What is direct primary care?

As explained by the Direct Primary Care Coalition, “The defining element of Direct Primary Care is an enduring and trusting relationship between a patient and his or her primary care provider.  In Direct Primary Care, unwanted fee-for-service incentives are replaced with a simple flat monthly fee.  This empowers the doctor-patient relationship and is the key to achieving superior health outcomes, lower costs and an enhanced patient experience.”  ​

Is your service Direct Primary Care?

Yes! Our Charlottesville, VA clinic is a Direct Primary Care practice which is a retainer-based system instead of the traditional fee-for-service model, which allows us to provide a wide spectrum of primary care services. You can expect more complete care with longer appointments and better access to your physician through prompt clinic visits, phone calls, and secure emails. All of this for an affordable flat fee that can be billed monthly or annually.  Our patients have full access to their physician day and night and receive more comprehensive, personalized care for less than the cost of a gym membership.  Through our DPC model, your primary care needs are covered by your membership fees so they are not billed to your insurance.   This allows patients to use their insurance for more serious medical circumstances or any expensive necessary interventions such as ER visits, imaging, labs, hospitalizations, surgeries, specialist referrals, or other services needed which can obtained at any local health system.

How is personalized care possible with DPC?

Direct Primary Care (DPC) practices are smaller and see fewer patients overall than traditional fee-for-service practices, so are therefore able to run on schedule and spend more time with each patient in a non-rushed environment.  By offering a greater degree of access to, and time with your doctor, the DPC practice model makes it possible to provide a higher level of individualized care to our patients, which nurtures strong patient-physician relationships, builds trust, promotes effective communication, and supports well being which results in improved medical care and creates happier and healthier patients.

Check out who else is talking about Direct Primary Care

“Harried by busy schedules and paid on a piecework model, many doctors rush from visit to visit, avoid phone calls and emails that don’t generate payments, and often fail to address the complex social issues that hamper people’s health.  This misalignment of financial incentives is a huge problem for patients, who often can’t get the care they need.”  Direct Primary Care offers a better way. Margot Sanger-Katx, “Company Thinks It Has Answer for Lower Health Costs: Customer Service,”New York Times, March 27, 2015

“The idea is deceptively simple: Pay frontline doctors a fixed monthly fee directly instead of through the byzantine insurance bureaucracy. Make the patient, rather than the paperwork, the focus of the doctor’s day. The result will be happier doctors, healthier patients and a striking reduction in wasted expense.” David Von Drehle, “Medicine Is About to Get Personal,” Time, Dec 2014

“There is a lot to learn from  organizations demonstrating the Triple Aim (lower costs, improved outcomes, better consumer experience). I’ve yet to see any model that more consistently delivers on the Triple Aim than Direct Primary Care.” Dave Chase, “Health Plan Rorschach Test: Direct Primary Care,” Forbes, July 2013