This is a question that I often receive from patients inquiring about the services at Desired Medical Solutions.  Direct primary care refers to a relationship between the patient and their physician independent of third party payors.  The third party payors are healthcare insurance companies or as some healthcare professionals sometimes refer to as managed care.

So why stray from the traditional model?  The costs of healthcare have been steadily rising in the United States thanks to the fact that patients in the past had no choice but to obtain healthcare insurance coverage in order to obtain primary care services among other services.  While this has proven to be beneficial for insurance companies, it has greatly compromised the quality of patient care.  Primary care providers in the traditional system are often tasked with caring for over a 2000 patient panel.  This dilutes the quality of the care as the provider never gets the opportunity to truly develop a personalized relationship with their patients.  Direct Primary Care allows the provider to maintain a panel of 300-500 patients on average.  This model allows for a more personalized approach to healthcare.

Desired Medical Solutions improves upon the direct primary care model by implementing a functional medicine program, bio-identical hormone program, and a medical weight loss program.   These benefits while traditionally are not available in direct primary care models have greatly contributed to Desired Medical Solutions becoming a rising star in the direct primary care arena.

The costs of direct primary care membership are akin to a cable bill or utilities bill and average about $100 per month.  In the past, patients have used an HSA or FSA account to pay for the membership, you would need to consult with an accountant for more details.    Starting April 1st, we will be offering our services to employers to include in their benefits package.  This partnership with employers will allow their employees to pay for the membership pretax.