HOw can DPC Save you Money
Are you taking multiple medications?
If you’re taking multiple medications and paying with insurance for all of them, your co-pays are probably stacking up. Direct primary care practices frequently dispense common medications directly from their offices, so you won’t need to do an extra trip to the pharmacy. Plus, your DPC doctor will purchase these medications at wholesale prices from a free-market vendor like Andameds or Henry Schein, and they pass those savings through to you. Some practices add a small markup (say, 10%), others sell these medications at cost. The value of this service depends on which medications you’re taking. Often your insurance provider will only cover a drug from a particular drug manufacturer, or they’ll require you to use a brand-name version even though a cheaper generic is on the market. If that’s the case you can easily be paying hundreds of dollars a month on medications—money you could save as a DPC member.
Here are some examples:
Do you go to the urgent care once or twice per year?
If you get in an accident, break a bone, need stitches, or require emergency medical care of any sort, you’ll probably go to an urgent care or the emergency room. Going to either of these is a surefire way to drain your pocketbook. In the best base scenario, the urgent care center is in your insurance network and you pay a high co-pay—up to $100 in some cases. But that’s only if you’re lucky. Insurance coverage of emergency care is spotty at best, and urgent care centers are known to mislead patients regarding the true costs of care. Even if you verify multiple times that your insurance will cover your care, you can still get hit with big bills. Often urgent cares don’t know if you’re insurance is actually valid, and many times don’t know what your bill will be until days or weeks after your visit.
Emergency rooms are even worse: you’ll often have to pay a co-pay of $1000 or more just to get seen, PLUS the cost of any additional scans or treatments. There are dozens of horror stories online about unwitting patients who we’re financially ruined by insane ER bills they thought we’re covered by insurance. One bad day can cost you thousands of dollars—enough to cover years of a DPC membership. As a DPC patient, you know exactly who to call when you need help.
Here are some estimates:
Well exam/ DPC sub
Annual Labs
6 month visit
6 month labs
Urgent care visit
Urine Dipstick
Urine Culture
UTI antibiotics/pain Rx
Blood pressure meds
Insurance
$294
$622
$200
$142
$150
$22
$35
$60
$48
$1612
Direct Care Price
$1020
$37
included
$17
Included
$1
$20
$5
$36
$1136