What is Direct Primary Care?
Direct Primary Care (or DPC or short) is a really simple concept. It’s a primary care relationship between the doctor and the patient without anyone in the middle to affect care.
First, let’s talk about what we mean by “Primary Care”
A Primary Care Provider (or PCP) is a doctor or nurse that takes care of everyday problems. Your PCP should be your first stop for almost any health concern:
Chronic problems like high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, and asthma are handled by PCPs.
Acute illnesses like strep throat, urinary tract infections, and even broken bones can be handled by PCPs, too.
Also, a third important job of a PCP is to check in with you every so often to make sure you stay healthy.
PCPs sometimes are called family practice doctors, internists, or GPs. Pediatricians are PCPs too, but only for children and adolescents. Some gynecologists count themselves as PCPs too, because many women (and those assigned female at birth) see their gynecologist more than any other doctor. PCPs can be doctors or nurse practitioners (FNPs, usually). Sometimes a Physician Assistant (PA) can help with primary care needs, too.
Most of the time, PCPs have contracts with insurance companies. The insurance company has a “network” of doctors that take their insurance. These in-network providers agree to a certain fixed fee per visit whenever their patients see them. A doctor who sees an in-network patients typically gets paid around $50 per visit, and that fee is shared between the doctor and the patient.
Now let’s talk about the “Direct” part of DPC
Instead of getting paid by an insurance company, a DPC doctor has a direct contract with a patient. A patient agrees to pay a DPC doctor a certain amount of money per month, and the doctor agrees to provide primary care to that patient as needed. DPC doctor fees usually allow for an unlimited number of visits, longer visits (usually up to an hour), and direct phone calls to the doctor for after-hours care.
Many PCPs are choosing to abandon traditional insurance-based medicine and adopt a DPC practice model instead. Why is this? Decreasing payments from insurance companies to PCP practices have caused doctors to see more and more patients, and the average PCP has 3000 (or more!) patients to care for.
With so many patients to see, appointment times have gotten shorter, and wait times to get those appointments have gotten too long. Doctors can’t adequately care for their patients, and people’s health suffers. This makes health care ever more expensive, as simple problems can’t be addressed and become expensive problems that require surgeries, hospitalizations, and more visits to emergency rooms.
DPC is growing rapidly because it is better care. Doctors like it more, and patients love the approach. We hope you’ll come be part of the DPC revolution!
If you’re wondering how to choose a PDC practice, check out this article.
