The Hope of Medicine: Restoring the Physician-Patient Relationship through DPC

Featuring Dr. Chaminie Wheeler, Speaker at the 2025 Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce Healthcare Summit.

Across the United States, families, business owners, and physicians are facing an undeniable truth: healthcare has become financially overwhelming, increasingly inaccessible, and deeply impersonal. Despite being the world’s top spender on healthcare, Americans wait longer for appointments, pay more out of pocket, and are often unable to get timely care when they need it most. If our healthcare system were a patient, the diagnosis would be clear — the system is ill. Yet, like any patient, there is hope when we identify the root cause and prescribe a path toward healing.

At the upcoming 2025 Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce Healthcare Summit, I will be sharing how we can restore value, access, trust, and sustainability by returning medicine to its true foundation: the physician–patient relationship. After more than two decades in clinical practice, one truth has become unmistakable — the heart of effective healthcare is not a policy, a billing code, or a hospital system. It is the relationship between doctor and patient. 

However, over time, this relationship has been eroded by administrative requirements, insurance complexities, and the consolidation of healthcare systems that limit physician autonomy and patient access.  

The path back to health begins with clarity. In business, decisions are driven by simple questions about value. Healthcare should operate with the same transparency. Every medical encounter should answer three foundational questions:  

• How much does it cost?  

• Do I really need this?  

• Is this decision being made solely within the physician–patient relationship?  

In today’s insurance-centric system, patients rarely have answers to these questions. Direct Primary Care (DPC), however, restores that clarity and returns medicine to its rightful center, the human relationship.

Direct Primary Care is a simple, affordable model in which patients pay a low monthly

membership fee, typically around $75 per month for comprehensive primary care

services. This includes 24/7 access to their physician, same-day or next-day

appointments, unrushed visits, wholesale pricing for labs and imaging, and no co-pays or

surprise bills. Nearly 98% of DPC patients still maintain insurance, because DPC does not

replace insurance; it replaces the barriers that prevent patients from accessing

meaningful primary care. Transparent pricing makes a dramatic difference: a chest X-ray

may cost $50, an MRI around $550, and a basic blood test as little as $3.  

As DPC has grown, it has become clear why this model offers genuine hope. It restores what I call the Five Pillars of Hope in Medicine:  

• Access: Patients are seen when they’re sick without urgent care or long waits.

• Care: Early intervention prevents chronic disease and supports long-term wellness. 

• Time: Unrushed visits allow thoughtful evaluation and reduce unnecessary testing or referrals.

• Transparency: Clear pricing reduces fraud, waste, and abuse across the system.

• Trust: Clinical decisions stay where they belong within the sacred physician–patient relationship.  

These pillars rebuild both clinical effectiveness and financial sustainability, creating a system that serves patients, physicians, and employers simultaneously.  

One of the most significant drivers of the DPC movement is the business community. Over the last five years, employer-sponsored Direct Primary Care has grown more than 800%, as companies seek predictable costs and higher-value benefits for their employees. Today, more than 7,200 employers utilize DPC, and 58% of all DPC memberships are now employer-sponsored. The results are compelling: dramatically fewer emergency room visits, fewer unnecessary specialist referrals, increased employee satisfaction, and significant cost savings.  

Real-world examples highlight this impact. A distribution company with employees across seven states used the Hint Connect network to offer DPC, and about 70% of their workforce enrolled, covering 343 lives with early indicators of substantial savings. A school district in La Crosse, Wisconsin, saved approximately $1.5 million after implementing DPC for employees without raising insurance premiums the following year. Across the country, thousands of small businesses are now using Direct Primary Care as the foundation of their employee health strategy.  

Beginning in January 2026, an important policy shift will make DPC fully compatible with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), removing one of the last barriers for employers who offer high-deductible health plans. This is why many analysts consider 2025 the tipping point for the mainstream adoption of Direct Primary Care.  

Imagine a community where employees receive timely, relationship-centered care; businesses save money while offering better benefits; and physicians are free to practice medicine the way they were trained. Imagine a system where trust guides decisions, transparency is the norm, and wellness, not bureaucracy, becomes the central focus. This is not a theoretical vision. It is happening now, and it is expanding quickly.  

Direct Primary Care offers a path toward restoring what has been lost. It brings healthcare back to its roots: a doctor and a patient working together toward health. 

At the 2025 Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce Healthcare Summit, I look forward to sharing how this model can transform not just individual care, but the future of healthcare across our region.  Together, we can bring hope back to medicine — one relationship at a time.

CLICK HERE for the PDF and to download this article!