A National Physician Survey Just Replaced DPC's Decade-Old Price Benchmark. The Average Is Around $98 — and Two-Thirds of Surveyed Physicians Are Women.

Analysis by DPC Insider
#analysis#pricing#physician demographics#practice economics#DPCA
Sources: State of Direct Primary Care 2026 — DPCA Member Insights Committee · Five surprising findings about the state of direct primary care — Medical Economics, 2026 · State of DPC 2026: Key Takeaways From DPC Alliance's Physician Survey — Hint Health blog, 2026 · Direct Primary Care: Practice Distribution and Cost Across the Nation — Eskew & Klink, J Am Board Fam Med, 2015

For more than a decade, one number has anchored how DPC practices described themselves to patients, employers, and anyone willing to listen: $77 a month. That figure traces to a 2015 analysis by Philip Eskew and Kathleen Klink, published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, which documented prices that practices specifically self-identifying as DPC had listed publicly online. No comparably scoped national study followed in the eleven years that passed.

Until July 2026.

The Direct Primary Care Alliance’s Member Insights Committee published the State of DPC 2026, the first comprehensive national study of DPC practice economics since that 2015 benchmark. The survey was fielded in October and November 2024; the report was published in July 2026. It collected responses from 465 physicians — DPCA members and non-members alike — representing roughly 13 percent of estimated physician-owned DPC practices in the country. Several of its findings are worth examining in detail.

The New Benchmark: Around $98

The national average monthly membership in the DPCA survey is approximately $98 per member per month — the report’s graphic shows $98.46. The 2015 Eskew and Klink study found a $77.38 average for practices in that dataset that specifically self-described as direct primary care. The two figures come from different methodologies — website review of publicly listed prices versus direct physician self-report — so the gap between them describes a shifted pricing landscape rather than a measured growth rate.

The DPCA report shows the profession has moved well past any single anchoring figure, and the pricing landscape is more differentiated than a single number can capture.

By region, the variation is significant:

  • West: $113.28 average
  • Northeast: $110.44
  • South: $98.38
  • Midwest: $80.36

By practice setting:

  • Urban: $110.00
  • Suburban: $99.78
  • Rural: $81.56

None of these numbers is inherently right or wrong. They reflect different patient markets, overhead structures, population demographics, and practice goals. A rural family physician in the Midwest building a practice to serve an underinsured farming community operates in a genuinely different economic reality than an urban internist on the coasts. The DPCA data captures that variation instead of flattening it into a single benchmark that fits no practice perfectly.

Panel Size and Pricing Move Together

The relationship between panel size and pricing runs in a consistent direction: practices with smaller panels charge more per member. The numbers break down as follows from the DPCA survey:

  • Fewer than 200 patients: $105.93/month average
  • 201 to 500 patients: $99.28/month average
  • More than 500 patients: $77.74/month average

That last number — $77.74 for practices with more than 500 patients — lands close to the 2015 Eskew and Klink figure, which is a notable coincidence but not evidence about the 2015 study’s sample composition. The panel-size data does illuminate the core DPC tradeoff. A practice with 150 patients can offer same-day appointments, direct phone access, and extended visits. The price premium is real, and patients who value that level of access you might expect to pay for it. Practices with larger panels price differently because the access proposition is different — not inferior, but structurally distinct.

Among the survey’s respondents, 76.4 percent use age-based tiering specifically. An additional 8.5 percent use family-based pricing. Roughly 15 percent use no tiers at all — flat pricing regardless of age or household composition. The diversity of approaches reflects a profession actively working out its pricing architecture, eleven years after the 2015 benchmark study.

Two-Thirds of Surveyed DPC Physicians Are Women

The pricing findings are actionable. The demographic finding may be more structurally significant.

Among the 465 physicians who responded to the DPCA survey, two-thirds are women. The mean respondent age is 46, with a median of 45. And nearly 10 percent launched their DPC practices directly out of residency — not after years in traditional settings, not as a response to burnout, but as a first professional choice.

The dominant story about why physicians enter DPC has been one of escape: clinicians leaving fee-for-service medicine because the administrative burden, volume pressure, and moral injury became untenable. That narrative is real and documented. But a survey where two-thirds of respondents are women and nearly one in ten started from residency describes a model that people choose before they have been worn down.

DPC’s structural features — smaller panels, direct-pay relationships, practice ownership, and control over schedule design — may address frictions that women physicians have identified in traditional practice settings. The survey does not establish causation, but the composition is consistent with the hypothesis that DPC’s model is attracting women physicians not just as a refuge but as a preferred starting architecture.

The residency-to-DPC pipeline is a different signal. When a new physician graduates training and opens a DPC practice rather than joining a hospital system or joining a traditional group, it suggests that DPC is visible enough, credible enough, and financially legible enough to be a genuine first-career option. A decade ago, that would have been unusual.

What This Means

The Eskew and Klink analysis that produced the $77 benchmark was consequential precisely because it was the last major comprehensive national data available. It shaped how DPC explained itself to the outside world for a decade.

The DPCA’s State of DPC 2026 is the first nationally scoped study to replace it. The picture it paints is of a model that has grown, diversified geographically, and attracted a physician workforce that looks different from what the early years suggested.

For physicians considering DPC, the pricing data matters because it sets realistic expectations. The $77 figure understates what the market supports in most regions — and the regional and panel-size breakdowns in this report give practices a more specific basis for calibration.

For patients and employers evaluating DPC, the regional and panel-size breakdowns explain why two DPC practices in the same city might charge meaningfully different rates. Price reflects the access model being offered, not an arbitrary decision.

For anyone watching where primary care is going, the demographic finding may be the most significant number in the report. The generation of physicians choosing DPC as a first option rather than a later-career pivot will shape what the model looks like in ten years. Of all 465 respondents, two-thirds are women — and nearly one in ten started from day one.