Liberated from Insurance? Part 3- Direct Pay Doctors

In Part 1: I told you that our family is dropping insurance and why.
In Part 2: I told you about Samaritan Ministries.

So what about all that stuff that isn’t covered by Samaritan’s Ministries? You can really pay a lot of money for doctor visits and even the high deductible insurances negotiate costs for you. Don’t worry, I have a plan for that too. There are a growing number of doctors that are getting tired of insurance. Filing insurance is a headache and when the insurance is done negotiating costs, they don’t make that much anyway. Most doctors actually have to pay someone a salary to do nothing but work with insurance companies. These doctors are finding they can offer health care cheaper by not accepting insurance and listing their prices where their patients can see them.

Once such group of practices within driving distance of our family, charges $50 per visit which is exactly what our high deductible insurance negotiated our cost down to per appointment when our oldest FindingOurWay went to the doctor for an ear infection last year. They also have a “discount card” that can be purchased for $399/person. This allows you to visit the doctor for $20/appointment and includes a lot of basic labs plus a comprehensive physical once a year. I recently had one of the labs included in this physical done and the test cost $500 before insurance negotiated it down.

If we chose to purchase the card for each member of our family we’d pay approximately $2000 per year.  We actually aren't planning to purchase a card, that's just if we did.