Both of our clinics are currently full.
If you wish to join our Holton or Fairview clinics, please
give us a call to be added to the wait list.
meet the family!
VANCE LASSEY, Md
Dr. Vance Lassey has lived and worked in the Holton community since 2007. He earned dual undergraduate degrees from the University of Kansas before attaining his M.D. from the University of Kansas School of Medicine. He served as Chief Resident of the Smoky Hill Family Medicine Residency Program in Salina, Kansas where he received awards for teaching, writing, and the prestigious national AAFP Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education.
Starting in 2007, Dr. Lassey practiced full-spectrum family medicine at Holton Community Hospital. Unsatisfied with the shortcomings of the third-party payer system, and believing that it was the only way he could stay true to his career-long mantra “Patients First,” in 2016, Dr. Lassey left the traditional Fee-For-Service medical system and founded Holton Direct Care. Utilizing the direct primary care model, he is excited to offer unprecedented access, attention, time, and quality to his patients--for less than a cable or cell phone bill.
Vance Lassey, MD
Dr. Lassey is a founding member of the flagship national DPC organization, the Direct Primary Care Alliance, where he served for 2 members as the President. He has served on or chaired numerous boards, including the KDHE Newborn Screening Advisory Council, the Governor's Fitness Council, and the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors. He is also a founding member of the Midwest DPC Alliance.
He has served for years as an Assistant Clinical Professor for the University of Kansas School of Medicine, where he has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the AOA Volunteer Clinical Faculty Award.
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Dr. Lassey and his wife, Erin, live in Holton, Kansas with their two children, Luke and Rebekah ("Beka"). Dr. Lassey was born and raised on a farm in Peck, Kansas, and feels right at home in Holton. His hobbies include carpentry, woodworking, building renovation, 3D modeling and printing, enjoying the outdoors (especially disc golf), and spending time with his family. He proudly serves as an elder at the Holton First Baptist Church. In any time he has left, he plays the banjo. Poorly.
Daniel jones, APRN, FNP-C
Daniel Jones, APRN, FNP-C
Daniel Jones, was born and raised in Topeka, Kansas. He is a nationally certified Family Nurse Practitioner, and Advanced Practice Registered Nurse with experience in Family Medicine, Cardiology, and Urgent and Emergency Medicine. Starting at about age 10, he studied every home remedy book on his grandmother's bookshelf, with the mission of alleviating his family's health problems.
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His health care journey was delayed by a career in the mechanical trades, as he owned and operated an HVAC company across Northeast Kansas. He continued his career in HVAC until his graduation from Washburn and Baker Universities, and he entered the medical profession in 2012.
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Like Dr. Lassey, Daniel found the practices of the traditional medical system to be incompatible with the level and quality of care he wished to deliver to patients, so he returned to school for his advanced degree, with the hope he could offer a change away from the “patient factory model” of traditional managed care and overpriced fee-for-service medicine.
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Daniel is overjoyed to be part of the Holton Direct Care family, where he has been since September 2021 and takes pride in treating patients the way he'd want to be treated. He currently lives in Shawnee county with his wife Rebecca and his two sons, Christian and Lyric, both high-schoolers growing up before his eyes.
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Daniel enjoys spending time with his family. Together, they enjoy adventures into the woods, waters, and roadways. They attend services at Northland Christian Church in Topeka. In his spare time, Daniel has a wide range of hobbies, including tinkering, which provides him with multiple projects he can start and eventually not finish. Daniel has established himself as a national leader in clinical use of repurposed medications and can be found pouring over emerging research on such topics and bringing that science home to our patients.
Elisa Rottinghaus, PA-C
Elisa Rottinghaus, PA-C
Elisa grew up on a farm in a rural community in South Central KS. She attended the University of Kansas and earned her Bachelor's degree in Human Biology. Rock Chalk! She continued her education at Wichita State University and graduated in 1998 with a degree in Physician Assistant studies. Her career began in Kansas City, and soon realized she wanted to return to small town life. Ever since, she has practiced rural family medicine, in the Hiawatha and Falls City area, where she enjoys taking care of her neighbors and friends.
Elisa has additional training in lifestyle medicine and looks forward to helping her patients get better through nutrition and lifestyle choices.
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Like most of us here at HDC, she became more and more frustrated with the 3rd party payer system that was not allowing her to be able to care for her patients the way they deserved. We are happy to remedy that and welcome Elisa to the Holton Direct Care family. She is excited to continue to care for the people of Northeast Ks at our Fairview location.
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Elisa currently lives in Falls City, NE, and has two sons, Henry and Charlie. They enjoy camping and hiking together as a family, as well as the many activities their boys are involved in through school and church. In her spare time, she loves reading, spending time in nature, training and snuggling with her dogs. One of her dogs is in therapy dog training and you may even get to see him at the clinic from time to time.
marty ellis, aPrN, FNP-C
Marty Ellis grew up and continues to reside on the family farm just south of Havensville, KS. He started his nursing career in 2011 as a licensed practical nurse in an assisted living facility in Topeka, KS. He later transitioned to a post-surgical unit in one of the local Topeka hospitals while obtaining his associated degree of nursing and becoming a Registered Nurse in 2012. Marty then took a brief pause from the health care field for a few years to help out on his wife’s family farm around Frankfort, KS.
Once he returned to the medical field, he felt the drive to transition into the critical care setting. Marty joined a level two trauma center emergency department in Topeka, KS in 2016 where he diversified as an emergency nurse for the next six years.
Marty Ellis, APRN, FNP-C
He became a Certified Emergency Nurse in 2018 working alongside emergency room physicians and trauma surgeons to care for critically-ill and injured patients as part of the trauma response team. Marty spent the last two years in the emergency department as a charge nurse before joining a rural access hospital in Onaga, Ks. Working near where he grew up and being able to reconnect with locals that knew his parents and grandparents has been a very enjoyable experience.
Throughout his educational journey towards becoming a Nurse Practitioner, he quickly realized the value of effective communication with, and compassion for his patients. You'll find few providers as approachable, kind and down-to-earth as Marty. Marty appreciates having the opportunity and looks forward to developing lasting relationships built on a foundation of trust and respect.
When Marty is not caring for patients, he can be found spending time with his family. Marty and his wife Jessica of 11 years have been blessed with two wonderful young children Elli Jo and Aiden. Thankful for a simple country life on the family farm, he also enjoys the outdoors fishing, bowhunting, landscaping, barbequing and classic cars.
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Marty is gifted with the appearance of eternal youth, and we are proud to announce that he's grown a beard, and no longer looks like he's twelve.
laura harmon, MS, APRN, FNP-C
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​Laura is the newest addition to our clinical staff and practices at our Fairview location. She started her education with an interest in the arts, but quickly changed her career path after starting a summer job in a dermatology office where she realized her passion for healthcare. She has gained a multi-faceted array of knowledge as a medical receptionist, medical assistant, medical office coordinator, bedside nurse, hyperbaric medicine nurse, lipoprotein apheresis nurse, research nurse, and college nursing educator. She more recently began her career as a nurse practitioner in the ER at CMC and has expanded her practice into the Family Medicine clinic.
She has an interest in holistic health, treating the whole person, ensuring that those around her feel heard, and cared for. You can find her shopping for groceries often as she loves to cook up new “masterpieces” for her husband Nathan. She still loves the arts and enjoys painting, creating, and most of all, the sun and ocean in the Florida Keys where she grew up fishing, swimming, and diving.
Laura Harmon, MS, APRN, FNP-C
Erin lassey
Erin runs our business office. There isn't a better office manager on planet Earth. She hasn't written us a bio to put here, so we're making it up and adding what we know: She's the smartest member of our staff. She plays the piano really well. She has really pretty hair. She likes to read. She was accepted to Notre Dame University, and graduated from their esteemed business school, with a degree in Management Information Systems. When she was young, she didn't like barbecue and she now can't understand for the life of her how she ever could have felt that way, especially growing up in the Kansas City area.
When you meet this kind, humble, gorgeous genius, the last thing you'd guess is that she (apparently) hates animals, based on her penchant for killing them with her car, except that one ironic time, when a cow killed her car. (This really happened, she'll be glad to tell you about it.)
Erin Lassey
Miriam Eldridge, Rn
Miriam Eldridge, RN
We strongly suspect that Miriam is an elf or some such immortal creature from a Tolkien novel. She looks young, but might be the oldest person who works at Holton Direct Care. She might look like a 21 year old, but she has the warmth, caring nature and overall demeanor of an 85 year old retired nurse. She probably knows what a brooch is, knows the difference between a shawl, wrap, and headscarf, and we suspect she has 20 of each. She has already started collecting used tennis balls for the front legs of her walker which she soon will need, judging by her complete absence of knowledge of anything pop-culture from the last 40-50 years.
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She has an appropriate appreciation for bluegrass music, loves our patients, is ultra-kind, always happy/bubbly, and if we're honest we can't imagine HDC without her.
Krystle Gouge, MA
Krystle is our jill-of-all trades and has become a crucial part of our Holton clinic. A medical assistant and so much more, she is the smiling face at the front desk, a happy voice on the phone, and knows all the ways to help patients get paperwork dealt with, referrals done, and more. Krystle holds the lifetime "most organized employee" award, and will never be unseated from her championship in this department.
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Dr. Lassey is considering asking her to teach him the art of organization, although the staff feels like he's a lost cause. Krystle also cuts the hair of half the staff. Like I said. Jill-of-all-trades!
Krystle Gouge
Rebecca thorne-jones, rN
Rebecca is a PRN nurse at our Holton location. She married Daniel Jones, which has given us reason to doubt her sanity, but we're giving her the benefit of the doubt (for now). She has become a valuable team-member and is always there when we need her!
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Rebecca graduated with her BSN from Washburn University school of Nursing in May 2019, with honors. She has experience working in inpatient perioperative hospital services. She worked at Interim Home Health and Hospice in Topeka, a career that was cut short because Covid tried to take her out. By the grace of God, it did not succeed!
Rebecca Thorne-Jones, RN
Shelly LANCE, lpN
Shelly is our highly experienced nurse at our Fairvew office. She is one of the newest membes of the family, and we'll have her pic and bio here soon! (And if she doesn't send me one, I'll make up something hilarious, probably involving her previous life as an antarctic wildlife photographer and her "life among the penguins".)
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Shelly Lance, LPN
Shannon DEPREY
Shannon is our medical assistant and receptionist at our Fairview clinic. She came to us with a wonderful set of skills and business experience that will be invaluable to our Fairview location.