected for health insurance costs to go down. But they didn’t.
Alleman said for people to get the most out of their direct primary care investment, insurance needs to be structured differently. Getting the direct primary care option into employer health plans could be part of that.
Candid Health Advisors came from this idea. Molly Breitenbach is COO and the other half of the company’s two-person team.
She said her background is in accounting, and since starting at Candid about a year and a half ago, she’s learned how complicated and sometimes problematic our health care system is.
“I always say the health care system isn’t broken. It’s operating exactly as it was designed and the design is a problem,” Breitenbach said.
At Candid, Breitenbach said they help employers self-insure, so that they can choose to cover direct primary care membership fees for their employees.
She said Candid “unbundles” health insurance benefits, choosing vendors that are focused on transparent pricing models to make the other stuff – like emergency or specialty care – more affordable.
Breitenbach said traditionally, health insurance consultants are compensated by insurance companies when they advise clients to use their product. But at Candid, they only receive payment from their client.
“We only want to put solutions in place for our clients that are going to work for them,” she said.
Breitenbach said they’re currently working with four mid-sized Wichita employers, with goals to expand in the coming year.
One of their clients is Village Travel, a tour bus company based in Wichita, with locations in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.
Katy Bingham is the human resource director for Village Travel. She said before the company switched to a self-insurance model with Candid, premiums were skyrocketing.
With the change, out-of-pocket health costs for employees have decreased by 80%. Bingham said they offer their employees two health plans – an open access plan that works a lot like traditional insurance, with a deductible and monthly premiums, and a direct primary care plan.
The majority of their employees are on the direct primary care plan, and though it took some explaining in the beginning, the employees love it.
“You get people that come in and say, ‘Thank you so much for our insurance. Our insurance is amazing. I’ve never had anything like it,’” she said.
This fall, Village Travel and Candid Health received an award from Health Rosetta for their high-quality, low-cost health plan. Health Rosetta is a non-profit organization that helps employers and unions create more transparent and cost-effective health plans.
“It was exciting to see that there’s this movement of people that recognize that something is wrong in the health care industry, and something has to change,” Bingham said.
Some rural Kansas counties are offering free flu vaccines targeting farm workers amid an ongoing nationwide bird flu outbreak among dairy cattle and poultry.
The falling temperatures also signal the thick fog of flu season. But in rural areas of Kansas, people are less likely to get vaccinated for the flu.
This year, that has health care professionals worried, specifically for those who work with livestock.
“This makes them more susceptible to flu and other potentially serious complications,” said Dr. Lisette Durand, chief veterinary officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC is trying to mitigate some of those complications this season by offering 100,000 free flu vaccines to farm workers in 12 states, including Kansas, with the hope of reducing the burden on fragile rural health care systems.
The urgency this year comes on the heels of a global outbreak in H5N1 bird flu among livestock.
Bird flu has been reported among dairy cattle herds in at least a dozen states this year, including in Kansas.
Durand said this spread of disease in agriculture was the main push to offer free vaccines for seasonal influenza.
“Having the flu vaccine will help prevent the likelihood of getting infected with seasonal flu. This way, if a farm worker does get sick with flu-like symptoms, that will help them distinguish seasonal flu from bird flu cases,” Durand said.
While seasonal flu vaccines will not protect against infection from bird flu, they will reduce the risk of infection with seasonal flu and the very rare risk of co-infection with both viruses.
Bird flu can cause infection in people; a handful of cases have been reported this year. The risk of infection with bird flu remains low for the public, and the CDC suggests caution for those working around animals.
Bird flu cases in humans usually come with symptoms similar to seasonal flu, like a cough, fever and sore throat. That can make it difficult for health care professionals in rural areas to distinguish a case of bird flu from seasonal flu.
Durand does not know why rural Kansans are less likely to get their flu shots, but she said the goal is to educate people.
“We are working to target that notion to get out into the community to ensure that they have the information that they need … to help bridge that gap of knowledge,” Durand said.
The CDC is teaming up with local health departments, pharmacies and mobile clinics to target their campaign toward farm workers. In Kansas, efforts are underway in Barton, Cheyenne, Hamilton, Nemaha, Osborne, Rice, Stanton and Riley counties.
These counties have some of the largest dairies in the state, or they border states experiencing bird flu outbreaks.
And not only are farm workers more vulnerable, but the illness also strains rural health care systems that are already plagued by low staffing.
In Kansas, rural hospitals are perpetually understaffed and sometimes on the verge of closing. According to the University of Kansas Medical Center, more than 470 rural hospitals have closed this century across the country.
But getting farm workers vaccinated this season could ease that stress. Studies show a flu shot can reduce the likelihood of medical visits by as much as 60%.
Durand says the CDC will monitor hospitalizations from serious illnesses caused by the seasonal flu. That will help researchers determine whether that number was reduced as a result of this program.
“We will see if our outreach and the facts we figured out here have resulted in lower cases than maybe we’ve seen in previous years in the same communities,” Durand said.
With four current meteor showers happening right now, there is a good chance for people in north-central Kansas to catch a glimpse of “shooting stars” streaking across the sky.
Here’s a look at how, when and maybe where to see meteors in the next few weeks and into the end of 2024 in central Kansas.
What are meteors and why do they appear?
Meteors are the light emitted from meteoroids as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
According to the American Meteor Society, (AMS) a meteoroid can be up to 1 meter in size and typically come from fragments of larger asteroids or, more likely, comets.
While they can be larger, the society said most visible meteors are caused by particles that are around the size of a small pebble to a grain of sand.
“When the meteoroid collides with air molecules, its high level of kinetic energy rapidly ionizes and excites a long, thin column of atmospheric atoms along the meteoroid’s path, creating a flash of light visible from the ground below,” the society said.
Which meteor showers are happening and coming up?
According to the AMS, there are four active meteor showers right now and two still to come before the end of 2024.
The Orionids, which are the result of particles from Halley’s Comet, will remain active until Nov. 22. As the name suggests, they radiate from the constellation Orion.
Both the Northern and Southern Taurids come from Comet Encke and will remain active until Dec. 2 and Dec. 8, respectively, radiating from just above Taurus with the Northern shower radiating close to the Pleiades cluster.
The Leonids, coming from Comet Tempel-Tuttle, will stay active until Dec. 2. Although the peak of this shower, which radiates from Leo, will take place on the night of Nov. 16 into 17, the moon will be 98%, which may prevent some of the best views of it at that time.
In December, two showers will take place, including what AMS said is usually the strongest meteor shower of the year, the Geminids, which will be active between Dec. 2 and Dec. 21.
This shower, which comes from an asteroid rather than a comet and radiates from the Gemini constellation, is expected to peak on the night of Dec. 12 and 13.
“The Geminids are often bright and intensely colored. Due to their medium-slow velocity, persistent trains are not usually seen,” AMS said.
Finally, the Ursids, which comes from the Comet Tuttle and radiates between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, or the Big and Little Dipper, will peak on the night of Dec. 21 and 22.
What is the best time and where is the best place to look for meteors?
Having some knowledge of the night sky is always recommended before going out and looking for meteors, particularly as most are associated with the position of a constellation.
There are several phone apps available that will give users the ability to find the specific constellation. The Salina Astronomy Club‘s website recommends Stellarium, which has apps for desktop, tablets, phones or even on a web browser.
While meteors can be seen at anytime of night, AMS said it is more likely that meteors will be seen in the hours before sunrise as opposed to the hours after sunset.
“This is due to the motion of the Earth as it revolves around the sun, with the leading edge (morning side) of the Earth encountering more meteoroids than the trailing edge (evening side),” AMS said. “Many meteor shower radiants do not rise before midnight, making most meteor showers best between midnight and morning twilight.”
When going out to look for meteors, it is recommended to move away from light pollution. For those in north-central Kansas, this means typically traveling north or west to more remote areas with less population and way from city lights.
After finding a place to observe the shower, AMS said to allow time for eyes to adjust to dark conditions.
It is best to observe meteors from a reclining position, such as in a lawn chair or sleeping bag with eyes directed about 45 degrees above the horizon in the general direction of the shower radiant.
“The use of all lights should be minimized, with only dim, red pen-lights or flash-lights used sparingly,” AMS said.
Finally, AMS said the most important thing about observing meteors is practicing patience.
“Most meteor showers will not produce a spectacular display, but will instead produce a steady, reliable show — sometimes with a few surprises,” AMS said. “Meteor watching is like watching a graceful, natural fireworks display, and you never know when or how bright the next ‘shot’ will be.”
Located on the edge of the Midwest and bordering the national-park-rich western state of Colorado, Kansas often gets unfairly overlooked when it comes to travel. However, Kansas is a great travel destination and has lots of interesting and unique things to do and see, from Jerusalem State Park and its Badlands-like topography to the artsy small town of Lucas and the vibrant nightlight of Kansas City which was historically called the “Paris of the Plains.” On top of this, Kansas is also filled with diverse and vibrant natural ecosystems; however, they come in a form you may not expect — rolling hills of native grasslands. In fact, the Sunflower State is home to one of the world’s last remaining tallgrass prairie: the Flint Hills.
Located in eastern Kansas, the Flint Hills are practically all that remains of the tallgrass prairies which once covered the Midwest like an ocean expanding from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River and from Canada to Texas. Although originally considered barren land by settlers, we know today that tallgrass prairies are one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, only beaten by the Amazon Rainforest. On top of being ecologically important, the Flint Hills are also breathtakingly beautiful, especially on a windy day when the native grasses roll and dance in the breeze. So, how can you best enjoy the beauty of Kansas’ tallgrass prairies?
How to get the most out of your time in the Flint Hills
The Flint Hills of Kansas cover a large area of the eastern part of the state, from almost the northern border all the way down into Oklahoma. As such, one of the best ways to see as much of the area as possible is to drive through it on the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway. This 47-mile-long road offers great views of the rolling prairie-covered hills all while following the historic Santa Fe Trail — a wagon route that acted as an important trade and travel passageway between America and Mexico. As you take in the views of the rolling hills and prairie on the drive, you can stop at viewpoints and historic spots along the way like the Schrumpf Hill Overlook, Cottonwood River Bridge, Madonna of the Trail Statue, and Kaw Guardian of the Grove sculpture.
While much of the land in the Flint Hills is privately owned by ranchers, there are a few nature reserves that you can also stop at to get out and stretch your legs on a trail. The Flint Hills National Wildlife Refuge is a little out of the way but is great option for those who want to explore the marshland aspects of the prairie. You can also visit the Tallgrass Prairie National Reserve which is located just outside of Strong City and contains plenty of hiking paths. If you are lucky enough, you may even spot a herd of bison from the Scenic Overlook Trail.
Best places to stay and eat in the Flint Hills
The best thing about exploring the Flint Hills via car is that there are plenty of cute small towns to stop at along the way with unique and interesting things to do and places to stay. At the north end of the scenic byway, the town of Council Grove contains a few charming hotels like the Cottage House Hotel and Motel as well as the Lark Inn on Main. Council Grove also has plenty of shopping and fun things to do like wandering around Flint Hills Books or brushing up on the history of the area at the Kaw Mission State Historic Site and Museum or the Last Chance Store, where once upon a time travelers would stop purchase supplies before heading into Native American lands. Other great small towns that have plenty of places to stay and cute shops to check out include Cottonwood Falls, Cassoday, Matfield Green, and Strong City.
However, if you are looking for some good eats, Council Grove is where it’s at with fun and historic restaurants like Hays House 1857 Restaurant and Tavern and Trail Days Cafe and Museum. You can also find more food options in Manhattan, which is also in the Flint Hills a little to the north and contains great modern restaurants like Tallgrass Tap House, So Long Saloon, and Bourbon and Baker.
