Direct Primary Care (DPC)

Direct Primary Care (DPC) is a primary-care delivery model where the patient (or the employer) pays the primary-care practice a flat monthly membership fee — typically $50 to $150 per person per month — for unlimited primary-care visits, telemedicine, basic labs, and generic medications, with no claim ever filed to insurance. The DPC clinic doesn't take insurance for its own services, which eliminates the administrative overhead of billing, coding, and denials.

The model has grown quickly, particularly in Texas, where DPC clinics like Nextera Healthcare (active in Texas), Iora, and dozens of independent practices have expanded. DPC pairs naturally with a high-deductible health plan or with a supplemental insurance product: the DPC handles most primary-care encounters flat-fee, and the insurance covers hospital, specialty, and catastrophic care. Because the DPC clinic has no billing overhead, each physician typically manages 400 to 800 patients instead of the 2,500 to 3,500 typical of insurance-based primary care, which means longer visits, same-day appointments, and direct texting or video access to the physician. Some self-funded employers contract directly with DPC networks as an embedded plan benefit, with the employer paying the monthly membership fee for all employees. The IRS has ruled that DPC memberships alone don't disqualify HSA eligibility as long as the DPC contract is structured correctly (essentially not covering broad medical services beyond the primary-care scope).

The takeaway: if you have access to a DPC clinic in your area and are on an HDHP, the monthly membership often pays for itself in eliminated urgent-care visits and specialist referrals — plus the care experience is dramatically better than typical insurance-based primary care.