No, but we recommend you have some form of insurance to cover unplanned emergencies in your health. Due to the low monthly fee, membership-style payment plan, DPC eliminates the expense of a full-coverage insurance plan. High Deductible Plans also known as Catastrophic/ “Wrap around” plan is still recommended and required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, DPC replaces the need for a high deductible, full-coverage plan with a plan insurance was made for- covering catastrophes.
Full-coverage insurance plans are normally twice the cost of a stripped down catastrophic insurance plan. Consider this: your car insurance is reserved for severe damages, not for maintenance like oil changes and tire rotations. Your health insurance should be the same. Reserve your plan’s deductibles for severities and pay for your health’s maintenance out of pocket. Thereby reducing your overall cost of healthcare by thousands of dollars each year. Most People enjoy an average savings of 30-60% on healthcare costs. Savings include eliminated co-pays and deductibles for primary care services and reduced cost of medication, imaging and labs.
DPC helps patients like you invest your money directly into monthly and yearly checkups. It improves your access to general health checkups, helping you invest in your healthcare more regularly – avoiding the “sick care” that results from a lack of frequent visits and checkups with a primary care physician.
In fact, a study by JABFM found that more than 50% of one DPC provider’s patients had fewer emergency/hospital visits after transferring to their DPC system.
While most patients can be cared for at the primary care level, if your medical needs expand to outside specialists in the case of emergencies, you will need to use your catastrophic insurance plan. We can arrange for specialty care physicians with custom, discounted rates depending on the circumstances of the emergency.