Merlin Direct Primary Care

Direct Primary Care is a membership model for your primary care. You pay the practice directly through a flat monthly fee, and that fee covers your care with me. There is no insurance billing for routine visits, no copays, and no surprise bills for what the membership includes. At Merlin, adult membership is $150 per month and children under 18 are $25 per month.

You pay the practice directly instead of a plan paying it on your behalf. Because I am not billing insurance for routine care, I am not coding visits, chasing claims, or writing notes for a payer rather than for you. That removes most of the administrative weight from primary care, and the time it frees goes back into appointments.

Yes. Direct Primary Care is not health insurance and it does not replace it. Your membership covers your primary care with me. You still need coverage for hospitalization, surgery, emergency care and specialist treatment. Most of my members keep an insurance plan for those things and use their membership for everything else.

Lab work, imaging, pathology and specialist care happen outside my office, so they are not part of the membership. I will tell you what they cost before you agree to anything. I can order them at negotiated cash prices, or you can take them to your own lab or imaging center and use your insurance plan there if you would rather. Either way you know the number in advance instead of finding out from a bill six weeks later.

Because the panel is smaller, and that is the whole mechanism. A traditional primary care doctor often carries two to three thousand patients and sees twenty or more in a day. A Direct Primary Care doctor carries a small fraction of that.

Traditional primary care Direct Primary Care How the doctor is paid Insurance billing per visit Flat membership fee Visit costs Copays, deductibles, surprise bills Included in the membership Appointment length 10 to 15 minutes 30 to 60 minutes Getting seen Often days or weeks Same day or next day by request Reaching your doctor Phone tree, portal, callback Phone and text, directly Panel size 2,000 to 3,000 patients A small fraction of that

They are related and they are not the same thing. Concierge practices usually keep billing insurance and charge a retainer on top, and those retainers often run into the thousands per year. Direct Primary Care replaces insurance billing for primary care with one straightforward fee, and that is what keeps it accessible. I practice Direct Primary Care.

It suits people who want predictable costs and a real relationship with their doctor.

Some of my healthiest members joined for access rather than treatment. They want prevention taken seriously, they want someone who will pick up the phone, and they would rather catch something early than manage it later. Health is not a static thing you either have or do not have. What you are buying is the attention that keeps it.