“Concierge” healthcare isn’t just for wealthy folks anymore. Iowa-based Hy-Vee Health Exemplar Care designed an affordable Iowa direct primary care model, starting at $49 per mo! “The first response is, it sounds too good to be true. That’s actually sad. That’s part of what’s wrong with healthcare today,” says Carl Behn, co-founder. “It really is that easy, it really is that simple, and it really is that affordable.”
Everyone assumes access to a doctor is expensive, inefficient, and rushed so Behn often recommends they try it. “Oftentimes we might even give them a trial” he says. “Come feel what that experience feels like of what real healthcare should feel like for you.” 🤯
Iowa Direct Primary Care for all income levels
Behn and his team at Hy-Vee Health Exemplar Care aim to dismantle the friction points of modern medicine through a model known as Direct Primary Care (DPC), a model often considered to be concierge healthcare for the wealthy. Behn explains the current healthcare system is plagued by inefficiency—and that’s where he and his team found opportunity.
Traditionally, patients often wait weeks for an appointment only to receive a hurried, 30-second interaction. By contrast, his Iowa-based company utilizes a membership-based structure to restore the patient-provider relationship, offering unlimited access for a flat monthly fee starting around $49.
The trick: removing admin bloat
Behn argues that the healthcare industry has morphed away from its original intent. This shift has created a “machine” that forces providers to spend more time on data entry and reports than on care. Behn says they saw opportunity where other healthcare systems saw barriers. Hy-Vee Health Exemplar Care’s model removes the administrative barriers, focusing physician time on patient outcomes.
Even though they have 24/7 access for low-cost, because they focus on patient outcomes, their patients tend to stay out of the healthcare system. Turns out, focusing on health is a win/win for patients and the healthcare provider. Who woulda’ thunk it?
“It’s what you think healthcare should be,” Behn says regarding the simplicity of the model. “It’s time spent with your provider, it’s easily accessible, and you’re able to talk about the things that you want to talk about in an un-rushed way and in a way that your provider can drag kind of additional information out of you because they have that time to spend with you.”
People Don’t Believe Him
A significant hurdle for their DPC model is skepticism from a public accustomed to hidden costs. Behn acknowledges that the affordability of the service often strikes people as “too good to be true,” which he views as a sad indictment of the current status quo. To combat this, Hy-Vee Health Exemplar Care focuses on total transparency and direct communication via text, email, or telehealth.
“The end of the day, it’s just really making all the things that you do around healthcare super simple,” Behn explains. “We wanna fit within your life, and that’s been part of the healthcare problem is we expect people to fit into our world.”
The company is also expanding access through a partnership with Molina Healthcare, to improve preventative outcomes and reduce reliance on costly emergency rooms. Behn is candid about why this approach faces resistance from some industry incumbents. “There’s folks out there that would prefer that we didn’t open the curtain to show that there was a lot of middlemen that are involved,” he asserts. By bypassing these “middlemen,” Behn believes healthcare can finally return to being a tailored, human experience.
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