A 58-year-old Brownsville member needs a total knee replacement. Domestic equivalent: $42,000, 14-week scheduling window, drive to San Antonio for the post-op specialist. JetPatient route through your DPC: $9,500 all-in, scheduled in 3 weeks, surgery in Monterrey, back in her Brownsville PCP's office for Day-3 follow-up. Below: the actual journey, the actual numbers, the actual handoff.
This is an illustrative scenario built from realistic geography, real partner-facility lists, and modeled pricing. Identities are fictional; geography and travel logistics are accurate. Anonymized realized outcomes from the first named Founding Partner DPC are targeted Q3 2026.
For a Brownsville-based DPC, this is not a hypothetical. Mexican border hospitals are 25 miles away. Top-tier JCI centers in Monterrey are 55 minutes by air — half the flight time to Dallas. The geography flips the medical-tourism narrative completely.
Bilingual Spanish-dominant member of a Brownsville DPC. Her PCP recommends knee replacement; she elects the JetPatient route. Day-by-day, hour-by-hour.
Routine knee-pain follow-up. PCP confirms candidacy, walks Maria through both the JetPatient option (Monterrey, 3-week scheduling) and the domestic option (Houston, 14-week wait, $42K plan exposure). Maria elects to learn more. The PCP triggers the JetPatient FHIR handoff from the encounter — three clicks inside Elation.
Walks her through the Monterrey partner facility (Christus Muguerza Alta Especialidad — Texas-trained orthopedic surgeon), the bundled-care package, the travel companion benefit, the 14-day recovery window in-country, and the Day-3 follow-up with her Brownsville PCP. Maria's husband Carlos travels as the companion at no plan cost.
40-minute Zoom in Spanish. Operating surgeon (Dr. Rivera, Texas Tech trained) walks Maria's PCP through the planned approach, expected length of stay, anticipated rehab. PCP raises Maria's history of mild hypertension; surgeon documents the perioperative plan. Maria's questions answered. Consent signed in the JetPatient member portal.
Driven to Brownsville/SPI International Airport by JetPatient ground transport at 4:45 AM. 55-minute Aeroméxico flight. JetPatient coordinator meets them at MTY, ground transport to Christus Muguerza Alta Especialidad. Pre-op labs and imaging by 11:00 AM. Surgery scheduled 2:00 PM same day. Carlos checks into the JetPatient-arranged hotel two blocks from the hospital.
3-night hospital stay. Daily PT, daily check-ins from the bilingual JetPatient coordinator. Maria's Brownsville PCP receives the operative report by Day 1, post-op imaging by Day 3, daily vitals via FHIR R4 write-back into Elation. Carlos accompanies throughout. The seven-day in-country window is conservative for ortho — JetPatient and PCP both want to clear the high-DVT-risk period before flight home.
Surgeon's pre-flight clearance documented. Compression stockings, DVT prophylaxis, return flight at noon. Ground transport home from BRO. Wednesday Day 3-back, Maria walks (with cane) into Frontier Brownsville for her in-person Day-10 follow-up with her PCP. Operative report, post-op imaging, and surgeon's notes are already in her chart timeline — the PCP visit is substantive, not catch-up.
Day-30 in-person follow-up with the Brownsville PCP; Day-30 telehealth with Dr. Rivera in Monterrey (also in Spanish). Day-90 outcomes summary auto-files into the PCP chart. Maria's NPS at 90 days: 98. Carlos's NPS: 96. JetPatient quarterly outcomes pack ships to Frontier Brownsville and to the plan sponsor with Maria's case anonymized into the cohort.
Apples-to-apples comparison: same procedure, same member, JetPatient bundled-care route vs. the same Brownsville member's domestic option at an in-network Houston facility. Numbers are illustrative for a 58-year-old self-pay-equivalent BMI-30 candidate.
Numbers are illustrative for a typical knee-replacement candidate. Realized savings depend on the partner facility's contracted rates, the member's plan-design specifics, and the partner DPC's network arrangements. Full methodology in the Pilot Term Sheet.
Real questions, real answers, with the receipts.
Christus Muguerza Alta Especialidad is JCI-accredited, part of the Christus Health system (also operates in Texas), and performs more than 1,400 joint replacements per year. The operating surgeon for Maria's case is US-fellowship-trained. JetPatient does not yet independently verify surgeon volume, outcomes or credentials. What is shown is clinic-reported.
The flight route (Brownsville/SPI → Monterrey) does not require a border crossing — it's a direct international flight. For lower-acuity procedures done in Matamoros, the JetPatient coordinator handles the bridge crossing and walks the member through it; the bridge is the same crossing tens of thousands of US residents use every day. Documented coordinator escort included.
The pre-op three-way consult on Day −3 establishes direct contact between the partner DPC PCP and the operating surgeon. Surgeon contact information lives in the PCP's Elation chart, not in a portal. JetPatient coordinator can broker a same-day call between Brownsville and Monterrey in either language. The surgeon-PCP relationship is the system feature, not a workaround.
JetPatient's Founding Partner program reserves 12-month DMA exclusivity for the first DPC network signing in a given primary market area. The Rio Grande Valley DMA — currently open — is the highest-leverage geography in the program. First DPC to sign locks the geography for 12 months, renewable on routed-case growth.
We walk this scenario end-to-end against your actual member roster, your actual EMR, your actual primary partner facility list. You bring your Medical Director and (optionally) a member of the legal team. We answer the specific questions a Brownsville-based DPC CEO will ask.