Subscribe to California Healthline's free Daily Edition.Īlso vying for a share of the primary care market are urgent care centers and walk-in clinics at retailers such as Target and pharmacies such as CVS, in addition to telehealth companies like Teladoc and Doctors on Demand. But he added that “all of these companies combined could grow very significantly and just put a dent in the overall system.”

“I think that, ultimately, they’re going to grow in acceptance and accumulate patients and attract clinicians that want to provide a different level of care,” said Richard Close, managing director of health equity research at Canaccord Genuity in Nashville, Tennessee. The “direct” primary care companies, as they are often called, face stiff competition from one another as well as the large regional health systems and their affiliated physician groups, which still dominate the field.Īnalysts say these emerging primary care companies have significant room for growth because of mounting frustration with the medical status quo and because they currently have only a tiny share of the $260 billion U.S.

workers and their dependents, and have long been frustrated with spotty primary care and perpetually rising health costs.

Perhaps the most promising customers are employers, who insure an estimated 157 million U.S. Some offer it directly to individuals others target Medicare enrollees. Loads of other firms, ranging from small start-ups to larger, more established companies, are selling similar concepts of new and improved primary care. In short, his compensation is less a quick jackpot than a general statement of One Medical’s ambitious vision of primary care that is more accessible, technologically enabled and patient-friendly, while cutting health costs for employers and individuals. For Rubin to get all that cash, the stock of One Medical, traded as 1Life Healthcare, must rise sharply over the next seven years, to nearly triple its current price. It can be republished for free.Ībout $197.5 million of his pay is in stock options. This story also ran on The Washington Post.

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