Skip to content
MarketScale
‹ Back to IndustriesHealthcare

Cutting Costs, Boosting Care: Why Employers Are Turning to Direct Primary Care for a Healthier, More Engaged Workforce

Rising healthcare costs continue to strain employers and employees alike — and with the average annual premium for family coverage nearing $27,000, benefits leaders are searching for new models that deliver both affordability and accessibility. At the same time, workplace well-being has expanded beyond basic coverage to include mental health, telemedicine, and preventive care,…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Healthcare teams put it to work with Executive Thought Leadership.

By Daniel Litwin · Direct Primary CareEmployee BenefitsHealthcare InnovationHr Strategy
Share

Key takeaways

01

Rising healthcare costs continue to strain employers and employees alike — and with the average annual premium for family coverage nearing $27,000, benefits leaders are searching for new models that deliver both affordability and accessibility.

02

At the same time, workplace well-being has expanded beyond basic coverage to include mental health, telemedicine, and preventive care,…

Get featured

Want to get featured in MarketScale Healthcare?

Create a free MarketScale workspace and get your company's expertise featured across our Healthcare coverage. No credit card, no demo required.

Request an invite

Rising healthcare costs continue to strain employers and employees alike — and with the average annual premium for family coverage nearing $27,000, benefits leaders are searching for new models that deliver both affordability and accessibility. At the same time, workplace well-being has expanded beyond basic coverage to include mental health, telemedicine, and preventive care, reflecting the broader cultural and technological shifts transforming healthcare delivery.

How can HR leaders make smarter, more human-centered decisions about benefits in this evolving healthcare landscape — and what does a truly “future-ready” benefits strategy look like?

HRSouthwest Conference 2025 recently brought together HR innovators and business leaders to explore the evolving landscape of employee well-being. At the event, Daniel Litwin, the Voice of B2B at MarketScale, caught up with Kyle Sheehan, VP of Strategic Growth at MaxHealth Direct Primary Care, to explore how direct primary care is helping companies balance cost control with genuine care access. Together, they explored how membership-based healthcare models are offering employers predictability, better utilization, and a renewed focus on employee wellness.

What you’ll learn…

  • Predictability Over Premiums: Direct primary care (DPC) provides a more stable cost model for employers, helping offset rising insurance premiums while improving access to care.
  • Access and Engagement: With 24/7 telemedicine and membership-based care, employees are more likely to use their benefits appropriately — reducing absenteeism and unnecessary ER visits.
  • Mental Health as a Core Benefit: Remote work and social disconnection have heightened the need for mental health support; employers are rethinking benefit structures to include accessible, stigma-free options.

Kyle Sheehan is a seasoned healthcare growth executive with over a decade of experience driving business development across imaging, mental health, and direct primary care sectors. He has led high-performing sales and marketing teams, built strategic provider partnerships, and expanded service offerings for companies such as MaxHealth DPC, Elevate Health Clinics, and Gateway Diagnostic Imaging. Known for his consultative sales acumen and adaptability across Texas and other markets, Sheehan specializes in scaling patient access solutions that merge fiscal responsibility with improved care delivery.

Article written by MarketScale.

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Healthcare starts with a company putting its clinicians, service-line leaders, and field engineers on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Service-line buyers vet vendors quietly, and your clinicians become the proof they find while doing it.

Get your team featuredSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.

About the author

Daniel Litwin
Daniel LitwinEditor, B2B Media, MarketScale

Daniel Litwin is a journalist of multiple disciplines focused on finding and telling engaging stories for B2B communities. He has interviewed executives from Fortune 500 companies including Honeywell, Microsoft, John Deere, and Chipotle, and leads editorial direction at MarketScale. Litwin hosts weekly shows and podcasts while helping develop new content approaches across the MarketScale platform. He holds a B.J. in Radio/Television Reporting/Anchoring and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Follow Healthcare Insights

Get new expert content in your inbox.

Healthcare: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Healthcare buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. See how AI describes your company today, and where competitors show up instead.

Free workspace

You just read one Healthcare expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your clinicians, service-line leaders, and field engineers into the articles, video, and social content Healthcare buyers are searching for. Create a free workspace and see it with your own people. No credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What you get, free

Your own MarketScale Studio workspace
One video edit a month, on us
AI writing, editing, and publishing tools
In-platform coaching to learn the system

More Healthcare Insights

OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Healthcare is getting wired into Epic

OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Healthcare is getting wired into Epic

ChatGPT for Healthcare can now read from Epic. UCSF Health is piloting the read-only integration, according to Fierce Healthcare and Becker’s Hospital Review. For CIOs, the work is permissions, auditability, and clinical validation in Epic workflows.

  • 01The “read-only” label doesn’t remove governance work, it moves it to permissions mapping, audit logs, and connector scope design inside Epic-supported workflows.
  • 02OpenAI’s published clinician review results (99.1% rated safe across 4,363 ratings) are a useful benchmark, but they still need local validation on your own note templates, meds workflows, and specialty mix.

Sep 7, 2026

The EU’s MDR delay buys time, but it won’t clear your commissioning bottleneck

The European Commission backed extending EU MDR transition deadlines to December 2027 and December 2028, Medical Design & Outsourcing reported. It buys time, not ramp-up capacity. Design News cites digital commissioning and machine digital twins to cut “power-on” surprises and speed validation and operator training.

  • 01If an EU portfolio includes Class III, December 2027 is now the planning anchor, but the internal gating item may shift to validation capacity and automation readiness, not paperwork.
  • 02Digital commissioning is becoming a procurement spec, not a buzzword, because it lets teams run DFM/DFA learning loops before hardware is built, which Design News notes is meant to reduce machine power-on surprises.

Sep 5, 2026

HCA’s Q1 was not about volume. It was about coverage and collecting cash

HCA Healthcare reaffirmed 2026 guidance after Q1 weather and a muted respiratory season cut adjusted EBITDA by about $180 million, according to HealthLeaders and Fierce Healthcare. Payer mix shifted fast. Exchange admissions fell about 15% and uninsured admissions rose about 16%, Fierce reported.

  • 01A mild flu season can be a margin event: HCA tied a 42% drop in respiratory admissions to a roughly $180M adjusted EBITDA hit (HealthLeaders, Fierce Healthcare).
  • 02The 2026 risk is sliding from demand to coverage: HCA cited a $600M–$900M full-year EBITDA headwind from exchange-related changes, with $150M already in Q1 (HealthLeaders, Fierce Healthcare).
  • 03Supplemental payments are becoming an operating capability, not a windfall: HCA said Q1 Medicaid program net benefit was about $200M vs $80M expected (HealthLeaders, Fierce Healthcare), putting state-by-state reimbursement strategy on the CFO’s critical path.

Sep 5, 2026

Explore More Healthcare Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Healthcare.

Browse Healthcare Hub

About the Expert

Daniel Litwin
Daniel Litwin

Editor, B2B Media

MarketScale

Daniel Litwin is a journalist of multiple disciplines focused on finding and telling engaging stories for B2B communities. He has interviewed executives from Fortune 500 companies including Honeywell, Microsoft, John Deere, and Chipotle, and leads editorial direction at MarketScale. Litwin hosts weekly shows and podcasts while helping develop new content approaches across the MarketScale platform. He holds a B.J. in Radio/Television Reporting/Anchoring and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Healthcare and beyond.

Book a 15-minute demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512