Chicago businesses: You’re paying more for healthcare while your employees are getting less.
- Partner Medical
- Mar 15
- 3 min read
The TL;DR
Local businesses in Chicago who contract with Partner Medical’s Primary Care Practice reduce their healthcare benefits costs and provide an excellent benefit for their employees. These organizations see:
15-30% savings in health benefit costs
Improved employee satisfaction
Better talent attraction & retention
The Problem - Skyrocketing Healthcare Costs & Barriers to Care
Healthcare benefit costs are rising and causing financial strain on both employers and their people. Local businesses often struggle the most. Smaller budgets to put towards benefits leads to lower employee satisfaction and difficulties attracting and retaining talent.
The Kaiser Family Foundation reported average annual health insurance premiums in 2024 to be $8,951 for single coverage and $25,572 for family coverage - a 24% increase since 2019.
On the flip side, even with four massive health systems in Chicago, the average wait time to see a primary care provider is 39 days. This results in delayed care and increased utilization of higher cost services at specialists, in emergency rooms, or visits to urgent cares, where quality of care can be questionable.
Even if your employee waits for an appointment, the experience is unpleasant at best. After the parking, the duplicative paperwork, the sneezy waiting room, and the visit itself, it takes an average of 2 hours for a primary care visit. However, the time actually spent with the provider is only an average of 15 minutes, with patients only speaking for 5 minutes.
The Solution - Partner Medical’s direct primary care
Partner Medical’s service offering is a relatively simple one - direct access to comprehensive primary care for an affordable monthly fee. By offering this to employees, along with either a high deductible plan or through an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICRA), employers can save on health benefits and employees get a better option for care.
The emotional case for direct primary care with Partner Medical is an obvious one because the problem it solves is felt by everyone. With Partner Medical, employees don’t have delayed care, rushed visits with unknown providers, or co-pays or co-insurance. Instead, they have:
Same day care for acute illness, chronic disease, and preventative medicine
Relaxed visits with a provider they know and trust
Direct access - they can text or call their provider directly
Same day, free of cost, specialty consults to reduce referrals while improving quality
No co-pays, co-insurance, or surprise bills
The business case for Partner Medical is not as obvious, but it is just as compelling. Using direct primary care has been shown to reduce overall healthcare costs for businesses by 15% per year and reduce claims by 25%. One NIH article argues even larger savings with ICHRA plans or High deductible plans - upwards of 20-30%.
To put this in perspective, if you have 100 employees and pay the national average of $19,276 per employee annual health insurance premiums, you could save between $289,000 - $578,000 per year with Partner Medical.
The way this works is by circumventing insurance companies, like United Health Group, and going directly to the provider - like buying directly from a manufacturer instead of paying retail prices. For instance, administrative costs at large health systems account for upwards of 30% of overall healthcare costs - 15% from insurance administrative work and another 15% from general administrative cost in the healthcare system.
With Partner Medical, insurers are removed from the process entirely and updated technology (e.g. direct scheduling, telemedicine) eliminates the typical administrative barriers of large health systems. The cost-savings from these tactics are enormous, keeping fees low and keeping the ratio of patients to providers small enough to guarantee same day, unhurried appointments.
Partner Medical’s primary care offering is simple, but proven to be impactful for our business partners and their employees.
Join the growing number of Chicago businesses who are cutting healthcare costs while providing a benefit their employees love
