Welcome to Family Practice Associates

If you are an established patient and have a non-life threatening health care issue that needs immediate attention, and just can't wait until office hours, call us first!

Family Practice Associates has a provider on-call, at 308-865-2767, 24 hours a day  for your immediate health care needs.  We can direct you to the best course of action, and help keep you out of the emergency room when it is not necessary, saving you time and money!

If you think you or a loved one may be having a medical emergency, such as a heart attack, stroke, or serious injury, you should call 911 or go to the emergency room right way.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history, making once-feared diseases preventable", including measles, polio, small pox and, hopefully in the future, cervical cancer. 

In fact, a recent study shows that global immunization efforts have saved an estimated 154 million lives over the past 50 years, with 101 million of those being infants.

At FPA, we strongly support the use of vaccinations throughout the lifespan, and are happy to answer questions patients may have about their efficacy and safety.

To learn more, please visit with you provider.  Strong sources of accurate vaccination information include The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Immunization Task Force of Nebraska (ITF).

Dr. Messbarger was recently named the Associate Dean for the UNMC College of Medicine at UNK, a part-time position that will help UNMC grow this new program and help central and rural Nebraska continue to attract and develop excellent doctors and other medical health professionals.

Dr. Messbarger will continue to practice on a part-time basis at Family Practice Associates.

Because his time will be more limited, it will be more difficult to get an appointment with him.  As such, some visits (such as Medicare Wellness and general well visits/physicals) may have to be done by others in the practice who can get you in to the clinic in a more timely manner.  His nurses and our receptionists will help schedule these, and any other appointment you may need that we cannot fit into his schedule at a time that works for you.

In addition, if you feel that you would like to have one of Dr. Messbarger's partners who is here on a full-time basis become your provider, we understand.  They can assume your care and, with access to both your health record and Dr. Messbarger himself, will have a good medical history to build upon.

We appreciate your flexibility.  Please contact us at 308-865-2767 with questions, concerns or for more information.

Patients may have received a letter from either Catholic Health Partners or Aetna stating that their provider will be out-of-network.  Our providers are IN-NETWORK and will continue to be IN-NETWORK with Aetna.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Billing Department at 308-865-2767.  Thank you!

We have become aware of what appears to be a potential scam circulating in Nebraska.  

Patients of ours, and individuals we have never seen, have received notice that one of our doctors has  ordered supplies/equipment for them that was not previously discussed.  These calls/letters appear to be coming from their insurance company, but we do not know who is initiating this.  

If you are not a patient of ours, we suggest you contact your insurance company directly.  If you are a patient of ours, you are certainly welcome to contact us to check on the validity of the claim.   

We will never prescribe or order something for you that we have not discussed with you.

Thank you.

The Healthy Blue Medicaid plan ended on December 31, 2023.  As of January 1, 2024, we will not be in network with Molina, the Medicaid plan replacing Healthy Blue.  

Patients who did not make a choice to move to UHC Community Plan or Nebraska Total Care once Healthy Blue ended were auto-transferred to Molina.

We are still in-network with Nebraska Total Care and United Healthcare Community Plan.  

Medicaid patients can choose a new Medicaid plan for the 2025 year.  Please contact DHHS at 888-255-2605 for more information. 

Thank you!

Our lab performs certain tests in-house and sends other tests out to reference labs.

As such, certain laboratory tests collected at our office may be performed and billed to your insurance company or directly to you by:

•  UNMC
•  Regional Pathology Services
•  Kearney Regional Medical Center
•  BryanLGH
•   or CHI Health Good Samaritan.

If your insurance company is not in-network with certain providers, facilities, or reference labs, it is your responsibility to let us know.   If you are unaware of what labs are in-network for you, please check with your company or visit with a member of our Billing Staff at 308-865-2767.

Please note, if your testing is sent to an out-of-network lab, you may be responsible for a higher out-of-pocket cost.

You may receive calls and/or texts from Family Practice Associates to remind you of your appointments or that it is time for a check-up, lab or vaccination.   You may also receive calls from a company named PRC to survey you about your visit - this is required by a CMS program we are part of that is studying care.  These are valid, legitimate calls.

Recently, we have been told that patients have received calls from scammers claiming to be Medicare or Family Practice Associates.  The scammer states the patient's insurance card will be cancelled if the patient doesn't answer a series of questions that may compromise personal information.  Or, the company tries to set the patient up with medical equipment, and bill insurance on the patient's behalf. This is typically equipment the patient has never discussed with a provider.  Some of these companies are legitmate.  Some are not, and may be defrauding Medicare and other payers.

If you are in doubt of whether a caller is really affiliated with us or not, please hang up and call us directly at 308-865-2767.