Traditional healthcare is built on high prices and hidden fees. It feels like the system is designed to keep you and your employees guessing. Direct Primary Care (DPC) is a simplified way to deliver high-quality care for employees while reducing total health plan costs.
Here is how the DPC model saves money for both employers and members.
Stopping the Emergency Room Trap
Emergency room (ER) visits account for a large share of health plan spending. DPC reduces ER utilization in two ways: unlimited preventive care and accessible treatment for minor healthcare events.
Preventive Care
The primary benefit of DPC is open access to preventive care and chronic disease management. When employees have to budget for co-pays and deductibles, navigate crowded PCP schedules and risk surprise bills later, they’re much less likely to seek out early interventions.
Instead, they’ll wait until they can’t avoid the doctor anymore. Delayed care = higher costs.
Accessible Treatment
Many people go to the ER for small things like a bad cough or a minor cut because they cannot get an appointment with their primary care provider in a reasonable timeframe. In fact, around 45% of all ER visits could be treated by a PCP.
DPC removes the barriers to necessary care—no co-pays, no weeks-long wait times for appointments and direct access to a primary care provider (PCP).
When members have a health event, they can contact their PCP directly to be advised whether they need immediate medical attention or can wait until an appointment is available.
When it is easy to see a primary care provider, health issues are identified and addressed quickly. This keeps members out of the hospital and stops inflated ER bills before they happen.
No More Insurance Headaches
Traditional medical offices have to hire teams of people just to navigate insurance plan regulations, billing codes and coverage for each patient. This administrative cost drives up prices for everyone.
DPC’s flat monthly membership fee removes this administrative burden, allowing clinics to focus more resources on their patients’ health and less on billing codes.
Lower Costs for Medications and Labs
Routine labs and generic, daily prescriptions actually cost a fraction of what your employees typically pay through the traditional insurance networks. DPCs can offer routine services to members at low-to-no cost by not billing through your insurance network.
Frontier’s model also offers a cash-pay network that reduces costs by ~50% (on average) for services outside of our clinic—specialist visits, specialty medications and more.
Higher Utilization Means Higher Savings
In the traditional healthcare model, higher utilization leads to higher costs and annual premium hikes. With DPC, it’s the opposite. The more your employees use the service for wellness and prevention, the lower your costs will be over time. Why? Because your employees are getting care when they need it, rather than delaying care until it’s an emergent or high-cost event.
A Smart Choice for Employers
For companies with self-funded plans, DPC is a powerful tool. It acts as a “bolt-on” service that lowers the number of big insurance claims through their health plan.
By giving your team unlimited access to a PCP, you are investing in prevention. This leads to:
- Lower high-cost claims over time.
- A healthier workforce.
- Better retention because your team loves their benefit.
The Bottom Line
Direct Primary Care is not just a different way to see a primary care provider. It is a fundamental shift in how we value health and money. By choosing transparency over friction, we can make healthcare affordable for everyone.
