Direct Primary Care Employer Healthcare

Hi, thank you for coming back for the latest edition of Beyond Primary Care’s blog- Direct Primary Care Employer Healthcare. In Beyond Primary Care blogs we highlight healthcare news, advice for medical conditions, and how membership for care works! Beyond Primary Care is an insurance free, membership based family medicine clinic. Beyond Primary Care is the highest rated Direct Primary Care clinic serving patients in Ann Arbor and throughout Washtenaw, Livingston, and Wayne counties giving families and employers peace of mind about healthcare costs by providing affordable and accessible primary care services.

The primary purpose of the blog is to introduce healthy lifestyle concepts and answer common questions I receive from patients that I believe are important. I want to start discussions that will help educate, benefit, and improve your well-being. 

In this blog post, I wanted to discuss an important healthcare option for employers that takes care of employees while reducing overhead:

Direct Primary Care Employer Healthcare

First, Direct Primary Care (DPC) Explained

Direct Primary Care isn’t insurance. Instead, it’s a unique high value membership that can be offered as a standalone employee benefit or used to supplement high-deductible health plans and catastrophic plans. At its basic level, DPC means the doctor works directly for the patient. No private insurance, no medicaid, no medicare, no middlemen. Since we are insurance free, DPC clinics contract with employers through a membership.

Think Netflix… but for Medicine.

In return for a flat monthly membership of $50 at Beyond Primary Care, the employees and their families are provided with an incredible level of personal care including virtually unlimited office visits, in-clinic dispensing of wholesale medications, and wholesale blood work done at the time of appointment when necessary. 

Discover Who Needs Direct Primary Care

With the advent of the gig economy- which encompasses a range of full-and part-time jobs done by the growing cohort of contingent workers- nearly every U.S. industry will be employing a substantial amount of part-time and contract workers who won’t qualify for traditional health insurance coverage. These jobs include but are not limited to…

• Real Estate workers

• Drivers

• Restaurant workers

• Custodians

• Healthcare workers

• Accounting / Finance professionals

• Software Development Experts

These are occupations with high levels of non-benefited employees. 

According the the latest 2018 data, nearly 160 million American’s received their health benefits through an employer. But premiums and deductibles are pushing employer-based coverage increasingly out of reach. Additional businesses that would benefit from Direct Primary Care include:

• Businesses with self-funded health insurance

• Businesses who see their health insurance premiums going up and up every year

• Employers concerned about health benefits with regards to recruitment, retention, and workplace wellness.

Why Direct Primary Care Is Important to Employers

On average, employers are spending $6,715 per employee per year for healthcare. Employers are tired of sitting around their board table every year and wondering how much of the health insurance increase is coming out of the employees pocket.

This is important.

Why? With Direct Primary Care the less employers spend on a health insurance plan, the more they can put back into salary or additional benefits. Employers can focus on building community-owned healthcare versus building the archaic insurer-owned healthcare. Employers can take active management of their spending patterns and discontinue relying on the traditional “passive management” approach provided by the ‘BUCAH’ insurances (Blue Cross, United Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna, Humana).

Currently employers have no power over healthcare costs with health insurance as it’s a patchwork in access to your physician and a free-for-all in which the prices of life-or-death essentials like insulin or epinephrine are set at whatever the market will bear. Efforts to check those prices are routinely trampled on by interest groups that hold influence over our lawmakers.

This important.

Why? The goal is to maximize employee health and minimize cost to the employer. Your employees are probably being crushed by out-of-pocket fees and lack of physician availability. Innovate by subscribing your employees (and maybe their families too) as a group to a local Direct Primary Care office. At no extra cost- you will get.

• deeply discounted prices for blood tests

• deeply discounted prices for radiology studies

• generic medications dispensed from the office at near wholesale cost

As example, at Beyond Primary Care, Dr. Jeff O’Boyle can get pretty much any generic medication for my patients at just a fraction of the cost. As example, we’ve had a patient paying $40 a month for a medication at Walmart and pay $8 for three months at Beyond Primary Care.

A Note For Brokers

Direct Primary Care has become a key enrollment strategy to fill the healthcare solutions gap. If you are new to the Direct Primary Care movement, the good news is that Direct Primary Care is an easy sell. Employees need accessible and personalized coverage, and employers are happy with how affordable it is. If you ignore Direct Primary Care during open enrollment, you are leaving thousands of revenue dollars for yourself on the table as Direct Primary Care is a key strategy

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminister Fuller

Direct Primary Care Employer Healthcare

Are you ready for some out of the box thinking on benefits? Don’t overcomplicate it. Qualifying for employer healthcare solutions at Beyond Primary Care offerings can be as simple as having at least 5 enrollees, and the cost can be as low as $50 per employee per month. Our clinic eliminates claims, pre-existing conditions, and other complications.

There are no losers with Beyond Primary Care. The employer can attract and keep talented members with great healthcare, reduce absenteeism, and brokers have a gap coverage product that can start paying off right immediately to assist in funding open enrollment. 

Educate Those Employers and Employees

If you think your business or you work for a place that would benefit from the services of Beyond Primary Care, send them a link to this post so that they can join the conversation. Many employers may have only a vague idea of what direct primary care is, believe it’s too expensive, and don’t understand how to introduce new benefits to employees who never had them before. Let’s change that!

Thank you for reading.

• Dr. Jeff O’Boyle with Beyond Primary Care