The fact that Dr. Byron Varnado is the medical director of Access Health is apropos in that the family physician was born and raised in Muskegon and now serves the 25-year-old community agency.
Byron graduated from West Michigan Christian High School, heading off to Ann Arbor for an undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan. He received his medical degree at UofM before his family medicine residency in Grand Rapids.
He never dreamed he would begin his family medical practice in his hometown, but life circumstances intervened and Bryon was a fixture at Harborwood Family Medicine until joining Hackley Community Care Center — a federally qualified health center — in 2020. He has been the Access Health medical director for more than 20 years.
“I was not interested in my practice of working with traditional insurance companies but had a lot of interest in Access Health’s community benefit program,” Bryon recalls of learning about Access Health. “I found it full of potential, providing unique care for the people of Muskegon.”
When it came to Access Health’s programs for changing member health behaviors, Bryon said he was all in. He discovered that 70 percent of Access Health members smoked when at the time that was twice the national rate. Access Health offered smoking cessation.
“We wanted to bring value to our local doctors and our members at a time that sometimes insurance companies were detached from such primary determinants of health,” he said.
Over the years, diabetic treatment and care was an area that Access Health could “transform lives and walk side-by-side with our members.” His role has been to set medical policies and review difficult medical cases for the agency.”
The future is bright for the next 25 years of Access Health: “I would love to expand the program in providing great care at a low cost. I think we need to address high-blood pressure (hypertension). We have opportunities to make a difference. We need to be leaders in the community,” he said.