by Melissa Starry, Holland & Hart LLP
Direct Primary Care (“DPC”) is increasing in popularity in the United States as an alternative payment model for primary care medical services. Instead of fee-for-service insurance billing, typically a DPC medical provider enters into an agreement with its patients and charges its patients a monthly, quarterly, or annual fee that covers all or most primary care services. Given the fact that a DPC medical provider takes on a certain amount of risk in agreeing to provide primary care services to patients for a fixed amount (regardless of how often a patient is seen by the provider), there were concerns that such an arrangement could be interpreted under Idaho law as the provision of insurance. With the passage of the Idaho Direct Medical Care Act1 (the “Act”), and subsequent signing by Governor Butch Otter, Idaho is now the ninth state in the country to pass legislation to ensure that DPC medical providers are not treated as insurance products by state regulators. Continue reading