Five surprising findings about the state of direct primary care

For more than a decade, physicians have cited $77 per month as the average price of a direct primary care (DPC) membership. A new national survey suggests that benchmark is now substantially out of date, as well as showing a few other unexpected findings.

The 2024 survey was commissioned by the Direct Primary Care Alliance (DPCA) and led by Kenneth Qiu, M.D., a family physician who launched his Richmond, Virginia, DPC practice directly out of residency. The survey received 465 physician responses, representing approximately 13% of the estimated 3,600 DPC practices in the United States.

While not a definitive census of every DPC practice, the DPCA survey offers one of the largest recent datasets describing how physicians are designing and operating their practices.

Find five findings that surprised even Qiu and his fellow survey committee members at medicaleconomics.com/view/five-surprising-findings-about-the-state-of-direct-primary-care

Music Credits
Medical Education by Art Media - stock.adobe.com

Editor's note: Episode timestamps and transcript produced using AI tools.

0:00 Cold open: what does a direct primary care membership actually cost, and what counts as a full panel?
0:57 Meet Kenneth Qiu, M.D.; Emily O'Rourke, M.D.; and Kelsey Smith, M.D.
1:46 Why the alliance ran the survey: testing word-of-mouth benchmarks against real numbers.
2:22 How the survey was designed, vetted and distributed across the DPC community.
3:16 Why 465 responses makes for a representative sample.
4:03 The response rate, the leading states and the Medicaid expansion pattern.
4:57 Women made up 67% of respondents, and why the model may appeal to them.
5:31 Specialty mix, and why nearly a quarter of respondents were osteopathic physicians.
7:03 An average owner age of 46, and Qiu on the "peak of despair."
8:13 The full-panel surprise: a sizable group calls 100 to 300 patients full.
8:43 O'Rourke on staying a micropractice by choice, not by default.
9:31 Panels that run from under 50 to more than 1,000.
10:10 Smith on why 1,000 patients turned out to be an overshoot.
11:00 What "full" really means, and O'Rourke's satiety analogy.
12:01 Staffing: more than 30% of respondents run with no staff at all.
12:40 Why O'Rourke outsources instead of hiring.
13:45 The case for a right-hand person, and Smith's 19-year medical assistant.
15:30 Pricing: the $77 benchmark gives way to $98.46 per month.
16:02 The "$50 or you're greedy" myth, and raising prices to match inflation.
16:49 How price splits by region, rural versus urban and panel size.
18:10 Qiu on why older rural practices price lowest.
19:08 Practice age against price point, and the newer practices charging more.
20:10 Pressure to raise prices, and Smith's move off age-based tiers.
21:02 The tiering breakdown: 76.4% tiered, 15% flat, the rest on family pricing.
21:31 Qiu on switching to family pricing to bring in whole households.
22:45 "If you've seen one DPC, you've seen one DPC."
23:39 Better questions than "how much should I charge?"
24:43 Where to read the survey, and sign-off.