Angela Menchaca was a busy physician assistant, rotating among cardiac clinics in Edinburg when she felt the pull to be closer to her Weslaco home with a young daughter to raise.

Her best option was one she knew well. Her husband, Michael, is a family nurse practitioner who has opened a direct primary care clinic in Harlingen. It’s not a clinic like many others with long patient waits. There are also no hassles over insurance policies and how much co-pays will cover. The Menchaca Family Clinic operates on a monthly membership concept with no limits on visits and affordable costs for many common procedures and treatments.

The Harlingen clinic opened in 2017 and earned accolades from patients who appreciated the simpler and more efficient style of no-insurance-required health care. Michael and Angela knew the concept could be replicated elsewhere. The need for good primary health exists in every community. 

“I was excited that this was something new for the community,” Angela said of her husband’s Harlingen clinic. “Here was this new model for the Valley. It could turn into something great. We saw where we could expand and open a second location.”

In September 2020, they did just that with a location on West Pike Boulevard in Weslaco, Michael’s hometown. Here where the couple also resides, Angela as a PA is taking up the duties of a primary care clinician.

The Weslaco clinic had more of a soft opening initially before Angela could devote herself on a full-time basis. The emphasis is on spending the time needed with patients at both Amenity Direct Care clinics. There is no rushing with a room full of patients waiting to see a medical professional like at insurance-reliant clinics.

“We’re not double and triple booked,” Angela said. “We can sit down with patients and learn about them as people and keep that connection with them. It’s important we do that because they’re going through things and we’re here to help them.”

Small Town Roots

Menchaca is a native of Bishop, a small community along U.S. Highway 77 near Kingsville.

She earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Texas A&M University-Kingsville before being accepted to the physician assistant program at the University of Texas Pan American in 2016. It was during her rotations at cardiology clinics associated with DHR Health hospitals in Edinburg that she met the nurse practitioner who would become her husband.

By then, she had decided to live in the Valley rather than go back home to the Coastal Bend area. Coming from a small town in a sparsely populated part of South Texas, she said “you have to put yourself out there.” In the Valley, she found opportunity and a place similar to the culture of her hometown. 

“I didn’t know a single person when I got here,” she said. “I decided that this was the place that gave me the opportunity and I saw it was growing, but it wasn’t like living in a huge city.”

Meeting Michael deepened her commitment to the Valley, as did their similar views and values, on a personal level as well as sharing medical careers focused on serving their communities.

“Here’s this person that understands the profession,” Angela recalled in first getting to know Michael. “He understands the time it takes, the stresses, and the work ethic needed. We both understand all of those things related to this profession and we get to feed off each other.”

Connecting With Patients

Angela refers to her Weslaco clinic as a “one stop shop.”

Screenings, lab work, IVs and stitching are provided at Amenity Direct Care, along primary and general health care. Like her husband’s Harlingen clinic, the connection to patients is continuous in Weslaco via texting and emails and virtual visits. There are no limits on how often or when a clinician can be reached.

A busy day, Angela said, would be 10 patient visits to go with the frequent messaging with her patients. It gives her the time to visit with patients in having that “small town connection” with those she treats. The Weslaco clinic charges $89 monthly for adults, $20 per child when they are part of a patient’s family, with a $50 rate if they are not with an Amenity family.

It’s a business and practice that’s a collaboration between the husband-and-wife medical team that has expanded its reach to more Valley communities.

“Weslaco is home,” Michael said. “We’re happy that we’re able to help more people across the Valley.”