Frequently Asked Questions for Employers

DIRECT PRIMARY CARE provides better care at a lower cost

Healthcare today costs too much money for one basic reason.

There’s an epidemic of resource overutilization. Too many people go to the ER for non-emergent issues their primary care doctor should have managed. Too many people get referred for tests and to specialists for issues their primary care doctor could have figured out. Too many people get hospitalized for conditions that should never have been allowed to become serious. The fee-for-service model incentivizes this type of behavior and sets up primary care doctors to fail by forcing them to care for too many patients with too little time to do it.

How will our company benefit from signing up our employees with an ImagineMD physician?

Whether insuring through a third-party health insurance company (by paying a flat insurance premium) or self-insuring (by paying employee medical charges directly and insuring for catastrophic expenses with stop-loss insurance), all employers want: 1) easy and quick access to healthcare for their employees to reduce employee dissatisfaction, 2) quality healthcare for their employees to reduce absenteeism and improve productivity, and 3) lower cost healthcare to reduce employer expense. The direct primary care model is uniquely suited to provide all three benefits (read about the evidence for this here).

Are the fees tax deductible?

Yes. If you pay the fees for your employees, they’re a business expense, like any other.

Are there creative ways for us to finance ImagineMD’s physician fees?

You could choose to pay our physicians’ fees in their entirety for your employees. If you happen to be switching from a low-deductible plan to a high-deductible plan to reduce premiums, you could fund the payment from premium savings.
If you offer an HSA or HRA, you could redirect those funds from those buckets to pay our monthly fees.
You could choose to deduct the entire cost of our monthly fees from your employees’ paychecks (pre-tax dollars for them).
You could choose to cost share our monthly fees with your employees by deducting their portion from their paychecks (still pre-tax dollars for them).
You could introduce our physicians to your employees to allow them to sign up on their own individually, paying for our physicians’ services out of their taxable income.
If you’re currently self-insured, the overutilization savings are generally greater than our monthly fees.

How can ImagineMD physicians help us decrease absenteeism and increase productivity?

Identifying and treating problems early keeps employees healthy and functioning optimally. Further, the direct primary care model has been shown to significantly reduce unnecessary healthcare utilization, which decreases absenteeism. Direct primary care, or concierge medicine, also reduces delays in getting access to care, which decreases the likelihood of minor problems becoming major ones that more significantly compromise employee health and productivity.

How can we position an ImagineMD physician as a benefit to our employees?

Direct primary care practices across the country have significantly higher patient satisfaction and engagement rates than in traditional fee-for-service primary care because patients get unprecedented access to their primary care physicians and, as a result, superior care. By partnering with an ImagineMD physician, you’re able to offer your employees primary care the way it could be and should be.

Frequently Asked Questions for Employers

DIRECT PRIMARY CARE provides better care at a lower cost