The Gobbledygook DINO
I try to keep up with what is going on in the DPC world outside and I came across this headline:
Here is the summary:
Health In Tech has announced a strategic collaboration with Vitable and MARPAI to launch a competitively priced self-funded health plan. The partnership combines Vitable’s Direct Primary Care (DPC) model with MARPAI’s self-funded health plans, integrated through Health In Tech’s eDIYBS platform.
Vitable’s enhanced primary care plan offers both in-person and virtual primary care access, mental health programs, free prescription drugs, lab work, and care navigation for households under a low monthly fee with $0 out-of-pocket costs. The collaboration aims to leverage Vitable’s cost containment capabilities, which have been validated by third-party actuarial firms and reinsurance carriers.
The new offering is immediately available through Health In Tech’s eDIYBS platform, targeting improved healthcare accessibility and cost reduction while maintaining high member satisfaction rates.
Feel free to learn more about each company but doesn’t this sound more and more like the system we left? Terms like:
- Competitively priced
- Enhanced primary care
- Cost containment capabilities
- Validated by third-party actuarial firms and reinsurance carriers
- Cost reduction while maintaining high member satisfaction rates
It’s a freaking word salad.
And what about this Vitable company? The site says, “Vitable offers a hybrid Direct Primary Care health plan for self-funded and level-funded groups”.
Hybrid Direct Primary Care health plan? I don’t know what that is. All I can tell is that there are ZERO (or close to it) doctors working there and I checked the site and through AI at Grok. That is the future of DPC if we let it happen: Private equity, VCs, big corporations, mergers, and then sprinkle in the term DPC. It’s a gobbledygook conglomeration molded into a DINO.
It’s simple. Don’t go into classical primary care medicine. Office, hospital and call practice. It will wear one into the ground, is relatively underpaid on the “production” scale and I was so, so glad I was able to retire at age 64.