Meet your doctor: Karley Mecko Scoles, D.O.

Hello and welcome! I am a board certified family medicine physician, and founder of Fortis Direct Primary Care LLC. I attended medical school at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, PA. This was followed by residency training at Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, WI. After graduating from residency, I spent three years as an employed physician in Barron County, WI.

My motivation for leaving the system and starting Fortis DPC is multifaceted. Much of it stems from my experience working in the system. As my confidence after residency grew, I became increasingly frustrated with the blatant lack of autonomy that employed physicians have. I was responsible for a certain amount of patients and it was not logistically possible for me to see all of them on a regular basis - sometimes not even once a year. They deserve better than that. I like to be able to see my patients as frequently as they need, and people with chronic conditions arguably need to be seen quite often. Family medicine often involves taking care of people with chronic conditions, and I felt like I was not doing a good enough job for these people due to the limitations of working in the healthcare system. In fact, I wished I could have been involved in their health from the very start, so we could have potentially prevented chronic conditions from developing in the first place. In addition to my experience as an employee in the system, I was also a patient in the system which allowed me to see things from a totally different perspective. Long wait times to get in with a provider, spending longer in the waiting room than you spend with your doctor, hidden costs and surprise bills are a few issues that decrease the quality of the patient experience. Patients who have negative experiences do not want to go to the doctor.

My intent with starting Fortis DPC is to deliver healthcare in a different way. A way that is affordable, accessible, and prioritizes the doctor-patient relationship. I aim to eliminate the middlemen that often stand in the way of and dictate the outcomes of that relationship. I prefer to approach healthcare from a comprehensive, root cause perspective. No “knee-jerk” prescribing of medication without digging to figure out what’s causing the problem. When I do prescribe medication, it is usually for a good reason, backed up by evidence, and not without a discussion of risks/benefits/side effects. These discussions take time, and my appointment durations will be longer than what you typically see in the healthcare system (30-60 minutes or more as opposed to far shorter in the system). I value cost transparency, reliability, discipline, ownership, accountability, and leading by example.

In addition to being a doctor…I am a mom to two amazing children, and we have adopted a few fur babies as well. I met my husband Brett during our undergraduate studies at UW Parkside in Kenosha where I played soccer and he wrestled. Brett is a physical therapist.

I look forward to meeting you and working with you to achieve your health and wellness goals!