Under a traditional health care benefit plan, a patient tells the doctor what's wrong. Then the patient, insurance company, or self-funded employer pays the doctor for each of the things she does in trying to fix it.

For the past three years, that's not how things have worked at Seattle-based Becker Trucking. For Becker, funding employee health care is a little like paying for gym memberships.

The company pays Seattle-based Qliance, a defined primary care business, $54 a month for every covered adult and $39 a month for every covered child. Employees and their families see participating Qliance doctors as many times as necessary, from none to twice a week for a worker that Becker CEO and president Frank Riordan calls “the biggest hypochondriac in Washington.”