What is Direct Primary Care?
Direct primary care is a business model that allows primary care physicians to offer their services directly to their patients — without an insurance company in the middle — in exchange for a monthly or annual fee. The membership fee allows the patient to access a variety of primary care, including consultations, exams, care coordination, and some lab services, without paying any additional fees at the time of service.
The direct primary care model accounts for a small fraction of the primary care provided in the U.S.—there are between 1,000 and 2,000 direct primary care practices providing care to about 500,000 patients. But it's steadily growing, as virtually all of those practices have opened in the last decade.
Focused on your health.
In a traditional fee for service primary care practice, doctors are paid based on how many people they see, tests they order, or procedures they do. This leads to our current system of rapid visits with many tests and quick referrals. With such a packed schedule, doctors in the old model don’t have the luxury of spending extra time listening to their patients concerns and taking the time to come up with a treatment plan together with their patients. This system also doesn't meaningfully pay doctors to make phone calls or emails, leading to a system where it's difficult to speak to your doctor outside of a harried office visit that you often have to wait a long time for.
In direct primary care, instead of paying for each visit or procedure, you pay a monthly fee. This monthly fee frees the doctor from a model that promotes productivity over quality and allows a focus on you and what you really need. This leads to more time with your doctor when you need it and convenient easy access outside the doctors office visit structure (phone, text, email, etc).
Understanding the Direct Primary Care model.
The doctor you call. The doctor you trust.
Direct primary care doctors are dedicated to providing high-quality, unhurried primary care, essential for your wellbeing and the ongoing maintenance of your health. You can see your direct primary care doctor for all routine and preventive services like checkups, urgent care and chronic care management. Many times having this relationship and access can save you visits to more expensive venues like the hospital or emergency room.
…in summary.
Health insurance and health care are expensive. Premiums and out-of-pocket expenses continue to climb, and families are increasingly having to juggle their expenses in order to cover the cost of medical care. Direct primary care memberships can offer an opportunity to have access to primary care for an affordable monthly fee, and with convenient features like phone, email, and video consultations.
But it's important to understand the fine print of any plans you're considering and to know how your state regulates these plans. No matter how impressive a direct primary care plan's included services are, it's essential that you maintain major medical coverage as well. The cost of non-primary care, if and when you need it, will quickly dwarf the cost of primary care, and will be entirely unaffordable for most people who don't have major medical health coverage.
