If you recently received an email about a new primary care benefit through your employer, you probably had one of two reactions: excitement or skepticism. Maybe both.
A free doctor. Same or next-day appointments. 24/7 access via text, call, or video. $0 copays. It sounds like the kind of thing that comes with a long list of asterisks. The thing is, there is no catch and we’ll walk you through how that’s possible in this blog.
What Is Advanced Primary Care Plus (APC+)?
Advanced Primary Care Plus, or APC+, is a primary care membership model that gives patients a higher level of access and attention than traditional fee-for-service primary care. Think of it as the difference between a doctor who sees 20 to 24 patients a day for a few minutes each and a doctor who sees fewer patients, spends 30 to 60 minutes with each one, and is available to you by text on a Tuesday night when your kid spikes a fever.
APC+ providers part of the Apaly community offer:
- Same or next-day in-person and virtual appointments
- 24/7 access via text, call, or video
- 30 to 60 minute visits
- Ongoing continuity of care with the same provider
- A full scope of primary care services including preventive care, chronic condition management, mental health check-ins, pediatric care, women’s health, prescriptions, and more
One important thing to be clear about: APC+ is not a replacement for your health insurance, and it is not a replacement for your current primary care provider (PCP) unless you choose to make it one. When employers add APC+ to their benefits package, it works alongside your existing employer-sponsored health insurance. You keep your regular health insurance coverage for specialists, hospital visits, imaging, and anything outside the scope of the APC+ membership. APC+ simply gives you a better, more personal option for your day-to-day primary care needs. Want to understand how APC+ fits alongside your existing coverage? Read: How Advanced Primary Care (APC+) Fits Into Your Healthcare Journey.
Why Are Employers Starting to Offer This?
The short answer: because the current system is broken and employers are paying for it.
According to Mercer’s 2025 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, the average cost of employer-sponsored health insurance reached $17,496 per employee in 2025, a 6% increase well above the rate of inflation and wage growth. That number is expected to climb above $18,500 per employee in 2026. The same research found that 28% of workers with household incomes at or below the median were not confident they could afford necessary healthcare.
At the same time, employees are navigating a system that is slow, impersonal, and expensive. The result is a workforce that delays care, overuses the ER and urgent care, and ends up with worse health outcomes that cost everyone more in the long run. Here is a closer look at why the traditional model is falling short.
Progressive employers are starting to look outside the traditional insurance model for solutions. Advanced Primary Care is one of the most effective ones available. When employees have a doctor they can actually reach, they use the ER less, catch problems earlier, and manage chronic conditions more consistently. That is good for employees and it reduces costs for employers.
That is why more companies are making APC+ part of their benefits package and covering the monthly membership cost entirely, as an add-on to their existing health insurance offerings, not a replacement for them. Read more about why employers are making this shift.
So What Is the Catch?
Here it is: there is no catch. What there is, is a different business model. One called direct contracting.
Under the traditional insurance model, every interaction between you and your doctor passes through multiple intermediaries: insurance companies, billing departments, clearinghouses, and administrators. Each one adds cost and complexity. The result is inflated pricing, unpredictable bills, and a system where neither the doctor nor the patient actually wins.
Direct contracting removes those intermediaries. Your employer contracts directly with primary care providers, establishing clear, fair pricing upfront. Providers get paid reliably and promptly. Employees get better access. Employers reduce costs. No middlemen taking a cut at every step. For a deeper look at how direct contracting works and why it is growing, read our full breakdown here.
What Does This Kind of Care Normally Cost?
To understand why this feels too good to be true, it helps to know what this level of care typically costs when you are paying for it yourself.
Direct Primary Care (DPC) membership pricing
DPC is the model APC+ providers operate under. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians’ 2024 Direct Primary Care Data Brief, monthly DPC membership fees typically range from $50 to $100 per person, with an average patient panel of just 413 patients and 99% of practices offering same-day appointments. For a family of four paying out of pocket, that adds up to $2,400 to $4,800 per year on top of whatever they are already paying for health insurance. Outside of an employer benefit, most people simply cannot justify the added expense, even though the level of care is significantly higher than a traditional PCP.
Starting in 2026, DPC membership fees are also HSA-eligible under H.R. 1, meaning employees on high-deductible health plans can now pay for DPC memberships with pre-tax HSA dollars.
Through Apaly, employers can now contract with a community of 5,600+ independent DPC clinics and offer this style of care to their entire workforce. When an employer covers the membership, the financial picture for employees changes dramatically. The monthly membership fee, copays, coinsurance, wellness visits, and virtual visits all become $0. Where an employee might have once juggled visit copays, coinsurance, and a separate monthly membership fee on top of their health insurance costs, APC+ through Apaly eliminates all of that.
The one exception is for employees on a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) or Health Savings Account (HSA). Due to IRS rules, those members may have an out-of-pocket cost for in-person sick visits only, charged at fair market value, which is typically around $95. Importantly, this charge applies once per calendar month regardless of how many in-person visits happen that month, and it stops entirely once the employee reaches their annual IRS deductible ($1,700 for individuals, $3,400 for families in 2026).
Here is how that looks in practice: if you see your provider in person on March 3rd, you would be billed around $95. If you need another in-person visit on March 23rd, there is no additional charge since you already paid that month. If you need care again on April 16th, the $95 applies again for that new month. Once you have met your IRS deductible for the year, all eligible visits are covered at no cost.
Concierge medicine pricing
Concierge medicine offers a similar level of access and attention but at a considerably higher price point. According to a 2017 commentary published in The American Journal of Medicine, concierge practices charge an annual retainer averaging $1,500 to $1,700 per year at the time of publication. That number has climbed significantly since then, with most concierge memberships today ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 per year, putting it firmly out of reach for the average employee and their family.
Traditional insurance-based primary care
Your employer-sponsored health plan is not going away, and APC+ is not replacing it. But it is worth understanding what the traditional system actually costs. According to Mercer’s 2025 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, employer-sponsored insurance averaged $17,496 per employee in 2025 and is expected to exceed $18,500 in 2026. That covers your broader healthcare needs, but it does not solve the access problem. You still wait weeks or months for a PCP appointment, pay urgent care bills when you cannot get in, and navigate a system designed around volume, not relationship.
APC+ sits on top of that existing coverage to fill the gap that insurance alone has never been able to fill: a real, accessible, personal primary care provider who actually knows you. See a full side-by-side comparison of APC+ and traditional primary care here.
How Apaly Makes This Possible at Scale
Historically, direct primary care arrangements were limited. A local employer might contract with a DPC clinic down the street. It worked well for small, geographically concentrated companies, but it was not scalable. An employer with offices across multiple states had no realistic way to offer this benefit consistently to their entire workforce. Direct contracting was a one-to-one arrangement, typically only accessible to local employers negotiating with nearby providers on their own.
Apaly changed that.
Apaly built a platform that connects employers with a national community of APC+ providers, making it possible for any employer regardless of size or geography to offer Advanced Primary Care as a benefit. Instead of negotiating one clinic at a time, employers work with Apaly to access providers across the country through a single contract.
For employees, that means no matter where you live, where you work, or whether you prefer in-person or virtual care, there is an APC+ provider available to you. For employers, it means they can offer a benefit that was previously only accessible to companies with the resources and infrastructure to build those provider relationships themselves, one by one.
Your employer is not offering you a free doctor because it is too good to be true.
They are offering it because direct contracting, a national provider community, and a platform built specifically for this purpose have finally made it possible to deliver this level of care at scale. And they decided their employees deserved better.
APC+ does not replace your health insurance. It does not require you to leave your current doctor. It simply gives you something the traditional system has never been able to offer: a primary care experience that actually works for you.
The only thing left to do is take them up on it and experience what it’s like to have a doctor in the family.
A Better Healthcare Experience Starts Here
From everyday check-ups to long-term support, APC+ offers care that’s fast, personalized, and centered around your needs, not the limitations of traditional healthcare.
Check to see if your employer offers APC+ by searching the dropdown menu on our marketplace, or get started with your benefit today.
Sources:
- Mercer 2025 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans
- American Academy of Family Physicians 2024 Direct Primary Care Data Brief
- Dalen JE, Alpert JS. Concierge Medicine Is Here and Growing. The American Journal of Medicine. 2017.
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