Limited access. High costs that aren’t always given upfront. Impersonal care.
All of these are complaints I hear all the time from people about their health insurance. Do you?
Because my husband and I both work at home, we had to explore our own healthcare options and found that a healthcare-sharing ministry works really well for our family.
One of the ways we make it work is through a Direct Primary Care center, something you might never have heard of, but I think more people could definitely use it if it’s an option!
What Is Direct Primary Care?
Direct Primary Care is kind of like a membership to a gym or country club: you pay a certain amount up front with a monthly fee, and then there are no co-pays or bills to your insurance company.
We are very fortunate to have an “out-of-the-box” option here in the Grand Rapids, MI area – we’re members of Christian Healthcare Centers, so all of our regular care, well and sick visits under $400, are covered through that membership, which was just over $2k for the whole year for our family of 6.
It’s a simple way to get out from under the bureaucratic aspect of healthcare and make it feel more personal.
Note that if you’re anywhere near West Michigan, profess as a Christian, and are interested in Direct Primary Care, our family highly recommends Christian Healthcare Centers. They serve patients from 9 counties and are constantly expanding and adding to what they offer!
Be sure to take advantage of the referral credit that helps both of us: This includes a waived registration fee and a $40 credit for you as the new member (and I’ll get a $40 credit as the referring member – thank you!). The referral credits will be applied if you name my family “Kristopher Kimball” on your registration form. Hooray!
Dr. Kirsten Lin describes DPCs this way:
DPC is a form of healthcare that takes medicine back to its roots, and actually pairs very well with these health sharing ministries, high deductible plans, and even works well for people who have “great” insurance or are uninsured. If you google “direct primary care” you’ll find links to lots of great articles, and there is a mapper (to find DPC practices around the country) at dpcfrontier.com/mapper or dpcare.org. – Kirsten D. Lin, MD
DPCs tend to keep smaller patient rosters, offering more personal attention and even virtual visits and access by text.
The Benefits of Direct Primary Care
We’ve been so pleased with the level of care and genuine concern at our DPC and definitely appreciate the “whole person” approach, both because the doctors look at everything at once to try to determine root causes of symptoms and also because they’re willing to take less “modern medicine” approaches to healing.
Here are some of the great benefits you get from this kind of healthcare center:
- Enhanced Doctor-Patient Relationship: Insurance companies aren’t telling your doctors how long they can spend with patients, so you get more one-on-one time and easier access to your docs! Our pediatrician even prays with us at the end of each appointment and responds by email probably faster than she should for her own work-life balance!
- Transparent Pricing: A flat monthly fee is collected, and that covers as many visits as you need for preventative care, basic tests, medication checks, and acute care (illnesses that don’t require a trip to the hospital, like strep throat or a sprain). A 2022 study showed that on average, in the US a DPC costs $77 a month for a single person – well under the rate of $160 for an uninsured visit to a traditional doctor.
- Increased Accessibility: Doctors have same-day or next-day appointments open and your appointments often last 30-60 minutes instead of 7-10!
- Comprehensive Care: Your DPC doctor addresses whole-body health, not just the symptoms that rise to the surface. I’m big on getting to the root cause of things, and I love it when a health practitioner works alongside me on that! People often avoid preventative care because of the cost of going to a doctor, and I also like that with DPC that’s not an issue.
Need More Baby Steps?
Here at Kitchen Stewardship, we’ve always been all about the baby steps. But if you’re just starting your real food and natural living journey, sifting through all that we’ve shared here over the years can be totally overwhelming.
That’s why we took the best 10 rookie “Monday Missions” that used to post once a week and got them all spruced up to send to your inbox – once a week on Mondays, so you can learn to be a kitchen steward one baby step at a time, in a doable sequence.
Sign up to get weekly challenges and teaching on key topics like meal planning, homemade foods that save the budget (and don’t take too much time), what to cut out of your pantry, and more.
Who Can Benefit from Direct Primary Care?
I really think anyone who has the option for DPC should look into it and compare costs, but especially those who have high deductible insurance plans or chronic health conditions that need frequent care.
It works seamlessly with our healthcare sharing ministry, too – we are saving the group money by choosing cost-effective care.
If, like us, you want to dig into the root of your health problems instead of treating just the symptoms, I so highly recommend this approach! The time the DPC doctors are able to spend with you is amazing. Every visit is absolutely REFRESHING healthcare, and I feel so blessed to have the option.
Challenges and Considerations
If you have access to truly excellent, low-deductible insurance, this may not be the least expensive option for you, of course. I’d imagine people who do probably aren’t reading about other options on the Internet!
There are a few things you should know before you sign up for a DPC, though.
- Direct primary care doesn’t cover hospitalizations or speciality care.
- If you do have traditional insurance, you can’t file this expenditure toward your deductible or use an HSA.
- There is a lack of government regulation, because DPCs don’t accept Medicare or Medicaid. Personally this sounds like a positive instead of a negative, but it’s information for you…
How to Find a Direct Primary Care Facility
You can use the DPC Frontier Mapper to find a DPC or hybrid provider near you (in the US) or check out the DPC Alliance membership directory.
If you don’t have a DPC practice near you (they’re getting more common but still rare), you can actually obtain “concierge model healthcare” 100% virtually. It sounds sci-fi, but it’s reality!
With concierge medicine, you choose a primary care doctor, and for a few hundred dollars a month (for a big family), you have video, phone, email, and text access to your doctor for any reason. Docs can diagnose rashes, talk through symptoms, order labs, and prescriptions if needed, and best of all they know your full medical history AND understand functional and alternative medicine. Wow!
I had an opportunity to interview Dr. Lauren Jefferis, a doctor with SteadyMD, (no longer in existence, sadly), and we talked about all sorts of things – you can watch the full interview here or this little snippet below is where we talked specifically about who concierge medicine is a good fit for.
Why DPC Works for Me
I care so much about my family’s health and wellness that I’ve been blogging about it since 2009! I’m always trying to make improvements … and I want practitioners who will work with me, recommend natural remedies, and spend time talking through issues.
For us, a Direct Primary Care center has been all that and more. It works seamlessly with our health sharing plan from Samaritan Ministries, isn’t terribly expensive, and gives the personalized healthcare experience I find to be really important.
Have you heard of Direct Primary Care? Is it something you would try?
