When being a primary care physician wasn't enough, Dr. Sandra Levitt ventured out to start an integrated practice that considered the whole person in their health and wellness treatment. Innovative Primary Care (IPC) opened its doors in 2005 with a focus on offering traditional Western medicine along with a variety of wellness modalities to support the body, mind and spirit of each patient.

After graduating from a primary care residency program in 1990, Dr. Levitt began her work in private practice medicine in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1996, she returned to the Phoenix area where she grew up and continued her work in the private sector, seeing patients with a variety of health-related conditions. Over the years, she became frustrated by the limited, and sometimes less that optimal, offerings commonly used in mainstream medicine. The main tools utilized by health care providers were medication, surgery, physical therapy and hopefully a sympathetic ear of the clinician. This seemed to fall short of helping a majority of people who either did not benefit from these modalities or simply refused to take another pill, or go through a proposed procedure by a specialist.

Then she met Debbie Waxman, a Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner who helped people with chronic pain, stress and fibromyalgia using her hands instead of drugs. Dr. Levitt became interested in what she had to offer. After learning more about Jin Shin, she began searching for patient care modalities outside of the typical "Primary Care" toolbox. She embraced the idea of bridging the efforts of the disease care model with wellness.

Ever since, Dr. Levitt has focused on a more holistic approach in dealing with her patients’ key issues. She believes food plays a significant role in our health and well-being, and spends time helping her patients see its importance in disease prevention, as well as quality of life. In addition, she believes energetic medicine in the forms of acupuncture and Jin Shin Jyutsu offer many people with various health conditions another means by which to achieve improvement in their condition and well-being. In paying attention to the mind, healing our inner selves through talk therapy, hypnosis, EMDR and other modalities are necessary to achieve an improved sense of self, empowerment and emotional well-being. Our very perception of our health and our ability to control our outcomes are critical to allow for best health care results.

The Innovative Primary Care team is made up of a number of providers who also support the connection between health and habit. Patients can receive insights from a naturopath, de-stress through Jin Shin Jyutsu, address a condition through acupuncture, get counseling on life’s challenges, quit smoking with hypnotherapy, and support a healthy lifestyle by picking up quality vitamins and supplements.

Dr. Levitt also created a healing atmosphere at IPC because she believes a person’s surroundings has a great effect on how a person feels. “I wanted to create a calming, welcoming environment where not only our practitioners feel the importance of health, but our patients can feel calm and cared for from the moment they walk in.”