Qliance, a shining example of success in the Direct Primary Care movement, closed this week according to The Seattle Times. For those who are not familiar, Direct Primary Care is a newer way to deliver healthcare in which patients pay a monthly fee directly to their doctor, and the doctor's office does not accept insurance plans. There are some exceptions to this, but this his the basic concept.
Over the past 10 years, the Qliance model has been held up as THE model to replicate across the country. Now, it's closed. Over the past 24 hours, there has been a lot of talk on social media about why this happened to Qliance. But, it also begs the question: How does this affect the entire Direct Primary Care movement? Is DPC doomed to fail?
Now, I don't believe that, but it makes a good headline (hehe). Has my friend and DPC advocate, Dr. Ryan Neuhofel said on twitter, "Did the failure of MySpace mean the concept of 'social media' was invalid?" Other people on social media are now saying that at the end, Qliance was not really a Direct Primary Care model.
It will be interesting how the Direct Primary Care community spins the closing of Qliance on social media. What lessons will be learned from the Qliance experience? As far as the movement of Direct Primary Care itself, I'm still inspired by the 2013 words of Dr. Erika Bliss, Qliance CEO, "If Primary Care can't step up right now and own the health care system and change it on behalf of our patients, then we should just go home."
RIP Qliance. Thanks for being a pioneer in the Direct Primary Care Movement....