What is Direct Primary Care? And Why Do I Need It?
Published: 7/28/2025
A Battle Over Incentives
Have you ever heard the phrase “follow the money”?
In the healthcare industry, this is incredibly important. We need to be able to understand how people are paid if we are to understand what they are being incentivized to do.
A traditional medical practice has only two ways to affect their pay:
- Number of patients seen in a day
- How many line items are on a patient's bill
What does this lead to?
Have you gone to a doctor’s office for an appointment at 10 AM just to be seen at 11:30 AM? You are jam-packed into an office with 25 other people also waiting to see the doctor. When you finally do get to see the doctor, they only have 5 minutes with you, are rushing to get you out the door, barely listen, and prescribe you some sort of medication and a follow-up appointment?
This is commonplace for most people, and they don’t even know this all stems from improper incentives.
This system is something that we desperately need to break free of if we are to receive real valuable care. We all want a doctor we can trust and one who listens to us.
Direct Primary Care: A Way Forward
Now you may have heard of Direct Primary Care (DPC for short) or maybe concierge medicine, but are not sure what it is. I am here to explain it to you.
DPC is a primary care doctor who is not paid through health insurance. The DPC doctor functions on a monthly subscription model, similar to a gym membership. You may a small monthly fee in order to have a doctor on call for you and your family.
DPC doctors do not require a huge panel of patients in order to keep their business afloat, so they have the ability to spend extra time with each patient. You can expect a 45-minute consultation from your doctor where they actually speak to you and ask you questions about your concerns.
The waiting rooms are not jam-packed with people, but instead, there is just you and sometimes someone else. This is because they are not trying to get everyone to keep coming back for more appointments; they try to solve the problem the first time.
Don’t expect to get sold a bunch of stuff you don’t need either. There are no upsells, no quotas to hit, or pharmaceutical salesmen winking at the doctor to prescribe the medication to you.
The best part of all of this is that the office visit is free. The subscription covers the cost of the visit.
But why is all of this important?
It goes back to incentives.
Under the new model, the doctor has an incentive to keep you healthy. The doctor is paid whether you use the doctor or not. This means the best client is the one who pays and does not use the services the doctor provides. The healthier the clients are, the less the doctor will need to do for each patient.
DPC + Healthshare = Great Care
When a doctor switches to a DPC practice, they no longer take health insurance. This places them outside of the health insurance world and puts them in a cash-pay world. That is the same thing when you leave health insurance and use a health share. When you are a cash payer, you have even more value from the DPC practice because they can act as a quarterback to your healthcare. Letting you know of low-cost lab providers, imaging centers, referrals to specialists and outpatient clinics. This type of advocacy is a winner when everything is in the same cash pay model. We specifically built a health plan by partnering with Sedera and Healthcare2U to address this topic.
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Summary
DPC is a better way forward for getting primary care.
With aligned incentives to keep you healthy, the DPC doctor is vital to long-term health.
Let us help you connect your health plan with DPC to create the best outcome for you and your family.