AtlasMD

Real prices and how direct care works, daily. Flat monthly fee. No claims. No network. The number on the door is the number you pay. Wichita, KS.

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

Thirty-six times.

Same brain MRI. Same CPT code.
$406 at Henry County Memorial in New Castle, Indiana.
$14,681 at Sky Ridge in Lone Tree, Colorado.

Five years of price transparency. The gap did not shrink. It just got public.

A posted price without a shopper is still a sticker.
Direct care posts the fee before you walk in. The number on the door is the number you pay.

https://t.co/UdcAPLOrc9

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

h/t a TikTok from a woman who went in for her 40-year mammogram as a self-pay patient.

https://t.co/olYXwTVUi8

"$1,100" is how we wrote the "eleven hundred dollars" she was quoted. She did not say whether she went through with the scan at that price.

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

$1,100.

A woman who had just turned 40 was quoted that at check-in for a self-pay mammogram. She had budgeted maybe $300, maybe $500.

Her caption: "people should be able to afford healthcare. full stop."

Self-pay should mean a real cash price. Have you asked at check-in?

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

h/t a northeast Wisconsin mom on TikTok, who posted the bill after her son's strep visit.

https://t.co/1gOzG9ke7b

Insurance adjusted $174.39, leaving $506.51. The $75 urgent care price she remembers was 10 to 15 years ago. All figures are hers.

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

$506.51.

A northeast Wisconsin mom still owes that for her son's strep visit, after insurance "adjusted" the bill.

$255.40 for the test. $425.50 for "seven minutes or less." Total $680.90. Used to be $75.

In direct primary care, you see the price first. What did yours cost?

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

h/t Peter Griffiths, Clear Hospital Costs, via Direct Care Foundation, Nov. 2026. Exception: Ben Taub, $231.94 cash vs $428.31 insurer median. 41 of 172 Texas hospitals list cash at full list price, and every one of those 41 is an HCA hospital.

https://t.co/wOOngPyxY2

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

$1,312.32.

That's the cash price 9 Memorial Hermann hospitals in Houston list for a brain MRI without contrast. The median insurer rate in the same files is $377.51. About 3.5 times as much.

28 of 29 Houston-area hospitals asked the cash patient for more than insurers pay.

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

Employer covers the DPC membership, but your patient wants mental health or nutrition too?

Atlas.md now lets you pick which new plan-based subscriptions employers cover. The rest bill to the patient and stay off the employer’s invoice at every renewal.

https://t.co/TEXrorja1Z

[DHH @dhh]

It's amazing how much progress you can make when you stop caring about what weenies think of your actions.

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

Patient files are now easier to access in Atlas.md Mobile.

Review a patient’s attachments, lab results & faxes together in one place—then preview, download, or add attachments right from your phone.

https://t.co/2vF8X8En8N

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

h/t Paula Benson, The Vermont Journal, Nov. 9. The $50 / $500 line is my illustration, not a figure from the article or from the practice. The piece lists no prices. This is a possible tenant conversation, not a done deal.

https://t.co/xHgEIq3S36

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

Empty hospital.

Rockingham, Vt., is talking about Direct Primary Care for 1 Hospital Court.

Get ready to see this trend continue as towns and small businesses see what membership care can do for premiums.

Imagine $50 a month on a membership to save $500 a month on premiums?

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

h/t The Economist, Nov. 5 leader. Emperor's-new-clothes line is mine, not theirs. They still put complex and emergency care with doctors, hospitals, and insurers. Keep a policy for the wreck.

https://t.co/r3x5Hy3pH7

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

20 years.

Health insurance is the emperor's new clothes. For most everyday care it doesn't make anything cheaper. It just adds a middleman.

Now even The Economist says that in the routine parts of medicine, patients should be treated as customers. DPC got there first.

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

26 minutes. That's the average hold time at Nebraska's Medicaid call center now, double what it was in May, after the state rolled out its new work rules.

Eli McCreary, 64, newly diagnosed with kidney cancer, was told by the hospital he wasn't insured anymore. So he canceled his CT scan. The call center told him he'd missed his work requirement.

The state says he never lapsed at all. He'd just turned 65 and moved to Medicare.

He had surgery in early November. "The cancer has grown so much."

Nobody misread a scan. Every bit of the harm happened in the paperwork. State documents outline $8.2 million in contractor costs over 2 years to run it.

Direct care can't settle Medicaid eligibility. It can keep the front door simple: one monthly price, a doctor whose number you actually have, and a first question about your kidney, not your card.

26 minutes on hold is a price. A month of a growing tumor is the bill.

https://t.co/RqmE11sVyz

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

@PeteTiliakos @HR_Exec @HRPAYROLL2_0 @VensureHR @Payroll_iE Fundamentally until we focus on the cost of care, we will never be able to fix the cost of health insurance. Most care should be too cheap to insure. Then we will be able to drastically decrease roadblocks to care and to reasonably priced insurance premiums.

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

@PeteTiliakos @HR_Exec @HRPAYROLL2_0 @VensureHR @Payroll_iE Well done, article, Kaba. There is now direct health insurance for patients of Direct Care clinics that can be a fraction of the current bloated health insurance plans. https://t.co/o08BwHmuji

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

Indeed, until we actually focus on the cost of care, we will never be able to focus on the cost of health insurance.

That’s why direct care is working so well because it actively targets the cost of outpatient care. Unlimited visits, no copays, free procedures, meds, and labs 95% less than retail, and much more.

80% of care should be 80% less or too cheap to insure.

Only then can we actually have a conversation about insurance affordability when we are actually insuring a fraction of what we do today.

We don’t need Medicare for all, we need market-based medicine for all.

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

Medicare for all is great branding, but is fundamentally unexecutable until they address the cost of care.

Most care should be too cheap to insure, and until we address that, then we won’t be able to afford Medicare at its current prices, let alone when the benefits are expanded.

That’s why direct care is working so well because it’s actually innovating with a flat monthly rate, no insurance, paperwork, free telemedicine, unlimited office visits, no copays ever, any office procedures free, wholesale medications and labs for 95% of retail, and much more. And insurance premiums that could be 50 to 75% less.

We need market-based medicine for all, not Medicare for all

[AtlasMD @AtlasMD]

@JahangirAsgha10 Tell me about it :-) it’s been a labor of love, but also a huge learning curve creating a new health insurance company for direct care patients, https://t.co/dKAU6TcLft and it’s interesting how the rules are designed to protect incumbents and prevent new innovation.