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We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com. Back to Healio Key takeaways: Direct primary care offers more personalized care and potential savings on medications and lab tests. However, it does not replace health insurance, and the membership fees may be a barrier for some. Membership-based primary healthcare is becoming commonplace, offering longer visits, more individualized care and lower out-of-pocket costs for certain tests and medications, according to experts. The American Academy of Family Physicians defines direct primary care (DPC) as an alternative to the traditional fee-for-service insurance billing model, where patients are charged a fee monthly, annually or biannually.
These costs can vary, with monthly fees ranging from $50 to $150 for adults, $20 to $49 for youth and $100 or more for families. This fee covers most or all primary care services, \u201cincluding clinical and laboratory services, consultative services, care coordination, and comprehensive care management,\u201d according to AAFP. Similarly, concierge care also operates under a membership-based structure. Concierge care and DPC \u201care viewed interchangeably, but they are distinct,\u201d Ann Greiner, MCP, president and CEO of the Primary Care Collaborative, told Healio. While concierge care offers monthly and annual \u2014 although typically higher \u2014 fees like DPC, this model also may accept insurance plans and government programs. In comparison, DPC \u201cis no insurance coverage and a subscription fee, which is either paid by an individual or sometimes employers,\u201d Greiner said. For physicians who are interested in the DPC model but still want to offer traditional fee-for-service care to their patients, Greiner said hybrid models are an option. But such hybrid models can be complicated, \u201cand many practices just make that full on switch to DPC,\u201d she added. DPC on the rise According to an analysis published last year in Health Affairs, the number of concierge and DPC practices in the United States grew by 83.1% from 2018 to 2023 and the number of clinicians participating in them rose by 78.4%. There are currently around 3,163 DPCs in the U.S., according to the tracking group DPC Frontier Mapper. \u201cThe rise of concierge and direct primary care reflects, in many ways, dissatisfaction with the traditional primary care system,\u201d Jane M. Zhu, MD, MPP, MSHP, the study\u2019s lead author and an associate professor of medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, told Healio. As a primary care physician, Zhu said she sees \u201cthe pressures facing clinicians and patients in today\u2019s primary care landscape.\u201d \u201cMany physicians are struggling with administrative burden, time constraints and burnout, while patients face growing difficulty accessing timely care,\u201d she said. \u201cDPC and concierge models have emerged as one way clinicians can try to regain clinical autonomy and spend more time with patients. So, against this backdrop, it\u2019s important to understand how these models are evolving nationally.\u201d While the Health Affairs analysis \u201cwasn\u2019t a census and likely underestimates concierge and DPC practices nationally,\u201d Zhu said they \u201cobserved an impressive speed of growth over a 5-year period. This growth mirrors what we\u2019ve been seeing on the ground, with significant interest from clinicians and patients alike on these models.\u201d Greiner said there are a few possible explanations contributing to this rise, one of which is a new provision under H.R. 1, or the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill\u201d Act, that now allows eligible individuals enrolled in DPC arrangements to contribute to a health savings account (HSA). These individuals can then \u201cuse their HSA funds tax-free to pay periodic DPC fees,\u201d according to the IRS website. According to AMA, patients with an HSA can use the funds to pay for DPC if fees are under $150 monthly for an individual and under $300 monthly for a family, though \u201cthe funds must be used for primary care services provided by a primary care physician or other allowed health professional.\u201d Greiner also noted that more employers are beginning to offer DPC, \u201cand they\u2019re using platforms that allow them to make these offerings available across the country.\u201d According to a 2025 report from Health Compiler, 58% of all DPC memberships in 2024 were employer-sponsored, an increase of 28% from 2022. One trend that Zhu said is \u201cworth watching over time\u201d is an increase in corporate ownership of concierge and DPC models, which rose in the Health Affairs analysis by 576% from 2018 to 2023, while independent ownership decreased from 84% to 59.7%. \u201cConcierge and DPC models are often framed as a response to corporatization and declining clinical autonomy,\u201d she explained. \u201cSeeing increasing corporate involvement suggests these models are evolving in ways that may diverge from their original vision.\u201d Benefits of DPC DPC practices \u201coffer clear benefits to clinicians, like smaller patient panels, reduced administrative burden and greater autonomy,\u201d all of which \u201cmay improve access and satisfaction for enrolled patients,\u201d Zhu said. \u201cThese models also respond to a real demand for accessible care, and many patients are willing to pay for more access and personalized care,\u201d she said. For Josh Umbehr, MD, a family physician and cofounder of Atlas.md, a software and DPC clinic, this model represents a way of making healthcare \u201cless than free.\u201d \u201cWhat that means to me is that you have all the care you need and money left over,\u201d Umbehr told Healio. \u201cIf you\u2019re spending $2,500 a month on healthcare and not getting $2,500 a month in value out of that, then we are limiting your life\u2019s potential.\u201d Out-of-pocket maximums with health insurance can cost thousands of dollars, Umbehr said. \u201cI think that, combined with HSA allowability and price transparency, we are going to see a lot more people question the cash price of their care,\u201d he said. \u201cNow insurance is so expensive,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drsoniafawad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}