Direct Primary Care

Being a family doctor isn’t easy. Why? Because you’re either an employed physician or a doctor trying to survive on your own. Both are making doctors quit their profession every day. You have heard about direct primary care as an option, but you have been bombarded with misleading advertising, confusing recommendations, and bad information from those who fear taking the leap.

We all know that our current healthcare system is broken, especially for primary care doctors and their patients. Primary care physicians have to see more and more patients in less and less time in order to keep up with declining reimbursement from insurance companies. This leads to rushed office visits, missed opportunities for genuine connections between doctors and their patients, frustrated patients, and burned out doctors. But it doesn't have to be this way. Direct primary care offers a real opportunity at a fulfilling practice of medicine. It’s a golden opportunity to restructure ...

They said it couldn't be done. It wouldn't be possible to fix our broken healthcare system. It wouldn't be possible to fix a healthcare system that undervalues primary care and human relationships. But here we are, a courageous group of primary care doctors, tirelessly working to create value for our patients in communities across the country. This is the story of the Direct Primary Care movement, and how it could revolutionize not only primary care, but the entire healthcare system. The book begins by describing the current crisis in primary care and goes on to define the scope of Direct ...

This book is about churn or patient turnover. This is for those DPC doctors, not only those in mature practices, but also for those newbies who are just starting out. Everyone needs to worry about losing patients. It’s not only a blow to your ego when people are going out the door seemingly as fast as they are coming in but also a blow to your bottom line. And it could put you out of business.

Five years ago, my practice partner Dr. Amy Cianciolo and I started down the magical road of direct primary care (DPC), leading away from a frustrating and inadequate healthcare system. This model of care was the closest thing to achieving the healthcare quadruple aim of lowering costs, improving health, and increasing both patient and physician satisfaction.