How Direct Primary Care Works

You don’t use car insurance for gas and oil changes; why do you use health insurance for your day-to-day healthcare?

The problem: Insurance was built for catastrophes. We’ve forced it to handle hangnails.

Picture running your car insurance through every oil change and tire rotation. You’d file a claim to top off the wiper fluid. A clerk three states away would decide whether it was covered. The shop would pad its prices to survive the paperwork, and your premium would climb to pay for all of it.

That’s how American primary care works today. A fifteen-minute visit passes through coders, clearinghouses, and prior-authorization desks before anyone gets paid. The doctor answers to the insurer, not to you. Then, to stay afloat, the doctor must see a patient every few minutes.

So how does Direct Primary Care fix it?

Remove the middleman. Keep the medicine.

One flat membership. You pay a simple monthly fee directly to the practice. No copays, no coding, no claims. The price is the price, the way it should have been all along.

Direct access. Same- or next-day visits that last as long as they need to. Call, text, or email your doctor directly. We keep a small panel on purpose, so there’s room for you.

Wholesale pricing. Medications, labs, and imaging at our negotiated cost, which is frequently less than 10% of what you’d pay through insurance. We show you the number before you ever owe it.

The math checks out. A couple of sick visits and one round of labs in the traditional system can run more than a year of membership here.

What about catastrophes?

This is the single most important thing to understand. Direct primary care handles 80-90% of the care you actually use. It is built to sit alongside coverage for the rare, expensive emergency, not to replace it. Think of your health spending in two layers:

Everyday care (~90%): your Palisade membership. Checkups, sick visits, chronic-condition management, most labs and imaging, in-house medications, urgent questions at 9pm. The frequent, predictable care that makes up the vast majority of your medical life.

Rare catastrophe (~10%): your catastrophic coverage. The broken leg, the ER trip, the surgery, the cancer diagnosis, the long hospital stay. Infrequent, but financially ruinous without protection.

The smart pairing: a Palisade membership for everything routine, plus a high-deductible health plan or a healthshare to catch the catastrophe. Because the everyday care is already handled here, many members can move to a leaner, lower-premium catastrophic plan (and often spend less overall than they did on traditional insurance alone).

Your catastrophic options

Two common ways to cover the big bills.

Option A — High-deductible health plan

A real insurance plan with a lower premium and a higher deductible. It does little for routine care, and it was never supposed to. That’s why it pairs so well with us. You’re insuring the disaster, not the doctor’s visit.

Often qualifies for a Health Savings Account (HSA)
As of 2026, HSA funds can be used to pay DPC membership dues
Counts as ACA-compliant major medical coverage

Option B — Healthshare membership

A cost-sharing community where members pool funds to cover large medical bills. Typically has a substantially lower monthly cost than insurance, with its own rules on eligibility and what’s shareable.

Lower monthly cost for many healthy households
Pairs naturally with a DPC membership for routine care
Not insurance. Before signing up, it’s important to review how the plan works

We’re not insurance brokers and don’t sell either product, but we’ll happily talk through how a Palisade membership fits with whichever catastrophic option you choose. The right pairing depends on your family, your health, and your budget. Please reach out if you need any clarification.

Our partner for catastrophic events

Palisade Direct Primary Care partners with Zion HealthShare, a cost-sharing community built for people who’ve stepped outside the traditional insurance system. Not only does Zion work for great to help patients pay the big medical bills, but they also partner specifically with Direct Primary Care clinics across the country. Zion offers discounted rates to DPC patients (because they know people in a DPC are going to be spending less money than those in the traditional system).

Zion exists to help families and individuals handle the big, unpredictable medical bills (the surgery, the ER trip, the hospital stay) without traditional insurance, and typically at less than half the monthly cost. Pair it with a Palisade membership and you’ve covered both layers: everyday care handled here, catastrophes shared through Zion.

While Zion is a religious organization, you can be a member of Zion no matter your religious affiliation.

I believe in Zion so much that it’s what I personally use for my family – Dr. Allen