Two recent DPC brags fit together in a telling way.
Nextera Healthcare reported non-risk-adjusted claims data indicating that employees of a Colorado school district who selected Nextera’s DPC option had total costs that were 30% lower than those who selected a traditional insurance option. But that employer’s benefit package confers huge cash advantages (up to $1787) on risky, older patients if they choose the non-DPC option.
Comes now DirectAccessMD with a report of non-risk-adjusted claims data that employees of a South Carolina county who select a DPC option have percentage cost “savings” that are less than half of those shown for Nextera, a mere 14% lower than those who selected a traditional insurance option. But that employer’s benefit package design has an opposite effect to Nextera’s, conferring a significant cash advantages on risky, older patients if they choose DPC option. (And, good on the County and the DPC for it!)
Nextera’s program works to push risky, older patients away from DPC; DirectAccessMD’s program welcomes them. Pushing the sick and old away helps boost Nextera’s corporate brag to more than double that of DirectAccessMD who, proudly, invite the same people in — even if it makes them appear less successful.
Even without a fancy actuarial analysis, or even a basic one based on patient demographics, it’s apparent that most of Nextera’s brag is merely selection bias artifact masquerading as Nextera DPC cost-effectiveness.
Is DirectAccessMD’s clinic free of selection bias? Not at all. Selection bias can also arise when older and/or riskier patients make enrollment decisions based on differences in access to physicians of their choice. Older, riskier patients tend to cling to a long-standing PCP rather than select from the relative few offered by DirectAccessMD. Think of this as a primary care form of cherry-picking by narrow-networking .
We have learned that Anderson County’s DPC patients are 2.7 years younger than their non-DPC counterparts. Applying CMS risk adjustment coefficients for age and sex reduces DirectAccessMD’s “savings” from 14% to 2% .
If you would like to bet that the age difference between the two Nextera school groups discussed above is less than 2.7 years, please use the contact form. I’ll be right there.
DPC Referee 