What Is Direct Primary Care? (And No, It's Not Concierge Medicine)

What Is Direct Primary Care? (And No, It's Not Concierge Medicine)

Why more people are ditching rushed, insurance-driven visits for real time with their doctor, and paying less to get it.

Why more people are ditching rushed, insurance-driven visits for real time with their doctor, and paying less to get it.

If you've ever waited weeks for a doctor’s appointment, spent 45 minutes in a waiting room, then felt rushed through a 10-minute visit, you're not alone. That's how most primary care works – not because your doctor wants it that way, but because our insurance-based health care system rewards speed and volume, not the time and attention that actually lead to better care.

Direct Primary Care (DPC) flips what we've been conditioned to accept. Through DPC, you pay your doctor directly through an affordable, monthly membership, and insurance billing is taken out of the picture entirely. Your doctor has fewer patients, more time for each one, and can actually focus on what’s best for you, not what’s reimbursable from insurance. 

If this sounds like concierge medicine, it's not, and the difference isn't just semantic. The retainers for concierge practices are typically much higher; and most importantly, your insurance still gets billed for every visit and test with concierge medicine. So you end up paying twice: for the retainer and for all the insurance costs of copays and deductibles. With DPC, the monthly membership is the only cost for your primary care – no copays, no deductibles, no per-visit charges. 

Without the financial incentive – or, if your doctor is employed, often the external administrative pressure – to see as many patients as possible each day, your direct care physician actually has time to focus on you. That means learning your whole story, not just your latest symptom. That means finding out why something's happening, not just managing it away with a prescription or referral. 

What Actually Changes With DPC

How DPC offers a better patient experience comes down to a few concrete, structural differences from the traditional model:

• A much smaller patient panel. Traditional primary care physicians often manage panels of 2,000+ patients 1. DPC physicians typically manage a few hundred, which is what actually makes everything else on this list possible.
• Real visit time. Instead of a rushed 10-15 minutes, DPC visits typically run 30-60 minutes, with time to actually dig into what's going on.
• Direct access. Reach your doctor directly by phone or text, with no phone trees and no waiting on a portal message for days.
• Convenience built around you. Same-day or next-day appointments, and the flexibility to handle something by phone or video call when an in-person visit isn't necessary.
• Cash-pay pricing for labs and imaging. DPC practices offer heavily discounted cash-pay pricing through vendor relationships, often at a fraction of what you'd pay through insurance.

For example, here's what that cash-pay pricing looks like for Cimri Medical members for some common labs and imaging:

Test

Member Price*

Comprehensive Metabolic Panel

$3.50

Complete Blood Count w/ differential

$5.67

Lipid Panel

$6.44

TSH/Free T4

$12.30

X-ray

$40–$85

Ultrasound

$80–$200

CT

$275–$350

MRI

$400–$600

*Rates are set by vendors and subject to change

While DPC can cover 80-90% of most people's everyday healthcare needs 2, it is not a replacement for insurance. Specialist care, ER visits, hospitalizations, and surgeries still typically require coverage alongside your DPC membership.

Curious what this could look like for you? Book a free intro call , we'd love to walk you through how it works. 

Common Questions

Isn't this just concierge medicine with a different name?

No. DPC offers a different value: it's a distinct model of direct care built for the everyday American, genuinely affordable, and built on total price transparency.

With concierge medicine, you pay a retainer, and your insurance still gets billed for your visits, labs, and imaging. That means you're still responsible for your usual copays and deductibles, on top of the retainer. You're effectively paying twice for "access."

With DPC, there's no second layer. Your monthly membership covers all of your primary care directly, with no insurance billing in between. And you get access to significantly discounted labs, medications, and imaging, which saves you money rather than adding another cost.

One more thing worth knowing: DPC comes with no gatekeeping. Want to see your current specialists, or use your preferred lab or imaging center? It's entirely up to you, we'll refer you there (though if you use insurance, the exact cost will depend on your specific plan, which we won't have visibility into). Don't have insurance, or don't want to use it? That's your choice too, we'll walk you through cash-pay pricing upfront, so you know the cost before you decide. At the end of the day, DPC's goal is transparency and true patient choice in your healthcare needs.

What does DPC not cover?

DPC covers the majority of people's everyday healthcare needs, but it isn't a replacement for insurance. Specialist visits, emergency care, hospitalizations, surgeries, and advanced imaging or procedures typically fall outside a DPC membership, and can come with real out-of-pocket costs without some form of coverage alongside it. That's why most DPC members pair their membership with a high deductible health plan, catastrophic plan, or another form of coverage for the bigger, less predictable stuff.

Do I still need health insurance if I have DPC?

We recommend some form of coverage matters for what DPC doesn't handle: emergency care, hospitalizations, specialists. That said, we know many people have been priced out of insurance entirely, and DPC still offers real, transparent primary care regardless of your insurance status.

Why would I pay a DPC membership fee if I'm already paying insurance premiums?

Because you're probably already paying for care you're afraid to use. You pay your premium every month, but when you actually need a doctor, you're stuck worrying about your copay, or whether you've hit your deductible yet. So even though you're paying for coverage, plenty of people put off routine care anyway, because the cost still feels unpredictable.

Here's the disconnect: your premium is mostly there for the big, unpredictable stuff, the ER visit, a surgery, a new chronic diagnosis. It was never really built for everyday primary care. But because that everyday primary care still gets run through the same insurance system, the price gets needlessly inflated along the way.

A DPC membership flips that. You pay your doctor directly, a low, predictable monthly cost, for care you never have to hesitate to use. Pairing a lower-premium plan, like a high-deductible health plan or catastrophic plan, with a low-cost DPC membership means real savings on your monthly premium, and unlimited access to the primary care you'll actually use, without the fear of "what's this going to cost me" every time you book a visit.

Why would I need DPC if I'm healthy and rarely see the doctor?

Fair question. There are really two different reasons someone might feel healthy: because they've genuinely stayed on top of checkups and screenings, or simply because nothing's surfaced yet, without much of that regular care to actually confirm it. Both can feel the same day to day, but they're not the same thing. DPC is built to support the first kind: real, ongoing preventive care, not just reacting once something's already wrong.

It's also worth thinking about the unexpected stuff: even healthy people get hit with a bad respiratory infection, a UTI, or a migraine that's suddenly worse than usual. When that happens, DPC means you're not paying inflated, unpredictable insurance pricing for a rushed visit, you know your costs upfront, with labs and imaging priced at a fraction of what you'd pay otherwise, from a doctor who already knows your history.

And day to day, DPC means real access to preventive care itself: same-day visits, an ongoing relationship with your doctor, and the kind of unhurried checkup that catches things a 15-minute annual physical usually doesn't have time for.

That said: if you genuinely never seek care of any kind, a monthly membership may not be the right fit for you specifically, and that's a legitimate call to make. DPC delivers the most value to people who want an ongoing relationship with their doctor, even if they don't expect to need it often.

A Different Way Forward 

If you've ever wished your doctor had more time to listen, wanted same-day access when you're sick, or found yourself avoiding care because you were worried about surprise costs, DPC offers a different approach. It restores something that has become increasingly rare in healthcare: a real relationship between you and your physician, and transparent costs so you know what everything costs before it happens.

Ready to see what this could like for you ? Book a free intro call  to learn more. 

References:

Abu Dabrh AM, Farah WH, et al. Determining Patient Panel Size in Primary Care: A Meta-Narrative Review. J Prim Care Community Health. 2025 Jan-Dec;16:21501319251321294. doi: 10.1177/21501319251321294. 

Olde Hartman TC, Bazemore A, et al. Developing measures to capture the true value of primary care. BJGP Open. 2021 Apr 26;5(2):BJGPO.2020.0152. doi: 10.3399/BJGPO.2020.0152.