DPC's First National Patient Experience Benchmark: What the Data Shows

Industry News by DPC Insider
#patient experience#Hint Health#benchmark#PCPCM#NPS#patient satisfaction#DPC quality
Sources: Hint Health Releases New Benchmark Report Measuring the Patient Experience in Direct Primary Care · 2026 DPC Patient Experience Benchmark Report — Hint Health

DPC has spent years publishing numbers about how it grows. Practice counts, membership totals, employer adoption rates, burnout reductions. All of them describe the industry from the inside.

Hint Health’s 2026 DPC Patient Experience Benchmark Report is something different: the first systematic national measurement of what patients actually experience in DPC. Released in February, it applies a validated clinical quality tool to DPC at a scale no one has done before.

The short answer is patients like it. The longer answer is more useful.

The Tool They Used

The benchmark uses the Person-Centered Primary Care Measure, or PCPCM, a survey instrument developed by primary care researchers and now recognized by CMS as a national clinical quality measure. The PCPCM is a validated tool built specifically to evaluate primary care from the patient’s perspective, not a consumer satisfaction survey.

The PCPCM evaluates four domains, known as the 4Cs:

  • First contact / access: Can you reach your doctor when you need care?
  • Comprehensiveness: Does your doctor address your whole health picture?
  • Coordination: Does your doctor help navigate referrals and outside care?
  • Continuity: Do you have a durable, ongoing relationship with one doctor who knows you?

Hint surveyed 1,534 DPC patients across 12 clinics over 14 months, spanning eight states: California, Colorado, Florida, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington. The full report is the first to apply this measure systematically to DPC practices at national scale.

What the Numbers Show

The total PCPCM score across the full sample was 89%.

The domain breakdown:

  • Contact / access: 97%. Patients could reach their doctor. The model delivering on its most basic promise.
  • Comprehensiveness: 90%. Patients felt their full health picture was addressed, not just the presenting complaint.
  • Coordination: 88%. Patients reported meaningful help navigating referrals and specialist care.
  • Continuity: 82%. Patients felt a stable, ongoing relationship with one provider.

Traditional fee-for-service primary care typically scores in the 55-75% range on comparable instruments, depending on practice size and population. An 89% composite represents a meaningful gap.

Then there’s the Net Promoter Score: 85.

NPS is a single-question loyalty measure asking how likely patients are to recommend their doctor. Scores above 70 are considered excellent. Apple typically runs around 72. Costco, one of the most loyalty-dense retail brands in the country, runs near 79. An 85 puts DPC above both. Most patients are recommending their doctor.

“Primary care is not a transaction,” said Hint Health CEO Zak Holdsworth. “It’s a relationship.”

The 85 NPS is the evidence behind that claim.

The Score Worth Watching

The 97% access score confirms what DPC physicians already know about their model: patients can get through. Same-day appointments, direct text lines, responses within hours. Access is the first thing DPC physicians advertise, and the data confirms it’s landing.

Continuity scored lowest at 82%. That number needs context.

The report found a direct correlation between the length of a physician relationship and continuity scores. Patients who had been with their DPC doctor longer scored continuity higher. New patients started lower.

That’s intuitive. It’s also the business argument for patient retention embedded in clinical measurement data. Continuity in DPC isn’t something you build once at launch. It compounds over years. A patient three years in has experienced something a six-month member hasn’t. The PCPCM data reflects that difference.

The model promises a different kind of relationship. The benchmark confirms that building one takes time.

What This Means

If you’re a physician considering DPC, this report gives you something concrete to show potential patients and employers who ask what a membership actually delivers. An 89% PCPCM score and an 85 NPS belong in a slide deck. They hold up in benefit committee presentations and practice valuation conversations.

If you’re already running a DPC practice, the continuity finding is the one to pay attention to. Year-one patients score continuity lower. That’s expected. They haven’t had time to build the relationship yet. Keeping patients longer has a clinical argument, not just a financial one. The PCPCM data shows continuity improving the longer patients stay.

DPC has been good at describing itself in growth terms. The Hint benchmark starts describing it in experience terms. The numbers suggest they’re telling the same story.