Mt. Pleasant medical spa founded by former ER providers continues to grow

Chelsea House, NP-C and Dani Leonard, PA-C used to spend their days in the emergency department, caring for patients during some of the worst moments of their lives. Now, the duo’s work week is filled with the opportunity to give people the best days of their lives at Premier Central MI MedSpa.

“People can walk in, and they feel good here—they’re excited. It can be about a facial or buying a cleanser; even if they’re not doing all the aesthetic stuff, that’s okay. We still get to have these cool relationships with people,” shares co-owner House. “You don’t get that in any ER.”

The medical spa’s first official location opened in 2021 in the Broomfield Mall Plaza in Mt. Pleasant. Now around five years later, they’ve outgrown the space, and recently relocated to their own free-standing building located at 500 S. Mission Street on April 28.

An Unlikely Beginning

When House and Leonard first started doing mobile IV vitamins, they never imagined it would turn into the operation it is now. However, a set of unlikely circumstances led them on their current path.

“We met for coffee in September 2019,” recalls House. “We were just talking about our careers and what we would like to do, and Dani brought up doing an IV vitamin bar type thing or maybe aesthetics. 

“And then we just kind of tiptoed into it,” House continues. “We started mobile, and we would do these little pop-up shops. And then we first rented the basement of a building and had two rooms that we did stuff out of while we were both still working in the ER.”

“Then my kiddo got diagnosed with cancer in November 2020, which was also during COVID,” she continues. “I chose to leave my ER position because of my kiddo. And then that transpired into being able to make my own hours and do my own thing.” 

“In 2021, we started in our first building, which was in the Broomfield Mall, and we would have limited hours dependent on my kid’s treatment. Dani started working part-time in the ER and doing limited hours, too. And then we just kind of blew up, and we just were like, ‘Okay, maybe now we’re full-time,’” shares House. 

Leonard recalls the transition similarly. 

“I had a daughter, too, and I think that was the push to go full-time and leave the ER because we get to make our own hours,” shares Leonard. “The hours in the emergency room are wild, and it’s just not conducive to a balanced family life.”

But being full-time had its own set of challenges on top of raising a family and dealing with cancer in the midst of the pandemic.

“We experienced two floods at our old place that lost everything. I mean, it was sewage water; nothing was salvageable,” says House.

“Yet, experiencing those floods, experiencing COVID, starting how we started, experiencing cancer—there were so many silver linings that came from them,” she adds. 

And perhaps the biggest silver lining is the relationships they have been able to build from it.

More than Medicine: Healing through Relationships

While the medical spa offers services geared toward wellness, aesthetics, and skincare, to House and Leonard, there is no greater service than human connection.

“Making people feel confident and giving them an opportunity to invest in themselves is rewarding, but I would say the most rewarding is getting to know people,” says House.

“I care the most about how clients feel when they walk out this door. Of course, I want them to feel happy and confident with whatever service they received, but I would rather them walk out of this door feeling fulfilled by just sitting down and talking,” shares Leonard.

In becoming business owners, the duo has found their passion in forming relationships while delivering top-notch care to all of their clients. 

“We have found so much passion in this, to the point where it doesn’t feel like work to us. It’s fun to us, and we love it,” says Leonard. 

Both women are mid-Michigan area natives, growing up attending school in Beal City together and residing in Mt. Pleasant. So, they were shocked when they realized how many people they didn’t know, despite being lifelong locals. 

“Being a townie, you think you would know everybody or at least have an idea of who people are,” says House.

“We’ve met so many good people and so many clients for many different reasons that it’s like, ‘Wow.’ We’re passionate about this, and then we get to have all these relationships with people that we would have never crossed paths with otherwise,” she adds.

To them, Premier Central MI MedSpa has become more than a medical center and instead is a “community within a community,” as House calls it—a place where they hope people from all walks of life can leave feeling confident, whether receiving a service or simply taking with them a piece of information for the future.

Providing Healthcare in a Different Way

While House and Leonard still work in the medical industry, the services they provide look different than that of emergency healthcare.

“A medical spa can be a lot of different things. For us, it’s non-emergent medical treatments that aren’t required, but that people aspire to have because they want to look and feel better,” House explains.

“We offer IV vitamins and aesthetic procedures like Botox and fillers. We’re also moving into more of a wellness and overall body optimization focus now that we have this new space,” says House.

But what separates Premier Central MI MedSpa from others is their commitment to providing services with integrity. 

“There are many times when people come in here and they think they want something and we’re like, ‘No, no, no. This is why we don’t wanna do that,’” remarks House. 

“Our promise to our clients is that we’re always going to be honest and have integrity, and we never do things that we don’t think are gonna be beneficial to the client, making sure that what we believe in aligns with the client. And if it doesn’t, being honest about that,” she adds. 

Throughout their years of operating Premier, the pair have placed patient education at the forefront of all of their treatments. 

“We would never encourage a sale or a service without the person feeling confident and educated about what’s going on,” shares House.

All in all, the entrepreneurs operate under the philosophy that the care they provide should “help people be confident and that helping people be confident is not always doing a service,” as House puts it.

Looking to the Future

Since its beginning, the medical spa has continually evolved, adopting new practices and treatments, and neither House nor Leonard plan to change that. 

“We don’t ever want to stop or get complacent in what we’re doing. There will never be a time —and there shouldn’t be in this type of industry—where you’re just like, ‘Eh, we’re good. We’re just gonna do it this way because we’ve always done it this way.’ We’re not those people,” says House.

“We’re always listening to our clients because that cues us in on what is lacking in the community. That’s why we started going down the wellness route because we were hearing all these women or men say they didn’t feel good and then not knowing where to go or who to turn to,” she adds.

This new approach to wellness will allow clients to receive a deep dive into their health, something that the pair acknowledges most primary care centers are not set up for. 

“This approach is more preventative, rather than just going to the doctor where you’re likely to be put on a medication. We want to step back a little bit and dial deeper into your labs and your lifestyle modifications,” explains Leonard. “It’s a holistic approach to your health in some regard.”

But, at the end of the day, House and Leonard hope to continue providing care in a variety of forms to everyone who seeks it.

“I think people think you have to be a certain type of person to go to a med spa and you don’t. You can be 25 years old or 85 years old and there’s something here for everyone,” says House.

To learn more about Premier Central MI MedSpa or book an appointment, visit their website or Facebook.