An Employer's Journey to Affordable Healthcare

​On November 18, 2022, at The Club at Sonterra, we had an exciting evening of exploration and learning at, "An Employer's Journey to Affordable Healthcare." The San Antonio Free Market Medical Association guests heard from keynote speaker David Balat, Executive Director of Free2Care, and a panel of leading industry experts including Bill Cox, President of Cox Manufacturing Co., Janice Martinez, Head of HR at Texas Disposal Systems, and Dr. Cliff Porter, a pioneer of Direct Primary Care.

Hosted by San Antonio Free Market Medical Association Chapter co-leaders, Dr. Roger Moczygemba and Shankar Poncelet, the event was generously sponsored by Direct Med Clinic, Shankx Healthcare Marketing, Eagle Care Health Solutions, Family Hospital Systems, Altiqe Consulting, and EZaccessMD.

​This was an opportunity we hope you didn’t miss, as it was a night of valuable insights and information on the journey towards affordable healthcare. However, if you did, you can read our recap blog or watch the meeting in full below:

​David Balat kicked off the night with a keynote speech, in which he recognized the "change makers," including:

• Specialists

• Laboratory providers

• Imaging providers

• Telemedicine

• Surgery centers

• Emergency departments

• Hospitals

• Third party organizations

• Brokers

• Employers

• Nurses

• Medical professionals

• Patients

​David topped off his powerful speech with a quote from Isaac Newton that reads, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” He dedicated this quote to the appointed change makers, crediting them with being the giants upon which the Free Market movement will thrive off of. 

Following the brief introductions of the guest speakers, Dr. Roger kickstarted the main theme of the evening with questions aimed at the panelists; The first question being why employers should care about providing their employees with affordable care. Janice Martinez and Dr. Cliff Porter recounted the moment they stumbled upon each other and the way their collaboration came about.

The attendees listened with rapt attention as Dr. Porter, Martinez, and Cox shared their thoughts about the importance of Direct Primary Care. One of the most riveting points raised by Dr. Porter included that of Direct Primary Care’s spanning all over the country with about 2,000 clinics actively utilizing the concept. Dr. Porter shared that this large range can actually allow the clinics to form affiliations with each other which in turn facilitates access for patients who find themselves away from their normal clinic. This would also enable patients to seek care at the Direct Primary Care clinic nearest to them.

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After Janice shared why she decided to adopt the DPC model for the employees at Texas Disposal Systems, Dr. Roger queried what she found most attractive about Direct Primary Care and what were the hurdles she had to overcome in order to implement this concept in her company’s health plan. Janice responded, “The demographics in our organization are very diverse… we have individuals that are non English speakers, we have individuals who are illiterate (English or Spanish) … some of the challenges that we had were effective communication.” Despite the employees being wary of the program at first, they now describe it as “old fashioned medicine.” Similarly, Bill shared his own struggles with needing to communicate information effectively and motivate employees to make a change in their lives.

Lastly, to conclude the speaking portion of the night, Janice shared a strong testimonial in which she praised the effectiveness of Direct Primary Care and boasted about the amount of faith she has in the concept to be able to entrust it with the most valuable things in her life: her family.

“An Employer’s Journey to Affordable Health” finished out by opening up the floor to the audience and inviting them to ask the employers questions.

Interested in learning more about the better ways for employers to offer healthcare? Join us to learn the ways of The Force: Medical Liberty and Patient Autonomy at the national annual conference for the Free Market Medical Association on May 3-5th, 2023.