What is direct primary care?
The short version: you pay your doctor's office directly, usually a flat monthly membership, instead of your doctor's office billing your insurance company for every visit. Here's what that actually changes.
Why skipping insurance makes it cost less, not more
It sounds backwards. Less bureaucracy should mean a smaller, thinner practice, not more time with your doctor for a lower price. Here's the part that doesn't make it into most pitches: billing insurance is expensive to run.
A typical primary care practice spends a real share of its staff time and budget on things that have nothing to do with your care: submitting claims, appealing denials, chasing prior authorizations, renegotiating reimbursement rates every year. None of that makes you healthier. All of it gets paid for somehow, usually by seeing more patients in less time to cover the overhead.
Direct primary care removes that layer. No claims department. No denied-claim appeals. No prior authorization fights. What's left is closer to the actual cost of your care, plus a doctor who isn't paid by how many patients she can move through in a day. That's the trade: a smaller patient panel and longer visits, funded by cutting administrative cost, not by charging more for the same thing.
What's included, and what you still need insurance for
A membership is not health insurance and doesn't replace it. It's worth being exact about where the line sits.
In your membership at Sorrel
- An hour for your first visit, then real time at every visit after
- Same or next day access, and direct call and text access to your doctor
- Prevention, chronic condition management, and care coordination
- Hormone therapy, prescribed and monitored
Still billed the usual way
- Hospital stays, ER visits, and surgery
- Specialist care outside your membership
- Labs, imaging, and prescriptions, still billed to your insurance, HSA, or FSA
- Catastrophic coverage, which is why most members keep a plan alongside their membership
What direct primary care typically costs
Figures vary by practice and region, but the general shape of DPC pricing nationally looks like this.
Source: healthinsurance.org, direct primary care glossary. See Sorrel's own membership pricing for exact numbers by age.
Still deciding if this is for you?
Fifteen minutes with Dr. Tierney, no cost and no pitch. Bring the skepticism. That's what the call is for.
Or call and text 206.202.6156