Healthcare Without Insurance
Hi, thank you for coming back for the latest edition of Beyond Primary Care’s blog- healthcare without insurance. 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 educate my patients and any prospective patients about:
Healthcare Without Insurance
Healthcare with health insurance is scary to understand. The complexity of health insurance exists for both private insurances and public insurance. Medicare, a single payer system, is relatively more organized in part because it has a simple criterion for eligibility- the age of the applicant. Although this too becomes complex with quirks in Medicare such as the ‘Donut hole’ of part D. Your health insurance also changes frequently whether that is because your employer changes their plans, you change your job, or your income changes.
Perhaps even more daunting than accessing healthcare with health insurance is accessing healthcare without health insurance. This is demonstrated by fact that uninsured individuals are one-half to two-thirds less likely than those with health coverage to use any health services in a given year. One consequence of not using appropriate healthcare services is a higher rates of disease and death. The uninsured often face unaffordable medical bills when they do seek care. About 60-65% of all bankruptcies are related to medical expenses.
Costs of Healthcare Without Insurance
Expenses are difficult to determine, and this varies by medical issue, the type of physician you are seeing, resources and testing needed. Cost are even different based on the hospital where you have it done, as evident by a comparison of costs for knee replacement surgery in this Wall Street Journal article.
“For consumers, the prices paid for the surgery at some hospitals in the U.S. where more than double the prices at others.”
According to debt.org, in 2011 the average charge for a standard office visit for an established patient, level 3, requiring approximately 15 minutes with the physician, was $104. This amount was for a single visit, and rises if you need blood testing, imaging, or prescriptions.
Ways to Access Affordable Healthcare Without Insurance
You should not avoid going to see a physician or seek care because of cost. Deferring care can have dangerous consequences both medically and financially. Still, getting medical care can be expensive if you don’t know where to go or have the patience to navigate the healthcare system. Ways to minimize your cost include:
Tell the physician and the administrators your are uninsured. You may be eligible for discounts or other charitable care.
Shop around for care. Hospitals and private physician rates vary by location and practice. Most communities often have a free or ‘sliding scale’ clinic.
Double-check your bills. Errors happen even after negotiation. Too many administrators and billers always assume the health insurance system is being used.
Ask where facility has the prices of the most common services posted. Starting in January 2021, the Hospital Price Transparency Rule says every hospital in the U.S. is required to provide clear, accessible pricing information online. Hospitals of course don’t like this rule, so you may have to do some investigating.
Direct Primary Care for Healthcare without Health Insurance
A great option of obtaining affordable healthcare for you, your family, or your employer without health insurance is Direct Primary Care (DPC). DPC clinics eliminate the traditional insurance middlemen through a membership model of care. This model allows DPC clinics to offer you affordable and transparent pricing for healthcare and opportunities to build long term and trusting relationships for you, your family, or your business.
Many DPC clinics offer wholesale medications dispensed directly from their office at wholesale prices, wholesale blood work, and have agreements or knowledge of at-cost imaging such as x-rays, ultrasounds, and MRIs. Additionally, the physicians at DPC clinics are great resources towards obtaining other affordable services such as cash-pay colonoscopies, cash-pay heart stress tests, or even non-emergent surgeries.
Beyond Primary Care is DPC clinic located in Ann Arbor, Michigan and cares for patients all throughout Washtenaw County, Wayne County, and Livingston County.
Thank you for reading.
- Dr. Jeff O’Boyle with Beyond Primary Care
