GREEN BAY, Wis. —
At a moment when Wisconsin employers are absorbing double-digit health insurance premium increases and the national debate over healthcare affordability shows no signs of cooling, a pair of studies released by Phyx Innovation Labs offer a striking counterpoint: one Wisconsin-based employer has held its per-employee healthcare costs over 15% below the national benchmark for four consecutive years — and the gap is widening.
The reports, published in January and March 2026, evaluate Anovia Health, a direct primary care (DPC) provider founded in Green Bay in 2021. Together, they make the most comprehensive financial and clinical case to date that the DPC model — long celebrated anecdotally — can now be measured, benchmarked, and scaled.
The Numbers
The first of the two studies, The Impact of DPC on Employer Healthcare Cost & Value, is a case study on Anovia Health client Gamber Johnson. Gamber Johnson is based in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Gamber Johnson, in partnership with their benefits advisor M3, adopted four years ago a “disruptive” healthcare model with Anovia primary care at its foundation. Gamber Johnson’s healthcare program generated an estimated $684,779 in total verified savings in 2025 across seven care categories compared to market-rate pricing. Gamber-Johnson has achieved a sustained reduction in healthcare claims costs while significantly outperforming industry benchmarks.
Gamber-Johnson’s rolling 12-month medical and prescription claims cost per member per year (PMPY), declined from $5,860 in December 2021 to $5,385 in March 2026—an 8.1% reduction over the period. In contrast, the comparative commercial insurance benchmark increased 38% from $5,274 to $7,275 during the same timeframe. As a result, Gamber-Johnson now operates approximately 26% below the benchmark, demonstrating the effectiveness of its healthcare strategy and the value generated through its partnership with Anovia. Savings spanned surgical procedures (averaging 44% below market using bundled pricing), primary care, prescription drug management, imaging, laboratory services, physical therapy, and behavioral health.
The second report, Closing the Information Gap, is a 360° evaluation of Anovia’s model across 18 providers, 315 patients, and 14 employer organizations. The report documents the human dimension of the Anovia difference:
- Provider burnout dropped 48% (from 3.4 to 1.8 on a standard scale; p=0.003)
- Average visit duration nearly doubled, from 14.9 to 29.4 minutes
- After-hours work fell 64%.
- Providers cited “the desire to practice medicine with less corporate influence” as their primary motivation for making the switch to Anovia.
Patients responded in kind. Anovia earned a Net Promoter Score of 83 from patients — a metric where most healthcare organizations score in the low teens — with 80% reporting reduced out-of-pocket costs and 78% reporting improved care quality.
Authors Edmund Billings, MD, and Steven Waldren, MD MS, of Phyx Innovation Labs, emphasize that these results were not achieved by cutting benefits or shifting costs to employees. “These results reflect a fundamentally different primary care model” — one built on direct access, relational continuity, transparent pricing, and proactive navigation to high-value care.
How the Model Works
Anovia Health operates on a direct primary care model in which employers pay a fixed monthly membership fee for comprehensive primary care services. Employees and their dependents face little to no out-of-pocket cost and have great access to care. Appointments are a minimum of 30 minutes, providers do not double-book, and provider compensation is not tied to productivity metrics or RVU targets. The result is a provider-to-patient ratio of approximately 850 patients, compared to the national average exceeding 2,000 — enabling the kind of unhurried, relationship-centered medicine that patients and physicians say has largely disappeared from mainstream healthcare.
The Remaining Challenge — and Its Solution
The second report, Closing the Information Gap, identifies an opportunity to use data to better educate and report on financial savings to various stakeholders including human resources, finance, insurance companies, third party administrators, and brokers. In the study, 56% of employer partners said they could quantify the per-employee financial impact or savings from DPC – but 44% said they could not. Employer partners saw better clinical outcomes and estimated return on investment (ROI) – but many did not have the data to prove it.
Phyx Innovation Labs terms this the “information gap.” To address this barrier, Anovia has invested heavily in the development of robust analytical reporting tools based on a four-part data strategy:
- “Honest Coding” (standardized CPT and ICD-10 documentation used for transparency rather than billing);
- Episode-of-care analytics (linking clinical encounters to full medical journeys benchmarked against national standards);
- Steerage (providers guiding patients to high-value specialists without volume-based referral incentives);
- AI-assisted navigation tools being piloted at the point of care. This allows Anovia clients to track and compare patient episodes of care against the typical healthcare system.
The ultimate goal is to use information to help the company create a better healthcare plan for their employees and for Anovia to drive better healthcare utilization.
The Gamber Johnson case study — representing the model’s more mature implementation — demonstrates what becomes possible when that infrastructure is in place: $684,779 in documented savings, captured and verified by category.
A Model Growing Rapidly Across the Region
Anovia Health’s employer partnerships doubled from 78 to 156 in a single year, with patient membership growing from 20,000 to nearly 40,000 — demonstrating that the model can scale without sacrificing the relational intensity that makes it work.
For Wisconsin’s business community — and for the state’s employers watching healthcare costs consume an ever-larger share of their budgets — the reports offer a timely message: a better model exists, it’s already working here, and the evidence is no longer anecdotal.
The first study, The Impact of DPC on Employer Healthcare Cost & Value, can be found here. The second study, Closing the Information Gap: How DPC Can Convert Clinical Excellence into Employer Value, can be found here. Phyx Innovation Labs conducted both evaluations independently, with no conflicts of interest.
About Anovia Health: Anovia Health is a direct primary care provider headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, offering membership-based primary care services to employers and individuals throughout Wisconsin.
About Phyx Innovation Labs: Phyx Innovation Labs is a healthcare research and innovation organization evaluating value-based payment models in primary care.
