Private Direct Medicine Innovators

US healthcare is undergoing rapid changes in the face of new challenges and in response to continued advances in technology. Primary care — front-line diagnosis and prevention — remains a focus for innovation. Increased investments in primary care appear to be creat-ing improved health outcomes with lower overall healthcare expenditures.

The US healthcare landscape is changing. Healthcare investors and innovators want to create new approaches to primary care. Patients are always looking for the most convenient and cost-efficient way to receive care. Physicians seek new technologies to help manage the higher-communication and data-tracking care that plans are reimbursing. The pandemic fueled an explosion in telehealth. Many healthcare professionals are burned-out, and are exploring private direct practice models to create innovative services reimbursed wholly or in part by private direct patient fees. Businesses organize these practices and sell services to those professionals in exchange for fees (often that include shared gross revenues). The overlap of these various influences has resulted in many in-novations. As plans alone do not deliver all care and healthcare products desired by Americans, private direct healthcare (healthcare involving private direct patient fees for services and products) will continue to play an innovative role. The market is ripe for disruption. The current landscape demonstrates how innovative players can tap into unused economic potential while serving the healthcare needs of Americans. And innovators are not operating alone either: eleven healthcare organizations have recently formed Primary Care for America, a cooperative of private direct healthcare practices and physician organizations created to promote the importance of innovation in primary care.3 Whether you are a practitioner, investor, consumer, or perhaps even all of the above, the transformative efforts of private direct players are worth considering because they are changing the market in impactful ways.