DIRECT PRIMARY CARE Cutting out the middleman | GJSentinel.com The future of primary care.

Dr. Craig Gustafson can remember back a few years when he was seeing 20-25 patients per day. He spent hours doing paperwork to send to insurance companies to justify the charges for each visit and what he felt was little time practicing actual medicine.

After 10 years at a private primary care practice, he left to pursue another model and founded Appleton Clinics, a direct primary care office that charges patients a monthly fee for unlimited visits and doesn’t use insurance.

“I felt the traditional medical system, at least for primary care, was not serving and primarily focused on the needs of patients. We were ultimately responsible to insurance companies instead of the patient in front of us,” Gustafson said.

Do you want a doctor visit where you don’t feel the doctor is in a rush? Where you’re not anxious that you have to review everything in a small 15 or 20 minute window? Where the doctor aggressively helps reduce your medical costs with access to low cost medications and referrals to low cost labs and hi-tech imaging? That your yearly physical is included in your monthly fee?

The you should give serious consideration to finding a Direct Primary Care practice.

It’s definitely working for some Grand Junction doctors…

“For me, I felt like I wasn’t getting enough time with patients until now,” Boyer said. “I want a way to make money in this model without compromising our product.”

Between them, the clinics now treat thousands of Grand Valley residents and are showing steady growth as direct primary care practices, gaining new members and hiring doctors in what has become a more popular way to handle primary care across the country during the last 15 years.

It’s also interesting that the patient demographics have turned out differently than expected…

The type of patients who have come to use direct primary care has surprised Gustafson. He initially expected more financially well-off patients who could afford to spend extra money on primary care to have better access to their doctor while still being on Medicare if older or visit his office in addition to having insurance for everything else.

In reality, both Appleton and Trailhead have seen a wide range of patients: families with one or multiple income providers working for small employers, self-employed patients and lower-income citizens. Twenty to 30 percent are on Medicaid, although Gustafson said Appleton does not keep records on insurance providers.

For Medicaid patients, the issue is most likely that they qualify for the service, but have been unable to find a primary care doctor and can still afford the $69-$89 monthly fee, especially if they have some health issues that require more frequent visits.

Read the whole thing. Although this article is about Grand Junction, there are DPC practices in the Front Range area as well. Visit directprimarycare.org to search for a practice. I’ve been using a DPC doctor for at least almost 3 years now and am very pleased.