Startup DPC Blog: Start and Grow Your DPC Practice
This week, we got a really nice testimonial from Alexandra A. about our Startup DPC book and Sales Funnel Course:
Thank you so much Dr. Thomas!
I read your Startup DPC book at the end of my first year of residency, and it has been such a help as I've started my journey.
Thank you for everything you have done for the burgeoning DPC community.
Thank you to everyone who has picked up a copy of the book or one of the courses - I appreciate all of you!
-Paul Thomas, MD
As a Direct Primary Care doctor, you started an amazing practice, and you’ve worked so hard up to this point to build out your work flows and to grow your panel, optimize revenue collection, and train your staff. You’ve done such a great job that, now, you’ve got a waiting list! Congratulations! People have heard great things about your clinic and they’re ready to signup!
Just one little problem - you’re fully booked and you can’t take on any more patients, and you really would like to go on a care-free vacation. Sounds like it’s time to hire another doctor!
Hiring a doctor for your direct primary care practice can be challenging as it involves several important steps. Here's a general guide to help you through the process:
Determine your needs: Assess your practice's requirements to identify the specific role and responsibilities you want the doctor to fulfill. Consider factors such as patient load, personality fit, and any additional skills or expertise you desire. The biggest thing you need to assess is this: does this person believe what I believe? Are they down for the mission of our clinic? Because you don’t just want a doctor, you want the doctor. You need to make sure their heart is in the right place, and honestly, the rest will follow.
Create a job description: Develop a comprehensive job description that outlines the qualifications, responsibilities, and expectations for the doctor position. Include details about the direct primary care model, your practice's mission, vision, and values, and any unique aspects of your approach.
Write a contract or have a lawyer help you write a contract. This is a job and also a legal obligation - having everything in writing and signed by both parties is crucial to getting what you want and showing the new doctor what to expect. We share our sample contract in our Startup DPC course, on how to hire a doctor!
Advertise the position: Utilize various channels to attract potential candidates. Post the job description on online job boards, medical association websites, social media platforms, and consider reaching out to local medical schools or residency programs. Networking within the medical community may also help you find suitable candidates. If you’ve built a strong social media ground game for your direct primary care practice, chances are there are other doctors on the outside looking in and wanting to join you! It may take one, well-written social media post to find the perfect practice partner. Additionally, your alumni reunion activities for your medical school may be a great place to find another doctor or your residency program - if you’re 3, 5, 7, or 10 years out, you may have a colleague who is looking for a change of pace or for that DPC work-life balance.
Review applications and conduct interviews: Carefully review the applications you receive, considering the candidates' qualifications, experience, and compatibility with your practice's values. Shortlist the most promising candidates and invite them for interviews. Conduct thorough interviews to assess their clinical skills, communication abilities, and alignment with your practice's philosophy. You will probably want to have your medical assistant interview the prospective person as well, and you’ll want to ask the same questions to each candidate to ensure a fair and balanced interview process.
Check references: Contact the references provided by the candidates to gain insight into their past performance, work ethic, and professionalism. It's important to verify the information provided in their application and ensure they have a good reputation. A great question to ask an old colleague - “how did you feel working with this person?” Another good question: “would you want this doctor caring for your spouse, kids, or parents?”
Observe clinical skills: Consider arranging a practical assessment to evaluate the candidates' clinical skills. This can involve having them perform a mock patient consultation or observe them during a real patient encounter. Assess their ability to provide comprehensive care and establish a good rapport with patients. At Plum Health, we invite our prospective doctors to spend a day or a half day in our clinic to work with us as we see patients. We get a way better understanding of their demeanor and presence in the exam room.
Assess cultural fit: Evaluate the candidate's compatibility with your practice's culture and values. Direct primary care often emphasizes strong doctor-patient relationships, personalized care, and a patient-centric approach. Look for candidates who align with these principles and demonstrate a genuine interest in the direct primary care model.
Offer and negotiate: Once you've identified the most suitable candidate, extend a formal job offer that includes details about compensation, benefits, working hours, and any specific terms or conditions (this is all in your contract ideally!). Be prepared to negotiate certain aspects, such as salary or benefits, if necessary.
Onboarding and orientation: Once the doctor has accepted the offer, facilitate a smooth onboarding process. Provide them with any necessary paperwork, introduce them to your existing staff, familiarize them with your practice's policies and procedures, and provide any training or orientation required.
Ongoing support and development: Support the doctor's professional growth and development by offering opportunities for continuing medical education, attending conferences, or participating in relevant workshops. Encourage open communication and provide a supportive environment that enables them to excel in their role. With our current doctors, we have helped them to get board certified in obesity medicine, shadow other physicians where they have skill deficits, invite speakers for lunch and learns, and send them to exciting conferences! If you challenge your team mates to bring out the best in them, they will bring their best to the office and to patient care.
Start your direct primary care practice in a desirable area! I know this might be a tough pill to swallow, but if you’re in rural community or a community that doesn’t have the resources that support family life (good schools, parks, museums, sports teams, and other enriching activities), you may have a harder time than typical finding great doctors. For us, in Metro Detroit, there are a lot of resources and therefore a lot of talented people in the area - we are blessed to be surrounded by great institutions that attract and retain great talent.
Remember, this guide provides a general framework, and you may need to adapt it based on your specific requirements. Consulting with legal and healthcare professionals in your state can also help ensure compliance with any applicable laws or regulations.
Thanks for reading, and happy hiring!!!
Again, if you want our sample contract and more nitty gritty on this topic, check out our “Hire a Doctor Startup DPC course”, here!
-Dr. Paul Thomas with Plum Health DPC in Detroit, Michigan
Payroll for your direct primary care practice can be scary - for most doctors who start a direct primary care practice, this is the first time paying themselves and it’s their first time paying employees.
But, don’t be scared any more! By the time you finish this blog post, you will have a good idea of how to pay your employees in a reasonably easy way.
There are several payroll options available for small business owners, including:
Manual Payroll: This involves calculating and processing payroll manually using spreadsheets or paper-based systems. While this option is low-cost, it can be time-consuming and prone to errors. I strongly recommend against doing this. Your time is WAY better spent taking care of patients or growing the business. Unless you have a background in accounting, do not do this.
Payroll Software: Payroll software can automate the payroll process, including calculating wages, taxes, and deductions. There are several software options available, ranging from simple and low-cost solutions to more advanced platforms with additional features such as time-tracking and benefits administration.
One example of a payroll software is Gusto. Gusto offers a cloud-based payroll platform that automates the payroll process. It includes features such as direct deposit, tax calculations, and benefit administration. Gusto also offers time-tracking and HR features, such as onboarding and document management. Small business owners can choose from several pricing plans based on the number of employees and the features they need. Payroll software like Gusto is a good option for small businesses that want to streamline their payroll process and have more control over the payroll function.
Online Payroll Services: Online payroll services provide a cloud-based platform for managing payroll. These services often offer features such as direct deposit, tax filing, and time-tracking. Online payroll services are typically easy to use and affordable, making them a popular choice for small businesses.
An example of an online payroll service is ADP. ADP offers a cloud-based payroll platform that provides payroll processing, tax filing, and compliance management. ADP also offers HR features such as time and attendance tracking, employee benefits, and talent management. Small business owners can choose from several pricing plans based on the number of employees and the features they need. Online payroll services like ADP are a good option for small businesses that want a simple and easy-to-use payroll solution, without having to invest in additional software or hardware.
Options 2 and 3 have some overlap because Gusto can be completed online (without downloading a software suite). Other companies that offer payroll software include QuickBooks, PayChex, Xero, and others.
Accountant or Bookkeeper: Small business owners can also outsource payroll to an accountant or bookkeeper. These professionals can handle all aspects of payroll processing, including calculating wages, taxes, and deductions. While this option can be more expensive than other options, it can provide peace of mind and ensure compliance with tax laws and regulations.
Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs): PEOs are third-party companies that manage HR and payroll functions for small businesses. They offer a range of services, including payroll processing, benefits administration, and compliance management. PEOs can be a good option for small businesses that need comprehensive HR services. If you want to completely outsource payroll and benefits, you’d use an option like this. i don’t know any DPC doctor who uses something like this, as larger businesses would use this option.
It's important for direct primary care doctors to consider their specific needs and budget when selecting a payroll option. They should also consult with a financial professional or tax expert to ensure compliance with tax laws and regulations.
When I started my DPC practice and hired my first employee, I had a really hard time with this. It was more of a mental barrier than anything. I ended up picking Gusto because they have a really nice user experience/design on their website.
I ran payroll for a year using this, but my account found that Gusto was NOT paying my taxes accurately, so we had to put some extra money in at the end of the year. After discovering this, we switched to “RunPayroll”, an online-based platform. I now submit payroll via RunPayroll and my accountant checks on it quarterly.
I pay $62 monthly for accounting, $250 quarterly to my accountant for them to review my books and make sure that all of my expenses are categorized perfectly, and about $1,800 annually for tax preparation for myself and for my business.
Usually you don’t need a payroll company if you’re the only employee in your direct primary care practice. Once you hire another doctor or a medical assistant, you’ll need to set up an account with a payroll company so that they can help you keep track of payroll taxes.
If you’re a solo doc and if you have an accounting software like Quickbooks, you can pay yourself through an owner’s draw. This is a simple way of paying yourself when you’re just starting out.
When you take an owner’s draw, you should set aside 40% of that owner’s draw for taxes. You will likely pay 25% to 35% of your Net Operating Income in taxes, so be mindful of these numbers. Your accountant should be able to calculate the amount of taxes that you need to pay each quarter.
With quarterly income taxes, you will mail up to three checks to your city, state, and the federal government from the money you make during that period. Here in Detroit, Michigan, we have city taxes paid each quarter (about $125) and state taxes paid each quarter (maybe $1,250). This is usually an estimate. If you over estimate, you could get money back during tax time or have a small tax bill. If you under estimate, you could owe a larger balance during tax time.
I hope this was helpful, and best of luck with your DPC practice!
- Dr. Paul Thomas with Plum Health DPC in Detroit, Michigan.
Direct primary care is a growing business practice in primary care. Many doctors start successful practices by recruiting about 400 or 500 patients and having them pay $60 or $80 monthly. With these examples, it’s easy to see how a doctor could earn $288,000 in annual revenue up to $480,000 in annual revenue. Now, if there are two or three doctors in a practice, it’s easy to see how one office can generate $1,000,000 in annual revenue.
As a side note, annual revenue does not mean take home pay. Doctors have to account for overhead expenses like rent, paying employees like medical assistants, and paying for labs, medications, and other services vital to the clinic’s function.
All that being said, what would it look like to take a DPC practice from $1,000,000 in annual revenue (a big achievement) to $10,000,000 in annual revenue? That’s what I want to explore in this blog post:
Growing a business from $1 million to $10 million in annual revenue can be a significant challenge, but it can be done with the right strategy, hard work, and execution. Here are some steps that can help:
Define your target market: Identify the specific segment of customers that you want to target and tailor your products or services to meet their needs. This will help you to more effectively reach and retain customers, and drive revenue growth. In the case of DPC, you need to have a very strong customer avatar - what does your typical customer look like?
Increase sales and marketing efforts: To grow revenue, you'll need to increase your sales and marketing efforts. This could involve expanding your sales team, improving your marketing materials and campaigns, and leveraging technology to reach new customers. Beyond blogging and SEO, your DPC practice might need to hire someone to recruit new patients for you.
Offer new or complementary products or services: Consider offering new products or services that complement your existing offerings and appeal to your target market. This can help you to tap into new revenue streams and increase overall sales. It could be a line of supplements, or a weight loss program, or BOTOX or other programs to increase revenue.
Enhance your customer experience: Providing excellent customer service and a positive customer experience can help you to retain existing customers and attract new ones. Consider implementing customer feedback programs and investing in training and development for your customer service team. Even a 1 hour lunch and learn about improving the customer experience could go a long way in growing your practice.
Leverage technology: Technology can help you to streamline processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. Consider investing in technology that can automate repetitive tasks, improve customer engagement, and drive growth. As doctors, this tends to be a blind spot for us.
Expand your geographic reach: Consider expanding your business into new geographic markets, either through physical expansion or through online channels. This can help you to tap into new revenue streams and increase overall sales. I think this is the easiest to understand for DPC doctors - you probably need to go to the other side of the city or to the next town over or even the next biggest metro area to grow your business.
Foster a culture of growth: Encourage your employees to take ownership of the growth of the business and to continuously look for new ways to improve processes, increase sales, and drive revenue growth. What if you incentivized your employees to bring on new patients?
These are some of the steps that can help you to grow your business from $1 million to $10 million in annual revenue. It's important to develop a comprehensive and well-executed plan and to stay focused on your goals.
Thanks for reading, and good luck starting and growing your direct primary care practice!
-Dr. Paul Thomas, MD with Startup DPC
Direct primary care (DPC) is an alternative model of primary care that is gaining popularity across the United States. It emphasizes a personalized, patient-centered approach to care and eliminates the need for insurance. However, starting a DPC practice can be challenging. That's why we've developed multiple courses to help you along the way.
Our first most popular course, "Writing a Business Plan for a Direct Primary Care Practice," provides you with the tools and knowledge necessary to create a comprehensive and effective business plan. This includes understanding the DPC model, financial management, and how to attract patients to your practice.
Our second most popular course, "Attracting Patients to Your Direct Primary Care Practice," focuses on marketing strategies for DPC practices. It covers topics such as building a website, social media marketing, and community outreach.
Both of our courses are designed to help you navigate the challenges of starting a DPC practice and provide you with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed.
Our courses are designed for doctors who are interested in starting a DPC practice, or for those who are looking to grow and improve an existing practice. They cover the most important aspects of starting a DPC practice, from writing a business plan to attracting patients.
We understand that starting a DPC practice can be a daunting task, but with the right knowledge and skills, it can be a successful and rewarding experience. Our courses are designed to give you the tools and support you need to achieve your goals.
If you're interested in starting a DPC practice or want to take your existing practice to the next level, our courses are a great place to start. Sign up today and take the first step towards success.
We are especially happy when we get feed back and reviews like this one:
As a direct primary care (DPC) doctor, your personal brand is an important part of your professional identity. It helps to set you apart from other family medicine doctors, urgent care centers, and hospital systems in your area, and can attract new patients to your practice. Here are some tips for building and promoting your personal brand:
Define your unique value proposition: What makes you different from other DPC doctors? What are your areas of expertise, and how do you approach patient care differently? By identifying your unique value proposition, you can better communicate the benefits of your practice to potential patients.
Develop a strong online presence: In today's digital age, it's essential to have an online presence that showcases your expertise and personality. This can include a website, blog, and social media profiles. Be sure to regularly update your online profiles with relevant and engaging content, and consider using SEO techniques to increase your visibility.
Engage with your community: Building relationships with your patients and other healthcare professionals in your community can help to establish your personal brand and reputation. Consider speaking at local events, joining professional organizations, or volunteering your time and expertise to organizations in need.
Utilize patient testimonials: Patient testimonials can be a powerful way to showcase the value of your DPC practice. Encourage satisfied patients to share their experiences online, and consider featuring these testimonials on your website or social media profiles.
By following these tips, you can effectively build and promote your personal brand as a DPC doctor. This can help to attract new patients and establish your reputation as a trusted and competent physician.
Today I got a wonderful email from a 3rd year resident who wants to start a DPC practice right out of residency. This is commendable! and echoes what I did as a doctor starting a DPC right after residency completion.
He took our Startup DPC course on Writing a Business Plan and his big ask was as follows: “I wrote this long piece of content, what do you think?”
Overall, the content he wrote was good! It explained his ethos and the ethos of his clinic. But, I told him that one piece of content doesn’t move the needle. I asked him:
“can you consistently make a new piece of content each week, every week, for 5 years? That's the real question. I usually spend about 1 hour each week creating a piece of content to support my DPC practice. This consistency is what draws new members to our practice. It's nice to have a short video or blog post that explains your ethos, but can you create a new piece of content each week?”
The best way to consistently create content is to take photos of the work you do in your clinic and to take photos of the work you do in the community. Family photos and hyperlocal content does well also.
You should always be thinking about content creation and trying to capture the moments that visually explain what you do in your DPC practice and how you do it and what it means for the community. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!
Now, take those pictures, add a caption and post them to your favorite social media channels. I use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok most often, in that order. If you can create an engaging piece of content every month, you will have great success with your marketing efforts for your Direct Primary Care practice.
Here are some examples from my business, Plum Health DPC, from the last 4 months of 2022:
6 years in business: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmt81PZL3JB/
Influenza A updates: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmXKf6OvMsu/
House call medicine: https://www.instagram.com/p/ClWl_TrvCC3/
Passing of a community physician, friend, and mentor: https://www.instagram.com/p/ClHXhYXvSBa/
Volunteering at a health fair: https://www.instagram.com/p/CjdM4ytL-g3/
Teaching other physicians about DPC: https://www.instagram.com/p/CjYJKr_L3Ka/
Talking about healthy foods in Detroit: https://www.instagram.com/p/CjBfbA0P7qz/
Laceration repair: https://www.instagram.com/p/CiA-KN6O7Or/
Here are a few more blog post ideas for your direct primary care practice:
The benefits of direct primary care for patients
Why you decided to start your direct primary care practice
The differences between direct primary care and traditional primary care
The role of technology in direct primary care (texting patients, emailing patients, video chats with patients)
The importance of preventive care in direct primary care (how you have more time to address preventive medicine issues)
Direct primary care and the opioid crisis (how you can help your patients manage pain more effectively with multiple modalities, rather than with a pill)
Direct primary care and mental health
The impact of direct primary care on healthcare costs
The future of direct primary care
Success stories from patients in a direct primary care practice
Good luck! and keep writing! It helps to keep your audience engaged and it helps to grow your practice when your community knows about you and your ethos.
-Dr. Paul Thomas with Startup DPC
This week, we had a great question from one of our business analysts about the length of membership at Plum Health DPC. He wanted to know how long patients stay with our practice?
This is a difficult question to answer as our relationships with patients are ongoing - people are signing up with us this month who may stay with us for months or years or decades. We don’t know what these relationships will look like as they are just beginning.
However, we have been practicing at Plum health for the last 5 years and 8 months, so we have a pretty good idea of what to expect.
There is some nuance to this conversation - and it starts with two distinct groups. You have to think about the members who are still with us and the members who have joined and left our practice as two distinct groups.
Our Plum Health DPC practice has had a total of 2,499 patients enroll in our practice and we currently have 1,150 active members.
The average length of membership for a patient that has joined and left is 10.24 months. This feels about right for me as a physician. A lot of the folks who enroll with us are in between jobs, or in between cities, or making a career transition, or they’re not satisfied with the care that they’re getting from another health care system. They join our practice as a stop gap between insurance coverages, or they join our practice for us to help them through a rough psychological or physiological or medical transition where they may need more care than typical.
After about 10 months of care, they’ve moved on to the next thing. This is an important piece of information for our business because it helps us to inform our price point. If our average price point is $60 per member per month, then we typically make $600 per member who enrolls in our service.
The average length of membership for a patient that has joined and is still active or still currently a member of our practice is 24.69 months. This is amazing - at Plum Health, we love taking care of our patients for the long term.
This information is helpful, because it can continue to inform our price point going forward. The two pieces of data above help us calculate the value of each new patient that enrolls in our practice.
The next piece of data to look at would be how many appointments and chart interactions, or about how much time our doctors spend with each patient, to calculate the value per hour for each physician’s time and effort.
Most patients who enroll in our service perform the mental math in their head. They might say to themselves, “if I enroll in this service at $60 per month, and I plan to stay with Plum Health for 1 year, I will spend about $720.”
The second part of that conversation is something like, “in order for my insurance to kick in, I need to spend $7,000 (my deductible) on my own health care before my insurance pays for any of my health care expenses, so paying about 10% of that amount or $720 to Plum Health for unlimited primary care is a good deal.”
Or, if the patient is uninsured, they may say “I have no health insurance, and paying $720 a year to Plum Health to keep me out of the hospital or the emergency department or the urgent care is well worth it for me.”
I hope that this blog post is helpful for you as you start and grow your own direct primary care practice. This is an important model for our health care system here in the United States as direct primary care doctors tend to help folks who are left out by the traditional fee-for-service system.
Understanding how long patients typically use your service is invaluable. Understanding the lifetime value of the patients who uses your practice is also invaluable. These numbers will give you an idea of what you can expect in your direct primary care practice. The caveat is that our patient population at Plum Health DPC in Detroit may be younger and more mobile than other direct primary care practices.
Thanks for reading and have a great day,
-Paul Thomas MD with Plum Health DPC
Did you enjoy this blog post? If so, read more of Dr. Paul Thomas’ thoughts on Direct Primary Care in the Startup DPC book, and watch more videos about direct primary care in the Startup DPC courses!
As a primary care doctor, you are unlikely to have any history of building a website or creating content online, and THAT IS OKAY. You don’t need to know how to write code, and you don’t need to know how to do complicated tasks online. However, you should know how to use a service like SquareSpace or Wix or GoDaddy to build your own website.
I like using SquareSpace, and both my PlumHealthDPC.com and this StartupDPC.com are built on the SquareSpace platform. It takes anywhere from 2 to 8 hours to build a decent website. You have to choose a theme and select the pages that you want. Some companies are going to a “one page website” where you have all of your information on one page without clicking to other pages. This would greatly simplify your web-building process.
However, as you can see, I take a more traditional or typical approach to my website. I have a main page, an about page, an FAQ page, a blog page, and then my schedule/enroll page. This meets the expectations of most of my potential customers and allows them to easily engage with my content.
I can also write many blog posts and add that information to my blog page, which increases my traffic and search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic rather than direct traffic or paid traffic.
I have a lot of doctors ask me to develop their website for them. I charge $3,000 for this service as it takes a good amount of time and there is a decent amount of back-and-forth to get things just right for the doctor. Most good web designers charge this amount of money, and you can find someone to do the work for you on a site like Fiverr or UpWork or a similar free-lance friendly website.
I will say, your website is the most important part of your business. It’s the front door to your business, and it acts to attract new patients and enables them to enroll seamlessly. You must have an excellent website that is easy to use and does not have any broken links.
On a final note, I’m taking a digital marketing course right now to improve my digital marketing skills, and this was one of the topics: how to improve your website!
When you are building your website, it’s important to identify the goal of your website. For my Plum Health DPC website, my goal is to get more people to enroll in our direct primary care service. We achieve this goal by writing content on our blog to improve search engine optimization, and then sharing that content on our social media channels and back-linking to our blog to attract new readers, who hopefully become new members.
When you are building your website, it’s important to identify the goal of your website. For my Plum Health DPC website, my goal is to get more people to enroll in our direct primary care service.
Additionally, your website should be easy to navigate - as the old saying goes, keep it simple silly! If you have too much information, a cramped and crowded website, it may drive people away. Having enough white space allows your website to breathe and your potential customers to feel relaxed as they read through your information.
You should have your logo on each page, as that can add more credibility and professionalism. You should choose fonts and colors that complement your brand and your logo. I like to include videos and multimedia - written content paired with images and videos can help communicate the information to different audiences who consume information in different ways.
Additionally, your website should be easy to navigate - as the old saying goes, keep it simple silly! If you have too much information, a cramped and crowded website, it may drive people away. Having enough white space allows your website to breathe and your potential customers to feel relaxed as they read through your information. You should have your logo on each page, as that can add more credibility and professionalism. You should choose fonts and colors that complement your brand and your logo. I like to include videos and multimedia - written content paired with images and videos can help communicate the information to different audiences who consume information in different ways.
Thanks so much for reading! If you love this content, then check out our Sales Funnel course, where I go in-depth on how to attract more patients to your direct primary care practice. As a big hint, you need to have content on your website and a seamless way to enroll on your website to achieve this goal.
Have a great week!
-Dr. Paul Thomas with Startup DPC and Plum Health DPC in Detroit, Michigan
This week, we took a look at our reviews for Startup DPC on GoodReads.com. Most of our reviews for Startup DPC are on Amazon.com, where we have 103 reviews for Startup DPC with an aggregate of five stars overall. On GoodReads.com, we have 15 ratings and 2 reviews for the Startup DPC book with an aggregate of 4.67 stars. These aren’t the most important metrics of all time, but they do give us an insight into our readers, and these positive reviews and great feed back show us that the material in the Startup DPC book is valuable for our readers - doctors who want to start and grow their own direct primary care practices.
This is a screen shot from GoodReads.com, a site that has 15 reviews for Startup DPC, our book about how to start and grow a direct primary care practice.
We got a glowing review from one of our readers, Ronald:
Dr. Paul Thomas writes: “You should start a direct primary care practice because you can become the doctor you’re meant to be.” There is a Japanese concept called Ikigai, or “your reason for being.” There’s no doubt what Dr. Paul’s reason for being is: to transform healthcare in the United States, transform the lives of his patients, better his community, and his profession. His passion bleeds through this book, and makes it an incredibly compelling read. It also is a nuts-to-bolts guide on how you can start your own Direct Primary Care practice, from marketing, branding, pricing, and a host of other issues that need to be addressed. When you read that we lose one doctor every day to physician suicide, the equivalent of an entire medical school graduating class, you realize that good people are working in a bad system. I absolutely love his question: “Who in this room would want a five minute haircut? No one raised their hand except for a bald guy. Why do you settle for a seven minute appointment for your health, for God’s sake?” Concierge and DPC medicine are transforming the way doctors provide, and patients consume, healthcare. It’s more affordable, convenient, accessible, but most importantly, it restores the sacred doctor-patient relationship. You will get an insider’s account of how Dr. Paul started his own practice, Plum Health, along with the trials, tribulations, and successes along his journey.
As someone who is interested in Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that actually measure customer success, I loved the KPIs he measures at Plum Health: How many hospitalizations have we prevented? How many urgent care and emergency department visits have we prevented? If a patient has a weight loss goal. Management of their anxiety or depression, have we helped them meet that goal? How much money have we saved our patients? Have we decreased morbidity and mortality in our communities? These are much more difficult to measure accurately, but they get much closer to the truth regarding Plum’s efficacy as clinicians.
I hope this book is read by doctors looking to get back to why they became a doctor in the first place, rather than serving insurance companies and an unsustainable fee-for-service business model. And if you’re a patient, seriously consider finding a DPC doctor.
We have had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Paul two times, and a third one coming up on this book on June 26, 2020. You can listen to the first two interviews here…
This is a screen shot from GoodReads.com, a site that has 15 reviews for Startup DPC, our book about how to start and grow a direct primary care practice. One contributor wrote an in-depth review of our Startup DPC book, and for that we are grateful.
This is an extremely kind review, and we’re grateful for our readers and supporters. Our goal is to help as many doctors start and grow their direct primary care practices as possible. This model, and this movement, is essential to helping our patients and communities live healthier lives.
- Dr. Paul Thomas
