OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) predicts spending on health care will increase by 5% this year.
The insurance that helps you pay those costs is getting more expensive too.
KFF found family health care premiums rose 6.7% from 2022 to 2023.
This leaves patients looking everywhere for affordable care.
When it comes to your primary care, Health Suite 110 in Overland Park doesn't feel health insurance should play a roll, so it offers direct primary care as a membership fee.
It's $30 a month for kids, and up to $100 a month for adults, which means patients know what they're paying up front.
Alix Thompson has been a patient with Health Suite 110 for seven years.
"With inflation like it is, even before inflation was like it is, we have to make really good decisions with our money," Thompson said. "I don't really feel great about giving my money away just in case."
For Alix, this direct primary care is a solution.
"I don't have to pay a copay whenever i come," she said. "My membership just is my copay."
For her $85-a-month membership, Alix gets unlimited in-person and virtual visits and phone calls with her doctor.
"I probably save $500 to $1000 a year, easily," she said.
For patients who may need scans or procedures that are outside of primary care, those will cost extra.
However, Health Suite 110 works with and negotiates with independent facilities for you to get those treatments at a reduced price.
For example, their patients can get a chest X-Ray for $42, a chest CT for $253, and a knee MRI for $348 through the facilities their clinic refers patients to.
Tests like those, especially when people have high insurance deductibles, can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
This is exactly why Dr. Kylie Vannaman founded Health Suite 110.
"I quickly realized the only way to provide a good, quality, full spectrum care that family medicine doctors know how to do was to take full control of it," she said. "And that included the payment side too."
Dr. Vannaman said she's watched people's care slip through the cracks when insurance is a factor.
"There were times I knew what someone needed, and it might just be a simple office procedure I could do in 2 minutes," she said. "But I've had patients not allow me to do it because they were worried about the cost of it."
Dr. Vannaman compares the simplicity of this to having car insurance.
She wonders why health insurance can't work the same way.
“Just think of what we’d have to do if you have to get permission from an insurance company to go to a certain gas station, or before a long trip, or before you can get your tires," she said. "That’s stuff we pay for out of pocket because it’s affordable and transparent and we can shop around.”
While patients like Alix choose to not have any health insurance, Dr. Vannaman does encourage some form of emergency coverage.
“You need to have something where you’re not going to go bankrupt if you have to go to the hospital, so we do really encourage our patients to have something," Dr. Vannaman said.
Beyond that, she said, it's simple.
"Health insurance has its place," Dr. Vannaman said. "We just don't think it's in primary care because it's affordable. If you take out all of the middle men and all those extra layers of bureaucracy, it doesn't have to be expensive."
