While some insurers are withdrawing from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act insurance exchange game, others are competing hard for PPACA market share.

The latest gimmick: free primary care visits and reduced deductibles.

Zoom+, with its insurance product Zoom+ Performance Health Insurance, is among the pioneers of this low-cost trend.

The Portland, OR-based company began life as an alternative to the emergency room, offering the public basic services with quick appointment turnarounds and reasonable fees.

With a workforce composed mainly of nurse practitioners, it was a hit.

Now, Zoom+ has added an insurance component to its service matrix and is pursuing millennials with its low-cost insurance plans.

Kaiser Health News recently examined the Zoom+ model and others like it, and reported that in “more than a dozen other markets, individuals seeking coverage from the insurance exchanges can choose health plans providing free doctor visits, an insurance benefit once considered unthinkable.

The improvements are rolling out in a limited number of plans following reports that high copays and deductibles have discouraged many Americans who signed up for private coverage the past two years from using their new insurance under PPACA.

It’s the free market at work, as competitors like UnitedHealth affiliate Harken Health, Florida Blue, Molina Healthcare (California), and others mirror Zoom+’s millennial-targeting strategy.

Their plans are intentionally designed to address those insurance components that restrict true access to medical care for specific groups, millennials among them.

Many of the plans are able to offer such free or low-cost services because, like Zoom+, they use a different staffing model, one that pays clinicians a salary.

Such practitioners often prefer that model because, in exchange for their capped income, they have fixed hours and other work-life benefits that the traditional clinic doesn’t offer.

As reported by Kaiser Health News, Harken has primary care clinics in Chicago and Atlanta that are staffed by salaried clinicians.

Members are granted unlimited free primary care visits as well as free telehealth services.

“We are creating unfettered access between the care team and the patients,” Tom Vanderheyden, CEO of Harken Health, told Kaiser Health News. “We think it’s a significant differentiation.”

Instant Insights /

PPACA exchange insurers now offering free doctor visits

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