This weekend I had an amazing experience participating in the direct primary care (DPC) Summit 2020 with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). It was a virtual only Summit, but it was still a great time. To be sure, a virtual conference is different, but I was still able to interact with colleagues and help my fellow conference goers in their journey of starting and growing their direct primary care practice. Here’s a photo from the DPC Summit 2019, and one of my presentations therein:
Paul Thomas MD presents at the DPC Summit 2019, pictured here!
AAFP DPC Summit 2020 Student and Resident Track
On Friday night, I was a panelist with Dr. Kenneth Qiu, Dr. Delicia Haynes, and Dr. Kirby Farnsworth as we discussed how we started a direct primary care practice. This content was geared towards students and residents who would like to start a direct primary care practice directly after completing their residency training. Dr. Qiu did a masterful job coordinating this content and moderating three panels in a row.
Dr. Paul Thomas at the DPC Summit 2020 with Dr. Delicia Haynes and Dr. Kirby Farnsworth.
How to build out the direct primary care practice of your dreams!
On Saturday, I gave a standalone presentation on how to build the practice of your dreams, specifically discussing how to build a physical office in which you can practice medicine on your own terms for the benefit of your patients in your community.
I only had 45 minutes allotted to discuss this in-depth and wide-ranging topic, so I had to pare down all of the information I wanted to share to get it under this time limitation. However, if you want to see my full thoughts on this subject, I’ve created a course that guides you through the process of leasing a space, sub-leasing a space, building out an office, working with contractors, working with architects, etc… so that you can build the perfect direct primary care office for yourself and for your patients.
The response to this lecture was tremendous! So many doctors were engaged with the material and they had a ton of questions. I couldn’t answer them all during the event, so I’ll answer a few more here.
How do you find sublets or places to sublease?
To find a place to sublease, the best thing to do is to look around your local market. You need to talk to doctors and different real estate agents and sometimes landlords to find places that are subleasing. If you can lease a small office with a bathroom, that is an ideal situation. But if this space isn’t available in your real estate market, you may have to look around for a sublease. Perhaps a cardiologist in town has an unused exam room that you could sublease. If this is the case, do not violate Stark laws by referring all of your cardiovascular patients to this cardiologist.
When you lease a space, do you pay for the entire build out cost?
Yes, we have done this for our spaces at Plum Health so far. Sometimes, when you sign a lease with a landlord, you can negotiate for tenant allowance or tenant improvement funds. This might be $5 to $20 per square foot or something like that. For example, if you lease out a 500 square foot office and as a part of the 10 year lease agreement you get $10 per square foot of tenant improvement money, you would have $5,000 to invest into the space. I haven’t come across many leases where this is an option, and many entrepreneurs typically invest into building out their own spaces.
The market in my area seems to be saturated with FFS and Urgent Care Options. Should I go to the next town over?
This was a longer question that I paraphrased above. Here’s the full question:
There are no DPC anywhere where I am located. There are many urgent care centers popping up along with FFS primary care offices that have been around for years. Should I stay away from those areas and open in a rural town that has no primary care?
One of the most important things to do when you start a direct primary care practice is to differentiate yourself from the existing market and to meet a previously unmet need in your community with that differentiated product. You could say that our Detroit market had enough options for patients, but we saw it differently. We created a business and a brand at Plum Health DPC that stands out from the rest and that consistently attracts new people who want to become our patients because of our differentiated offerings.
To answer your question directly, if you believe that you can differentiate yourself from the rest of the options in your community, go for it! Be bold and start your DPC practice and meet that previously unmet need. If you don’t think you can compete, go to the next town over.
HOW CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT STARTING A DIRECT PRIMARY CARE PRACTICE?
If you enjoyed reading this blog post and if you want to learn more about starting and growing your direct primary care practice, look no further than our book and our courses on how to start and grow your direct primary care practice. We at Startup DPC have begun compiling some of the best content available on this blog, in our book, and in our courses.
The best place to start is to take our Direct Primary Care Business Plan course, available here. From there, you can learn how to attract new patients to your direct primary care practice and how to find the perfect location or build out the practice of your dreams.
Thanks for reading and watching, and best of luck in your direct primary care journey!
-Dr. Paul Thomas with Startup DPC