Patients don’t always text during business hours. A quick medication question or scheduling request might come in late at night or over the weekend. Without a response, patients may wonder if their message was received or when they’ll hear back.
That’s why we’ve improved SMS Auto-Reply in Atlas.md with a new After-Hours mode. Auto-replies can now activate automatically based on each provider’s configured hours, ensuring patients receive a response whenever a provider is unavailable.
Once enabled, Atlas.md checks the provider’s schedule and sends your auto-reply only when messages arrive outside those hours. During normal availability, messages come through as usual.
Clear After-Hours Communication
This new improvement helps you:
Reduce patient uncertainty by confirming their message was received after hours.
Save time by eliminating the need to manually enable or disable auto-replies.
Protect your evenings and weekends by setting clear communication expectations.
Strengthen patient trust with consistent, reliable responses.
This ensures patients know their message was received after hours while you maintain clear communication boundaries, all without adding to your workload.
For more information on how this feature works, check out our support article. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.
That assumption no longer reflects how millions of Americans actually work. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 11.9 million independent contractors in their primary job alone as of July 2023, accounting for 7.4% of total employment.
This means freelancing isn’t just a side hustle economy; it’s the new workforce, and healthcare needs to catch up.
The System Was Never Meant for Independent Workers
Employer-sponsored health insurance remains the dominant model in the U.S., covering 154 million working-age Americans. For anyone outside that system, the individual market means higher premiums, complex coverage rules, and limited flexibility.
That burden falls hardest on the self-employed. KFF research estimates that 48% of adults under 65 enrolled in individual market coverage are either self-employed, small business owners, or employed by businesses with fewer than 25 workers. For many of them, the individual market isn’t a fallback. It’s their only option.
For millions of these workers, healthcare access still feels tied to a job they no longer have.
That’s the problem Direct Primary Care (DPC) is uniquely positioned to solve. And it’s been solving it for decades.
Direct Primary Care Has Been Solving This for Decades
Long before gig work became a mainstream conversation, physicians were already building a better model.
Frustrated with the fee-for-service treadmill, a growing number of doctors began opting out of insurance billing entirely in the early 2000s, trading bloated patient panels and administrative overhead for something simpler: a flat monthly fee, a smaller roster of patients, and the time to actually take care of them.
It was a direct response to everything broken about the way primary care was being delivered. And it worked.
What’s changed since then isn’t the model. It’s the size of the population that needs it. With thousands of practices now operating in every state, DPC has spent two decades proving itself while the rest of the healthcare conversation slowly caught up.
A typical membership covers:
Unlimited primary care visits
Same- or next-day appointments
Preventive care
Chronic disease management
Lab testing, and more
All for a predictable monthly fee with no surprise bills.
For gig workers, that structure matters in ways it doesn’t for a salaried employee with a full benefits package. Freelancers don’t get paid sick days. They can’t afford to wait three weeks for an appointment, sit in a waiting room for two hours, or get blindsided by a bill after a routine visit.
DPC removes all of that. One monthly fee, direct access to a physician, and the ability to get back to work. That kind of predictability is rare in healthcare, and for independent workers, it’s essential.
The Right Structure for Independent Workers
DPC covers the everyday, but what about the extraordinary? For major medical events like hospitalizations or surgeries, a separate insurance plan fills the gap.
The AAFP recommends pairing a DPC membership with a high-deductible wraparound policy to cover emergencies, and supplemental plans like Atlas Direct are built specifically for that purpose.
The ACA Marketplace—the government-run exchange where individuals can shop for and compare health insurance plans outside of employer coverage—is where most independent workers end up looking for that wraparound plan.
On its own, it’s an imperfect solution: premiums are high, and plans aren’t designed with freelancers in mind. But paired with DPC, a low-cost catastrophic or bronze-tier plan becomes a safety net rather than a freelancer’s entire healthcare strategy.
The result costs less, delivers more access, and actually fits the way independent workers live.
Policy Is Finally Catching Up
For years, a quirk in IRS rules treated DPC membership as disqualifying coverage, penalizing people for choosing a model that saved them money and improved their care.
Fees up to $150 per month for individuals ($300 for families) qualify for HSA contributions and tax-free reimbursement, making the DPC-plus-HDHP combination more financially accessible than ever for the self-employed.
The model didn’t need a policy to validate it. But removing that barrier means more people can access it.
Healthcare That Travels With the Worker, Not the Job
Work in America has changed. When nearly four out of ten workers participate in freelance or independent work, tying healthcare to traditional employment is a system built for a workforce that no longer exists.
That gap is real, and it has a cost: deferred care, financial risk, and workers who have to weigh a doctor’s visit against a day’s pay.
Direct Primary Care closes that gap. It gives independent workers consistent access to a primary physician, predictable costs, and a foundation they can build real coverage around. Paired with a lean insurance plan and an HSA, it delivers what the traditional employer-based model was never designed to provide: healthcare that travels with the worker, not the job.
This isn’t a new idea waiting to be proven. Physicians have been practicing it, and patients have been choosing it. The rest of the system is finally starting to agree.
Things are getting sticky for the country’s healthcare system in 2026.
Costs are continuing to rise, access to care remains uneven, and both patients and employers are feeling the strain of a system that is growing more expensive and complex. Current projections suggest U.S. medical costs will increase another 9–10% this year, pushing healthcare affordability back to the center of the national conversation.
This isn’t a sudden shift. It’s the continuation of a trend that’s been building for years, but 2026 may be the year it finally becomes impossible to ignore.
Rising Costs Are Changing How (and Whether) People Seek Care
When patients delay or avoid primary care because of cost uncertainty:
Routine issues escalate into complex problems
Chronic conditions go unmanaged
Preventive care gets postponed
The result is a system that costs more over time while delivering less value to patients.
The Limits of an Insurance-First Model
For many patients, traditional insurance-based primary care has become difficult to navigate and even harder to budget for. Every year brings:
Higher premiums
Reset deductibles
Out-of-pocket costs that feel disconnected from actual care
For employers, especially small and mid-sized businesses, offering health benefits has become a balancing act between affordability and coverage adequacy.
Each year brings higher costs and fewer options, while employees remain frustrated by limited access and confusing billing.
Simpler Care Models Are Getting More Attention
Because of this complexity, patients and employers alike are looking for ways to make everyday care:
Predictable
Transparent
Easier to access
This is where membership-based primary care models, such as Direct Primary Care (DPC), are receiving renewed attention.
At its core, DPC offers a straightforward exchange: patients pay a flat monthly fee for primary care services, completely bypassing insurance bureaucracy, per-visit charges, and copays.
This structure not only removes the financial uncertainty that causes patients to hesitate before scheduling an appointment, but it also allows physicians to focus on care delivery rather than administrative overhead.
Physicians can spend more time with patients, reducing overwork and burnout and ultimately enabling a sustainable practice of medicine.
This shift is practical rather than ideological. When costs rise and access becomes more difficult, people look for models that are understandable and reliable.
The Growth of DPC Reflects Market Demand, Not Policy Mandates
This expansion hasn’t happened overnight. More importantly, it hasn’t been driven by large health systems or top-down government mandates. It’s happened gradually, as:
Patients seek more accessible and affordable care
Physicians look for sustainable ways to practice and avoid burnout
Employers explore benefit structures that prioritize value over volume
Regulatory shifts are also beginning to catch up. Recent federal changes, effective in 2026, allow patients to use HSAs for DPC memberships, removing a long-standing source of confusion and friction and making it easier for patients to pair Direct Care with high-deductible health plans.
Together, these factors suggest that 2026 won’t just be another expensive year for healthcare. It may be a year when more people actively question whether the traditional path still makes sense for everyday care.
What This Means for the Future of Primary Care
Health insurance isn’t going away. Catastrophic coverage, specialty care, and hospital services will always matter. But primary care was never meant to run through endless bureaucracy, and right now the market is correcting that mistake.
As costs rise, models built on predictable pricing, direct relationships, and easy access align more closely with how patients want to receive care. You only have to look at the steady growth of DPC practices to know that this isn’t a passing trend. It’s a response to a system that has priced families out and strained the doctor–patient relationship to the breaking point.
If 2026 becomes the most expensive year in healthcare history, it may also be remembered as the moment patients, employers, and physicians stopped accepting complexity as the norm—and chose a model that is simpler, more transparent, and easier to trust.
Lab results rarely arrive all at once. Some values post immediately while others take longer to process, making it difficult to know whether you’re looking at a complete set or just the first batch. This can slow decision-making, delay patient communication, or lead to final results being missed entirely.
That’s why we’re introducing Lab Result Statuses, a clear, at-a-glance indicator showing whether lab results are final or if more are still on the way. Now, you always know where things stand without digging into the details, and have the clarity to act confidently instead of wondering whether more information is in the pipeline.
This status is visible directly in the Lab Results list and works across both desktop and mobile. It’s also in the subject line of your email notifications, allowing you to triage your inbox faster and more reliably.
Instead of trawling through every message to figure out what changed, you can immediately see whether a result is partial or complete.
This feature uses the lab data Atlas.md already receives from major providers like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp.
There’s no new setup, no manual tracking, and no change to your existing workflow. It works automatically in the background, using the data you already rely on.
Give this feature a try next time you’re expecting labs. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.
Not every patient question comes when you are sitting at your desk. When care continues on the go, having as much patient context at your fingertips as possible makes those moments easier to manage.
That’s why we’re enhancing patient profiles in Atlas.md Mobile to bring more of the patient context you already rely on into the mobile experience.
Now, when you open a patient’s profile, you’ll see essential medical details in a dedicated Medical tab, including their health history, allergies, current medications, and more. This gives you a clearer snapshot of the patient’s health wherever you are, without interrupting your workflow.
The result is faster orientation, more confident follow-ups, and smoother transitions between mobile and desktop work.
Check out Atlas.md Mobile to see this update in action. And, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.
When a patient is responsible for children, aging parents, or anyone who depends on them, managing healthcare can quickly turn into a juggling act. Separate logins, scattered reminders, and limited visibility make it harder for families to stay organized, and often leave you fielding extra questions about who is scheduled for what and when.
Our newest update introduces Family Member Self-Scheduling across both the Patient Hub and the Patient App.
Patients can now schedule and review appointments for their entire household in one place, without switching accounts or losing track of details. This gives doctors and nurses clearer oversight, reduces friction for busy families, and gives your clinic a more accurate picture of who is coming in and why.
It also strengthens care coordination: every appointment clearly indicates which family member it belongs to, and you can see who booked it, even when one patient schedules for another.
By consolidating everything into a single view, families are less likely to miss appointments, make scheduling mistakes, or reach out to your staff for clarification.
Staying in sync with your team is important, especially when patient updates come quickly throughout the day. But when you’re moving between visits, working outside the clinic, or juggling messages from multiple directions, keeping track of what needs your attention can take a lot of time and attention.
That’s why we’re bringing @Mentions to Atlas.md Mobile, so your team’s most essential nudges, requests, and clarifications follow you. Instead of waiting until you’re back at a computer, you can stay aware and respond with confidence whenever and wherever you need to.
With @Mentions available at a glance, you can immediately see who needs you, what it’s about, and which patient it involves, without digging or context-switching. This means it becomes way easier to keep conversations moving, avoid bottlenecks, and stay on top of updates.
And because everything remains fully synced with your web account, your workflow stays clean and consistent whether you’re reviewing updates on your phone, tablet, or computer.
For more information on how this feature works, check out our support article. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.
It’s been another good year for Direct Primary Care. We’re now at a point where it’s not just gaining traction, it’s scaling in real time.
As of late November 2025, the DPC Frontier mapper now lists more than 2,700 active Direct Primary Care practices across all 50 states and Washington, DC.
That reflects substantial growth since the start of the year, with Texas, Florida, and North Carolina leading the surge, while other rural states are filling gaps that had few, if any, listings just a year ago.
At the same time, analysts from multiple firms using different models have raised the ceiling on where analysts believe DPC is headed:
The Business Research Company projects the global DPC market will reach $90.62 billion by 2029, growing from an estimated $70.42 billion in 2025 at a 7.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).
DataHorizzon Research is even more bullish, forecasting a 10.2% CAGR through 2033, driven by telehealth integration and expanding employer adoption of DPC-first benefit designs.
A third forecast from InsightAce Analytic lands in the same range: $92.9 billion by 2034 at a sustained 4.6% annual pace.
Together, these reports represent the strongest consensus to date: Direct Primary Care is on track for a nine-figure global market valuation within the next decade, and is becoming one of the most significant growth markets in healthcare.
Policy tailwinds are clearly helping. Oregon’s HB 2540 will soon require insurers to credit certain direct payments toward deductibles, and new HSA/HDHP provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are on the cusp of removing long-standing friction points for DPC models. While details on precisely how these provisions apply to DPC membership arrangements are waiting on regulatory guidance, the initial signs are promising.
For physicians considering the leap into DPC, and for existing clinic owners planning expansion, the message is straightforward: the market is no longer asking whether Direct Primary Care can scale. It’s busy proving that it already is.
Want to be part of the growing national DPC network? Add your clinic to the Atlas DPC Map and help shape the future of Direct Primary Care.
Running a clinic means wearing a lot of hats, and managing money is one of the trickiest. Whether it’s tracking incoming payments, reimbursing staff, or handling everyday expenses, the financial side of your practice can feel like a separate job.
Most financial tools weren’t designed for clinics. They’re clunky, disconnected, and supported by teams that don’t understand how your practice actually works.
That’s why today we’re happy to announce Atlas Balance.
Atlas Balance brings modern financial tools into the Atlas.md ecosystem, powered by Stripe. With Atlas Balance, you can:
Whether you’re onboarding a new staff member or paying for supplies, everything works together—funds, payments, and spending—in the system you already know.
Need to give your MA a card for continuing education, or let a nurse order supplies? With a few clicks, you can issue a Visa-backed spending card and set custom controls like daily limits. Every transaction is logged in real time, so nothing slips through the cracks.
Atlas Balance is now available to all Atlas.md users. It’s everything you need to run the financial side of your practice and keep your clinic running smoothly.
For more information, check out this page or our support articles on the subject. And if you have any questions, you can reach us anytime at balance@atlas.md.
*Atlas CRM, LLC partners with Stripe Payments Company for money transmission services and account services with funds held at Fifth Third Bank N.A., Member FDIC. Atlas Balance Visa® Commercial cards are powered by Stripe and issued by Celtic Bank.
Running an in-house pharmacy is one of the best ways DPC clinics help patients save. Now, there’s an even easier way to stretch those savings further.
We’ve partnered with AndaMEDs to create a group purchasing account that gives clinics access to better wholesale pricing on the medications they already use every day.
For example, clinics in the buying group often pay around $2 instead of $9 for a 30-count of amoxicillin 500 mg: a savings of nearly 80% compared to typical GoodRx pricing.
And here’s the best part: the Atlas.md + AndaMEDs Buying Group is open to all clinics, whether you’re using Atlas.md or another platform entirely.
Joining takes just a minute, and the savings can make a real difference for your practice and your patients.
So if you know a clinic that isn’t part of Atlas.md but still wants to pass on meaningful savings to their patients, share this article and invite them to join!
