Direct primary care

Fast forward a little bit, I've had some interesting consulting roles over the past couple of years.

And currently I'm doing direct primary care in addition to advocacy work and obviously involved with creating a documentary, Sucking Up Buttercup.

So hopefully that gives you a

little bit of background.

A physician in the prime of their career going from seeing at my peak probably 6,000 visits a year to zero is a big hit to that local community's healthcare delivery.

Yeah.

And so to be able to come back in a model like with, you know, with Plum Health doing direct primary care, and granted, I'm not seeing the volume I was seeing before.

You should.

Direct primary care is an innovative alternative path to insurance-driven healthcare.

Typically, a patient pays their doctor a low monthly membership and, in return, builds a lasting relationship with their doctor and has their doctor available at their fingertips.

Welcome to the My DPC Story podcast, where each week you will hear the ever so relatable stories shared by physicians who have chosen to practice medicine in their individual communities through the direct primary care model.

I'm your host, Marielle Concepcion, family physician, DPC owner, and former fee-for-service doctor.

I hope you enjoy today's episode and come away feeling inspired about the future of patient care, direct primary care.

Welcome to open enrollment season.

I know, I know, we don't take insurance.

And we're gonna dive into some details from the report.

Just a quick note on terminology, a moment ago we had talked a little bit about some of the alphabet soup of healthcare, and a lot of times people talk about direct primary care with the abbreviation DPC.

We'll use both terms in our discussion today.

And before we dive into the report, can you introduce yourself and talk about your medical practice?

The other three are all friends of mine, and we're spread out across, uh, two of the neighborhoods in Richmond, so two offices.

My journey in direct primary care started actually when I was a fourth-year med student.

Uh, I've always been interested in the health system, and somebody told me about DPC in my fourth year, and it was just a breath, a breath of fresh air when I went to Summit.

You know, everywhere else everyone's like, "Oh, this is broken, that's broken.

There's a, this...

How do I wanna say this? There's this frustration or anger, dismay in the direct primary care community that, oh my gosh, concierge is so bad.

Well, patients know what concierge is, and patients associate concierge with high-quality care.

That's concierge-

I think on a lot of patients that just go to Google and say, "Concierge doctor", and they don't know the difference.

Yeah.

They've never heard of direct primary care before.

Yeah, I think DPC is better than concierge, and I do not agree with charging patients 20,000, $100,000 a year or these outlandish things.

Direct primary care is an innovative alternative path to insurance-driven healthcare.

Typically, a patient pays their doctor a low monthly membership and, in return, builds a lasting relationship with their doctor and has their doctor available at their fingertips.

Welcome to the My DPC Story podcast, where each week you will hear the ever so relatable stories shared by physicians who have chosen to practice medicine in their individual communities through the direct primary care model.

I'm your host, Marielle Concepcion, family physician, DPC owner, and former fee-for-service doctor.

I hope you enjoy today's episode and come away feeling inspired about the future of patient care, direct primary care.

Happy year six anniversary.

So, you know, it's not a bad thing.

So tell us about your guys' updates.

I'm joined by Dr. Alia Gupta, a board-certified family physician with more than 25 years of experience across academic medicine, large healthcare systems, community clinics, and private practice.

She is the founder of Family First Direct Primary Care, a practice she created on her own to give patients greater access, longer appointments, and a real relationship with the doctor caring for them.

Alia, you've said the problem isn't that doctors don't care, it's that the healthcare system is forcing us to be rushed.

What do you mean by that? What was your experience before you started your own direct primary care clinic, and what is it that you really wanted to change when you started your own practice?

Well, Pam, as you know, I am pretty old, have been around the block, and have been practicing-

Old and bold.

Exactly.

You just kind of grind through it.

And folks, probably no surprise to you, that's not going to the doctors directly.

There's a And that's what I love about, you know, DPC.

I don't think we've done ourselves any favors by calling it direct primary care because most patients

have no idea what primary care is.

I agree with most of what you say.

I'm going to come at it from a different direction because, you know, I disagree on how we finance everything that you're talking about, whether it's out of my pocket to whoever else needs it or it's a government issue.

You know, subsidy or, hey, can we make the market conditions that allow this to happen? And I think in DPC, what you're seeing right now is kind of an industry flying under the radar that's doing everything that you're just talking about, probably in spite of government policy, not because of government policy.

And so I'm like, well, let's pump the brakes when we say, hey, government needs to get in here or however you want to talk about, you know, providing a universal primary care.

You know, healthcare is costing employers and employees more every year, yet quality primary care has become increasingly difficult to access and navigate.

Direct primary care is emerging as a different approach to that old model, one designed to restore access, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship, and make primary care work the way it should for the patient.

So joining us today to explore the history, emergence, and potential for direct primary care is Dan Thompson, the Chief Benefits Officer at Venture Employer Solutions and a longtime advocate for DPC.

Dan, welcome to HR Imperial 2.0.

Thank you for

And you're right, I'm a veteran, so I love the 250-year mark for our country.

So, Dan, you bring up that great point about liberating people from some of the You know, one of the things that I think this angst that is, to Julie's point, amongst employers and employees, I know I even feel it.

That's why I sought out a DPC is is just this.

Hi, this is Dr. Amanda Orpeza in Spokane, Washington.

I met Dr. Mariel Concepcion in New Orleans this year at the DPC Summit, and I just wanted to share that I am launching on October 5th, and I already have 10 patients signed up and six already scheduled appointments, and I'm just so excited.

I'm really connecting with the community part of my residency, which is called Family and Community Medicine, and I have several community partners there.

and referral pathways set up for the people I really want to take care of, which includes people living with HIV and transgender folks and the LGBTQ community.

Direct primary care is an innovative alternative path to insurance driven health care.

Typically, a patient pays their doctor a low monthly membership and in return builds a lasting relationship with their doctor and has their doctor available at their fingertips.

Welcome to the My DPC Story podcast, where each week you will hear the ever so relatable stories shared by physicians who have chosen to practice medicine in their individual communities through the direct primary care model.

I'm your host, Mariel Concepcion, family physician, DPC owner, and former fee-for-service doctor.