EP184: Is Direct Primary Care the Answer? With Dr. Alex Lickerman, Founder and CEO of ImagineMD
May 31, 2018
184
32:40

EP184: Is Direct Primary Care the Answer? With Dr. Alex Lickerman, Founder and CEO of ImagineMD

Alex Lickerman, MD is a primary care physician, author, speaker, entrepreneur, and founder of ImagineMD, a direct primary care medical practice headquartered in Chicago. ImagineMD works with self-insured and fully-insured businesses and their benefits consultants to help lower health care costs and improve the access to—and quality of—health care for their employees. This enables businesses to attract and retain top talent, as well as increase productivity and reduce absenteeism—all to increase the value of the business itself.


00:00 What is direct primary care, and what problem is DPC trying to solve?
01:00 How DPC can improve access to care.
03:45 Defining DPC.
04:00 Concierge medicine vs direct primary care.
06:50 How DPC solves for cost issues.
07:50 “In spending money on unnecessary tests and procedures is actually killing people.”
09:45 Hyperdiagnosis vs overdiagnosis.
11:50 “Primary care doctors are specialists in problems.”
13:30 How to engage with DPC.
17:15 What insurance companies think of DPCs.
20:00 The issues with perverse incentives to get more care.
20:45 How hospitals feel about DPCs.
26:10 “Only 2% of medical students are interested in going into primary care.”
26:40 How DPC is making primary care as a profession more appealing to medical students.
29:00 Disparity of care.
33:30 “The solution we have is actually a better one,”
35:25 ImagineMD—who they are and what they do.
36:25 You can learn more about DPC and ImagineMD at www.imaginemd.net.

healthcare,health,ehr,imaginemd,primary care,dpc,
|

Episode Support Provided By

Special Thanks to Our 2026 Sustaining Monthly Donors

Kimberly Carleson, Dylan Yahn, Benjamin Light, Matt McQuideAnn Kempski, Spencer Allen, Scott TromanhauserMarilyn Bartlett, 
Steven Elkins, Matthew Bunte, and Lori Smith.

Recent Episodes

EP511: The Tension When Clinical Teams Take On Risk for Policymakers and Others Looking to Rustle Up Future Perverse Incentives, With Dr. Siva and Monica Lypson, MD, MHPE
Relentless Health ValueMay 14, 2026
511
29:3727.1 MB

EP511: The Tension When Clinical Teams Take On Risk for Policymakers and Others Looking to Rustle Up Future Perverse Incentives, With Dr. Siva and Monica Lypson, MD, MHPE

Listen on Your Favorite App Last week, we talked Medicare Advantage with Betsy Seals ( EP510 ), and we talked about finding members who a plan can serve well. This makes sense because Medicare Advantage is a capitated program. In other words, Medicare Advantage plans get paid by CMS a per member per...

EP510: The Impact on You of Medicare Advantage Goings-on (2026 Edition), With Betsy Seals
Relentless Health ValueMay 07, 2026
510
35:3032.5 MB

EP510: The Impact on You of Medicare Advantage Goings-on (2026 Edition), With Betsy Seals

Listen on Your Favorite App I came up with at least one way to tell the difference between making a fair profit and profiteering. If someone makes more money when the patients or members they serve are worse off, yeah, call that profiteering. For a full transcript of this episode, click here . If yo...

EP509: The 7.7% Wake-Up Call: A Roadmap to Align Finance Teams With Non-complacent Benefit Design, With Patrick Nelli
Relentless Health ValueApril 30, 2026
509
37:4834.6 MB

EP509: The 7.7% Wake-Up Call: A Roadmap to Align Finance Teams With Non-complacent Benefit Design, With Patrick Nelli

Listen on Your Favorite App Sarah Monroe: Hi. This is Sarah Monroe in Chicago, and I'm a benefits procurement leader. And I'm curious why you think so few executives take proactive bold action in health benefits strategy given the magnitude of opportunity. Stacey: Isn't that a great question? For a ...

EP508: Why Don't More Self-insured CEOs Take Bold Action in Health Benefits Strategy? With Lee Lewis
Relentless Health ValueApril 23, 2026
508
44:0240.31 MB

EP508: Why Don't More Self-insured CEOs Take Bold Action in Health Benefits Strategy? With Lee Lewis

Listen on Your Favorite App This episode is the very first episode that we have done that is an AMA—an Ask Me Anything—and here is our very first question. Sarah Monroe: Hi. This is Sarah Monroe in Chicago, and I'm a benefits procurement leader. And I'm curious why you think so few executives take p...

EP507: 4 Core Concepts to Buy or Deliver the Highest-Value Healthcare—A Review
Relentless Health ValueApril 16, 2026
507
33:5831.09 MB

EP507: 4 Core Concepts to Buy or Deliver the Highest-Value Healthcare—A Review

Listen on Your Favorite App Look, we wonks, meaning you and me, you're listening to this, so I am on to you. But we wonks in the Relentless Tribe, we move like lightning on Relentless Health Value. We tend to cover lots of ground pretty fast. So, sometimes I like to, with great intention, sum up wha...

EP506: How Other Employers, Shareholders, and Clinics Are Using Price Transparency Data—And It's an Arms Race, With Jerry DiMaso
Relentless Health ValueApril 09, 2026
506
35:5132.81 MB

EP506: How Other Employers, Shareholders, and Clinics Are Using Price Transparency Data—And It's an Arms Race, With Jerry DiMaso

Listen on Your Favorite App, So, we have a few miniseries afoot here on Relentless Health Value right now, and one of them is "The Inches That Are All Around Us"—finding the hidden fees, the hidden friction for plans and members and clinics themselves a lot of times in those inches. For a full trans...

EP505: The Death of the "What Is Value" Guessing Game for Clinical and Plan Decision-Makers Ready to Move On, With Ahilan Sivaganesan, MD
Relentless Health ValueApril 02, 2026
505
44:0240.31 MB

EP505: The Death of the "What Is Value" Guessing Game for Clinical and Plan Decision-Makers Ready to Move On, With Ahilan Sivaganesan, MD

Listen On Your Favorite App Hello, Relentless Tribe. Thank you so much for showing up today. All right … to start, let me lay out the goal of the episode today. This episode is for you if you are a self-funded employer looking to ensure your members are steered and tiered to real high-value care and...

Listen and Follow

Sponsored by Aventria Health Group
©2026 BD Bridges LLC. All Rights Reserved.