If your clients provide employees better access to primary care, they can add significant value to their benefits plan. Many businesses neglect not only the importance of primary care benefits, but also the creative solutions that can give their workers a better experience while saving the company money. By considering direct primary care as a tool in benefits packages you can give your clients' businesses a competitive edge in the hiring market and cut costs at the same time.

Avoiding the ER

Including primary care in your clients' business insurance plan is a strategy that can ultimately save tens of thousands of dollars per year. In 2015, the John Hopkins School of Public Health (JHSPH) found that the average cost of a primary care visit is $160, which is significantly lower than the average outpatient emergency room visit cost of $1,233, according to the NCBI, and the average hospital stay of $10,000, according to the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.

Giving employees better primary care coverage can help them manage chronic conditions and help their doctors detect potential health problems before they become serious. For example, an employee who's at risk for diabetes can get the guidance and treatment they need from their primary care physician instead of waiting until they're on the verge of losing a limb. The preventative and maintenance services that primary care provides can help you reduce costs while keeping employees healthy.

More tools to cut costs

Your client's insurance plan doesn't have to cover primary care in order for employees to receive it. In fact, taking insurance companies out of the equation entirely and paying for employees' primary care can help the employer save money in the long run without compromising care for workers.

Direct primary care is one of the many tools advisors can implement to help employers get the most from benefits plan while paying less. Research by the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM) shows that direct primary care costs an average of only $77 per patient per month, or $924 per year. In other words, it would take about a decade of direct primary care payments to equal just one average hospital visit. Because business owners pay the provider directly instead of going through their insurance company, they can also spend less than they would have if the employee had filed a claim for each PCP visit.

Related: Direct primary care 201

More options for a healthier workforce

Advisors can help employers determine whether employees' primary care coverage should be included in your insurance plan or handled directly. To invest in this crucial step of the health care process is to invest in the long-term well-being of both workers and the business as a whole, and advisers can help develop the tools necessary to deliver quality primary care to workers at a lower cost.