Montana Leading with Free Market Healthcare
By eliminating the middlemen and bureaucracy involved in billing third parties, DPC providers are able to save patients money and focus on their health while also being radically transparent with their prices – a breath of fresh air in today’s modern healthcare world.
We all know America’s government-dominated healthcare system is a mess. Complex prices, insane bureaucracy, insurance billing nightmares. Despite the billions in subsidies our government pumps into the system, accessing healthcare remains difficult for many.
But Montana is flipping the script. Reforms passed in 2021 by Gov. Greg Gianforte and the Montana legislature have expanded access to high quality, low cost healthcare options for thousands – not by growing government but by enabling the free market. New data shows that Montana now has a flourishing market of free market healthcare options.
In 2021, Gov. Gianforte signed SB 101, the most expansive authorization of Direct Patient Care (DPC) in the country, putting Montana on the map as the destination for healthcare entrepreneurs who embrace price transparency and free market principles.
DPC is an innovative free market health care model where patients bypass insurance to pay their healthcare provider directly with cash, usually in the form of a low cost membership similar to a gym membership. By eliminating the middlemen and bureaucracy involved in billing third parties, DPC providers are able to save patients money and focus on their health while also being radically transparent with their prices – a breath of fresh air in today’s modern healthcare world.
Prior to 2021, practitioners exploring the DPC model in Montana were actively targeted with threats of hostile regulation. Former Gov. Steve Bullock rejected DPC in 2015 and 2017, saying it “offers little or no added value”. Until 2017, state government’s position was that DPC would be regulated like insurance, imposing a heavy burden of red tape on those offering simple DPC memberships that don’t function as insurance products. This effectively iced the market.
Montana’s 2021 reforms provided these healthcare entrepreneurs certainty they wouldn’t be targeted with red tape for offering low cost DPC memberships. And unlike other states which limit DPC to only primary care, Montana codified maximum freedom for all healthcare entrepreneurs to innovate with the DPC model — doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and more.
Reform has led to a thriving market. According to Frontier Institute’s newly updated Free Market Healthcare Hub at least 32 providers now operate primarily with the DPC model in Montana, quadruple the number of DPC practices operating in 2021. An estimated 12,000 Montanans now access affordable, high quality healthcare via DPC.
DPC providers have opened up shop in urban areas like Billings, Helena, and Kalispell, and also serve more rural areas like Polson, Lincoln, and Eureka. While most clinics are focused on general primary care needs, others are specialized to provide things like diabetes care, sports medicine, or natural medicine.
The average membership fee for unlimited access to comprehensive primary care at a Montana DPC clinic is just $87/month, helping to put the cost of accessing care in reach of uninsured patients or those struggling with high deductibles.
Despite low costs, the quality is top notch. Research shows that DPC’s minimal administrative bureaucracy enables providers to form a stronger relationship with their patient, which in turn helps prevent expensive ER visits down the road. Many Montana DPC practitioners pride themselves in being able to operate like the old-school country doctors, truly getting to know their patients and even doing house calls.
Another perk: all 32 DPC clinics in Montana embrace radical price transparency by posting the real cost of services upfront on their website — not just estimates.
Our lawmakers in Helena deserve serious praise for passing reforms which have enabled thousands of Montanans to opt-out of the government-dominated third party healthcare system and retake control of their own family’s healthcare decisions.
Check out the Free Market Healthcare Hub today to learn more about DPC in Montana.