Congratulations to the Montana DPC doctors who were highlighted in the US News and World Report on Direct Primary Care! Here’s an example:
Their provider, Dr. Lexi Tabor-Manaker, opened Glacier Direct Primary Care clinic in 2018. The model known as DPC, which can also stand for direct patient care, furnishes basic health care to patients for a set fee, often billed monthly like a subscription. The arrangement offers patients unlimited access to their doctors and allows them to communicate by phone or email. But the costs are all out-of-pocket.
Unfortunately the author goes a little off kilter from there:
Direct primary care practices have been emerging around the country, but they are often criticized for not offering the patient safeguards of traditional insurance.
Hmmm. The “patient safeguards” of traditional insurance? What the hell does that even mean? Do you mean the “financial gouging” of traditional insurance? Listen, no doctor offers insurance and all DPC doctors see patients who have insurance. We just don’t bill the insurance. It’s that simple. We also don’t bill for co-pays, office visits, procedures, telemedicine visits, texting, etc. But we do give much more time to each patient. All for less than a cell phone monthly payment.
Feel free to read the original article and see what you think.
“Another criticism, one leveled by traditional health insurers, is that the monthly fee often doesn’t save people money. Patients would have to go to the doctor several times a year to make the direct primary care monthly payments worthwhile, and people usually don’t make that many visits, said Richard Miltenberger, CEO of Mountain Health Co-Op, a nonprofit health insurance cooperative that sells health insurance in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.”
People in the old system don’t see docs for years! If they even have one. DPC enables more prevention, but requires educating patients. People should communicate with their docs more often. “Go to their doctor?” Really? How about texting, as I do, about four to five times a year? No office visit required.
Heh. Doug, challenge Miltenberger to debate 🙂