Tuesday Morning With Justin: Healthcare, Leadership & Life
Tuesday Morning With Justin: Healthcare, Leadership & Life
Question Time: More on Direct Primary Care
Direct Primary Care offers quality healthcare that's accessible, personalized, and often more affordable than traditional medical practices. Justin Futrell shares insights on this alternative healthcare model and answers common questions from listeners about how it works and why it's gaining popularity.
• DPC physicians prioritize patient care over paperwork, creating flexible solutions like Justin's experience getting a throat swab between appointments
• Most DPC providers have networks of specialists who also offer reasonable cash prices for patients
• Cash pay prices can be significantly lower than insurance rates – Justin's example showed a $2,200 MRI through insurance versus $450 cash pay
• DPC providers can prescribe medications in most states, with some even providing limited pharmacy services included in membership fees
• Employers should consider embedding DPC into their health plans to improve employee benefits and potentially reduce healthcare costs
Your company should definitely be thinking about embedding direct primary care into your employer-sponsored health plan. If you liked the episode, please subscribe and give a five-star review.
Music by Alex Lambert.
Contact Justin via text 740-525-5259 or via email JFutrell@TrueNorthCompanies.com
I welcome the opportunity to hear your feedback from this episode!
Thanks again to my musically gifted friend Alex Lambert for the music. Also thanks to Kevin Asehan for the edits.
Welcome to another Tuesday morning with Justin. I'm Justin Futrell, benefit Advisor at True North Companies, and today we're going to do some Q&A on direct primary care. Why? Because we got some great questions from listeners over this last week so I brought out the board again. If you're watching on YouTube, if not, that's okay.
Speaker 1:We talked about quality care and accessibility a lot in the last video and I, a listener, asked, in addition to good care and accessibility, like why do people like it? What's an example? So here's an example um, there was a time two years ago where my throat hurt like heck and I tried the, the natural remedies, the over the counters and didn't work. And and my direct primary care said hey, I'm slammed tomorrow, but come in um whenever you can and I'll, I'll swab you in between appointments. And I thought that's great. I didn't want to sit in the office anyway and that's what we did and it just sped up the process for everyone. Right, it's what I needed that day. They didn't have time, but they figured out a way to at least get the swab done. So that feeds into quality care and accessible. But it's a tangible example.
Speaker 1:Now another question what if you need a specialist? So if you think about why direct primary care started and we mentioned this in the last video it's because all of these doctors, all these nurses, these physicians were tired of dealing with our healthcare system. As you can appreciate, that's a lot of the big conglomerate, health systems and insurance companies dictating how much time you can spend with a client. So, as you can imagine, people who are in this direct primary care world are well connected. There's a really good chance that your direct primary care partner would refer you to someone else, like this dermatologist in this example, who is also good about providing a reasonable cash price. That's the bottom line Direct primary care. They want to take care of you. That's what they want. So they're going to be connected to other people who want to take care of you. That's what they want. So they're going to be connected to other people who want to take care of you as well. And so, regardless of whether you're completely uninsured which hopefully you're not, but that is the case for millions of people in the US or if you just have a really high deductible, it might make sense to pay cash.
Speaker 1:For example, I had the opportunity to get an MRI and I asked how much would it cost to bill through my insurance. And they said, hey, it looks like it'd be $2,200 to bill through insurance. And I thought, hmm, that's a lot. What would it be if I didn't have insurance? And she said, well, you just told me you did. I said, but, hypothetically, what if I didn't? What would the cash pay price be? And she said, well, you just told me you did. I said, but, hypothetically, what if I didn't? What would the cash pay price be? And she said, well, let me look. It looks like the cash pay price is $450. So $2,200 through insurance, which I would have to pay entirely because I had to hit my deductible, or $450. Because I hadn't hit my deductible or $450. Yes, there is the chance that if I go cash pay and I do end up needing surgery or something else down the road, yeah, I wouldn't get credit for that $450. But I'd rather pay $450 because I don't know if I need anything or not. That's why I'm getting the MRI and that's what I did and thankfully I didn't need a surgery and so I was able to save what is that? Almost two thousand dollars in that example just by paying cash bottom line if you need a specialist, your direct primary care will most likely refer you to someone who's going to give you a reasonable cash pay price.
Speaker 1:Last, last question Can they prescribe medications? Yes, the majority of direct primary care businesses are able to prescribe medications. It does vary a little bit state to state as some states have different give different authorities to physicians at different levels. So that would be a whole nother episode. But the bottom line is yes, the majority of direct primary care they will prescribe medications and some even provide either drugs on site, like think of a limited pharmacy or the ability to get free drugs packaged within their subscription of that membership fee. We talked about A couple of things to think about. Your company should definitely be thinking about embedding direct primary care into your employer-sponsored health plan, that's for sure. Again, if you liked the episode, please subscribe and give a five-star review. Have a great week.
