Direct primary care
Direct primary care is primary care offered on a membership basis, outside the health insurance system. It is a mass-market variant of Concierge medicine, distinguished by its low prices,
Under direct primary care, patients pay a fixed monthly fee on the order of $50/month which grants them access to a set of medical services. Typically a DPC membership benefits from pairing with a high-deductible health plan, as DPC alone will not cover catastrophic health care such as most surgeries, and a health savings account, as the associated tax-benefits can generally be applied to DPC and other medical expenses.
Advantages
Direct primary care practices do not typically accept insurance payments, thus avoiding the overhead and complexity of maintaining relationships with insurers, which can consume as much as $0.40 of each medical dollar spent.
Because direct primary care payments are paid over time, rather than in return for specific services, the economic incentives are such that the long-term health of the patient is the most lucrative situation for the doctor. As such, preventative care gains greater emphasis under DPC.
Because the primary care physician is better compensated than they would be under insurance billing, they can afford to spend more time with the patient, rather than simply referring them to a highly-paid specialist after a short consultation.
See also
 Consumer driven health care
External links
Direct Primary Care: A New Brew in Seattle in the Harvard Medical Journal, 3/3/2008
"Direct Medical Practice - The Uninsured Solution to the Primary Medical Care Mess" with Dr. Garrison Bliss (Qliance Medical Group of WA).
Who Killed Marcus Welby? from Seattle's The Stranger, 1/23/2008
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