Doctors in Wyoming Advocate the Direct Primary Care Model

Doctors at the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Interim Committee meeting, testified as advocates for the direct primary care model in making family practices more viable for doctors and more accessible to patients. Doctors Mike Tracy and Bob Chandler, both of 307Health, and medical student Galen Mills told them about the new model and why it is as a viable means of increasing accessibility and reducing costs. This model allows doctors to be more accessible without having to worry about how their accessibility might fit into the current structure of third-party payment, thus patients, and not paperwork, become the priority. 
 
Under the current system, patients are viewed as a revenue stream and providers as producers of that revenue. To this point, Senator Charles Scott, R-Casper, said the current system tends to incentivize doctors and hospitals to do tests that are not necessary, because that is what they get paid most for. Scott views the direct primary care model as a solution to that problem. Under the new model, the patient and provider relationship is completely changed. Patients pay a monthly fee, which varies from $20-$75, and then have 24/7 access to their doctors via telephone, text or email, or by making traditional appointments without any additional fees. The direct primary care model focuses both on creating value and on moving away from relying on insurance to pay for routine medical care. The new model also makes primary care a fixed, predictable cost, allowing doctors to prioritize patients and not paperwork. 

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