Encore! EP335: Why Private Equity Is Willing to Pay $55,000 per Patient to Primary Care Start-ups, With Brian Klepper, PhD

Why Private Equity Is Willing to Pay $55,000 per Patient to Primary Care Start-ups, With Brian Klepper, PhD (Encore! EP335)

In this Encore, Stacey Richter revisits her conversation with Brian Klepper, PhD, healthcare analyst and principal of Worksite Health Advisors, about the three iterations of primary care today — and why private equity is pouring money into the third: industrialized, risk-bearing advanced primary care.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ Why the 1990s HMO version of primary care crashed and burned as a glorified gatekeeper model

✅ The three kinds of PCPs today: original fee-for-service, direct primary care, and industrialized/advanced primary care

✅ Why advanced primary care requires an unimpeachable patient relationship, strong virtual capabilities, and data to steer specialty referrals

✅ How a state employee health plan is on track to save $1.3 billion through advanced primary care and specialty pharmaceutical optimization

✅ Why huge investment into primary care start-ups is, in Brian's view, actually a problem worth watching closely

WHY THIS MATTERS

Private equity isn't paying $55,000 per patient for primary care out of altruism — it's betting that industrialized, risk-bearing advanced primary care can deliver outcomes original fee-for-service PCPs structurally can't, while capturing the financial upside of managing the full continuum of care. Understanding which of the three primary care models an organization is actually building is essential to evaluating whether that investment serves patients or just investors.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

EP295 with Rebecca Etz, PhD: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

🎤 Listen on Spotify

=== CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

00:00 Introduction

05:59 Is the HMO model of primary care a good model?

08:36 "Industrialized medicine is exciting."

09:44 What does primary care have the opportunity to do?

10:06 "The problem that goes along with that is that now immense amounts of money are being infused into primary care organizations."

11:00 Where does direct primary care and advanced primary care fit into this model?

14:19 "At the end of the day, what primary care really needs to be about is…the management of life issues as well."

14:48 EP295 with Rebecca Etz, PhD.

15:03 "Better relationships quantifiably translate to better care."

22:21 "Almost nobody in healthcare wants any of this to happen."

24:30 Why the huge amounts of money being invested into primary care is actually a big problem.

28:43 "We should be able to get wildly better health outcomes for about 40% to 45% of the money that we're currently spending."