Traditional health insurance provides important financial protection, but having health insurance is not always the same thing as having timely access to healthcare. Employees may still struggle to find a primary-care provider, wait weeks for an appointment, or turn to other sites of care when they cannot get timely help from their PCP.
Direct Primary Care (DPC) for employers offers a way to close that access gap. Rather than replacing health insurance, DPC can help an employer’s existing healthcare investment work better by giving employees reliable access to primary care through a monthly membership.
At Resolute Integrative Health’s employee benefits program, the goal is to make healthcare more accessible and predictable for employees while simplifying benefits for employers. For teams in Rogue River, Medford, Grants Pass, and across Southern Oregon, DPC can complement existing benefits or stand on its own as a high-value access benefit for a very small team.
What is Direct Primary Care for employers?
Direct Primary Care is a membership-based primary-care model. An employer, employee, or a combination of both pays a predictable monthly membership fee to a primary-care practice. In return, members receive the primary-care services included in that membership without routine insurance billing for those services.
For an employer, that creates a different benefit conversation. Instead of explaining deductibles, copays, in-network rules, and claim statements for everyday primary care, you can offer a clear path to a provider when routine health needs arise.
Direct Primary Care is not health insurance and does not replace coverage for emergencies, hospitalization, major surgery, or specialty care. A useful way to think about the two is that insurance provides financial protection for larger and less predictable medical expenses, while DPC gives employees a reliable place to start for everyday healthcare needs. An employer may already be making a substantial investment in health insurance; DPC is designed to make primary care easier for employees to actually access.
If your team is new to the model, start with this guide to how DPC works alongside insurance.
Why accessible primary care can be a valuable employee benefit
A benefit only helps when people understand and use it. With DPC, employees have a familiar place to turn for preventive care, acute concerns, follow-up questions, and ongoing health support.
For employees, that can mean:
- Faster access to care: Employees have a direct path to their primary-care team when a health question comes up.
- A more personal care relationship: More time for conversations can help employees feel heard and supported.
- Predictable access to routine primary care: A monthly membership makes the primary-care component of the benefit easier to understand.
- Less billing friction for included care: Employees do not navigate a routine insurance claim or copay for every included visit.
- A benefit designed for everyday healthcare needs: DPC is built for the routine and ongoing health needs that people encounter throughout the year.
Employees may still need insurance or another financial protection strategy for services outside primary care. But a trusted relationship can make the next step easier when a common health concern arises.
What employers gain from a simpler model
Small-business owners do not need another benefit that creates more paperwork and uncertainty. A DPC membership provides a known monthly cost for a defined primary-care relationship while giving employees a reliable place to turn for everyday healthcare needs.
Employer DPC is built around providing access across an eligible employee population rather than predicting how much healthcare each individual employee will use. Some employees may need primary care frequently in a given year, while others may need very little. The employer is not purchasing a set number of visits for each person; the investment creates reliable primary-care access and capacity across the eligible workforce.
Put another way: You’re not paying for how many times each employee walks through the door. You’re paying to make sure the door is there when any of them needs it.
This approach is becoming an increasingly important part of the DPC model. According to Hint Health’s 2026 DPC Trends Report, 60% of active DPC memberships tracked by Hint Health are now employer-funded1, marking the first time employer-sponsored memberships represent the majority in its data.
The employer is not responsible for managing employees’ medical care. Resolute works with each employer to structure a solution around the team’s size, needs, and budget while maintaining the privacy of the individual patient-provider relationship.
Potential business value includes:
- Support employee health and productivity: Accessible care gives employees a place to address health needs.
- Help reduce missed workdays: Timely access may make it easier to seek care without an all-day healthcare task.
- Strengthen retention conversations: A thoughtful, usable healthcare benefit signals that you value employees’ time and well-being.
- Create a predictable benefits line item: A monthly membership can be easier to budget for.
- Make benefits easier to explain: Employees can understand what a membership is for and how to begin using it.
These are potential advantages, not guarantees. Results depend on your team, participation, available coverage, and how employees use care.
Ways DPC can fit into an employee benefits strategy
The best approach depends on your team’s size, budget, current benefits, and healthcare needs.
Add DPC to existing benefits
Some employers add DPC to existing benefits. The membership gives employees a reliable primary-care home while current coverage remains available for care outside the practice.
Because included primary-care services are provided through the membership rather than billed through the traditional fee-for-service insurance process, employees have a direct path to primary care without generating a separate insurance claim for each included service.
Pair DPC with select ACA-compliant plans
Resolute can work alongside select ACA-compliant plans that support the membership model. The DPC membership supports everyday primary care while the medical plan addresses covered services beyond the practice.
Before implementing a combined approach, review plan documents and confirm coordination with your broker, benefits administrator, or qualified advisor.
In this structure, insurance and DPC serve different but complementary purposes: the health plan provides broader financial protection, while the DPC membership provides accessible everyday primary care.
Pair DPC with a health share
Some employers and employees explore DPC alongside a health-sharing arrangement. Health shares are not insurance, and rules, eligibility, and sharing practices can vary. Employers should understand the limitations before presenting a health share as a benefits option.
Offer DPC as a standalone benefit
For very small teams, DPC can stand alone as a meaningful healthcare-access benefit when a traditional group plan is not practical or the employer wants to begin with a manageable benefit.
Standalone does not mean comprehensive medical coverage. It means direct primary-care access, a more personal care relationship, and predictable routine-care support.
How to build a right-sized plan for your team
When you talk with Resolute about an employer DPC arrangement, start with these questions:
- What do we want employees to gain? Define whether the priority is easier primary-care access, a more competitive benefits package, or clearer routine-care support.
- What is our eligible employee population? Employer pricing is structured around providing access across an eligible workforce rather than selectively enrolling employees based on anticipated healthcare use. Resolute can help define the appropriate eligible population and discuss whether dependent or family access should be incorporated into the benefit.
- How will the membership be funded? Explore employer-funded, employee-paid, or shared-cost approaches. Review payroll, tax, and benefits implications with qualified professionals.
- How will DPC coordinate with other coverage? Make sure employees understand what the membership does and does not cover.
- How will employees learn to use the benefit? Explain who to contact, how to schedule, what is included, and when to use insurance or urgent/emergency care.
What if some employees rarely use healthcare?
That is expected in a population-based DPC model. One employee may need several visits and ongoing support in a particular year, while another may need only preventive care. Employer DPC is not priced around every employee using the same amount of healthcare.
Instead, the employer is purchasing reliable primary-care access across the eligible workforce. Healthy employees have a primary-care relationship available when they need it, while employees who need more support can access care without changing the employer’s monthly membership structure.
Resolute helps you build a solution around your team. You can also review current membership options and pricing as you evaluate your budget.
DPC, HSA planning, and other employer questions
Employers often ask how DPC may fit with an HSA-eligible plan. The IRS confirms that Public Law 119-21 was enacted July 4, 2025 and began Jan. 1, 2026, enrollment in a qualifying DPC service arrangement no longer automatically prevents an otherwise eligible person from contributing to an HSA, and HSA funds can be used tax-free for qualifying periodic DPC fees. There are specific statutory requirements and fee limits for purposes of HSA contribution eligibility.2
For a plain-language overview, see Can You Use an HSA for a Direct Primary Care Membership?. For employer-sponsored benefits, work with a benefits professional or tax advisor before making payroll, contribution, or plan-design decisions.
Give your team a benefit they can use
Providing health insurance is an important investment in your employees, but coverage alone does not always guarantee timely access to everyday healthcare. DPC can help close that gap by giving employees an established primary-care relationship and a clear place to turn when they need care.
For Southern Oregon employers, that means investing not in a predetermined number of visits, but in reliable primary-care access across the workforce—while allowing health insurance or other coverage to continue doing what it is designed to do for larger medical needs.
Schedule an employee-benefits consultation with Resolute Integrative Health to design a right-sized plan for your team in Southern Oregon.
Sources:
- Hint Health. “2026 DPC Trends Report.” 2026. Accessed Aug. 18, 2026. https://get.hint.com/hubfs/2026%20Hint%20Health%20DPC%20Trends%20Report.pdf
- Internal Revenue Service. “Treasury, IRS Provide Guidance on New Tax Benefits for Health Savings Account Participants Under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill.” Accessed Aug. 18, 2026. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/treasury-irs-provide-guidance-on-new-tax-benefits-for-health-savings-account-participants-under-the-one-big-beautiful-bill
