DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast

What does it actually cost to start a telehealth practice, and what do the Facebook groups forget to tell you? Dr. Christina Long is an emergency medicine physician in Utah who opened The Bougie Bee in January after years of academic medicine in Chicago and a side gig with a telemedicine company that paid her $5 or $6 per patient. She calls that old setup an online pill mill, and she built her own practice to get away from it.

She i...

In Part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Charles Opperman, we cover how his gold tier visit fee works, how he helps patients choose the right membership tier, and how he sets boundaries around 24/7 cell phone access.

• How do you help patients choose between Direct Primary Care membership tiers?

• Should you let patients sign up at a meet and greet?

• How do you set boundaries with 24/7 access in Direct Primary Care?

🎧 Haven't listen...

Is age-based pricing really the only way to run a Direct Primary Care practice? Dr. Charles Opperman, internist and founder of Simplicity Health in Ohio, didn't think so. He planned his Direct Primary Care practice during COVID while his hospital system made him sit in an empty office from 8:00 to 5:00, and he built it on memberships priced by access instead of age.

Six years later, Simplicity Health has 1,500 patients and four phys...

In Part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Amber Price, we continue the discussion about rebuilding a Direct Primary Care practice, the lessons learned along the way, and what physicians can take away from her experience.

🎧 Haven’t listened to Part 1 yet?

Listen to Part 1 here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1h1K1TDTggSeOXjosAI3um?si=8fdfd4fc78ba4ae4

📖 Want the full conversation? Read the full show notes and transcript here: ht...

What happens when you build the Direct Primary Care practice you always wanted and then life forces you to start over?

Dr. Amber Price, a pediatrician, began building her Direct Primary Care practice before she even finished residency. What started as an idea she sketched out during a two-week vacation eventually became a thriving pediatric practice built slowly, organically, and almost entirely through community connections.

But her...

She is leaving a fee-for-service job in the fall and has not yet figured out what to call her practice, what her elevator pitch is, or who her ideal patient is.

Dr. Michelle Mark is a family medicine physician in Henderson, Nevada who is opening her own Direct Primary Care practice in fall 2026. This is a coaching call focused on the foundational work that most pre-launch Direct Primary Care physicians skip entirely: understanding y...

She finished residency on a Friday. By Monday she had moved out of her house, put everything in a storage unit, and had no job lined up. But she still chose to go all in on Direct Primary Care.

Dr. Claire Russell is back for a check-in as part of our Resident to DPC Series, where we follow her journey every couple of months. This time, she has found a location for Clinic by the Sea, and it is not a medical plaza near the hospital. I...

You have been in fee-for-service medicine for years. You are good at it. And it is quietly draining the life out of you…

Dr. Lina Feaster stayed in the system for over two decades before a single conversation with a former patient changed everything. She shares exactly how she converted her established solo practice to Direct Primary Care and what happened when she told her long-term patients, and the practical low-cost strat...

Today I'm coaching Dr. Nicole Newingham, a family physician in Newtown, PA who is four weeks out from the soft launch of Neu Lifestyle Medicine. Nicole did something a lot of us think about but few actually do. She quit her employed job with no plan, took four weeks off, sat with herself long enough to figure out what she actually wanted, and then decided DPC was the way back to the medicine she loves. We talk about the sobbing-at-...

Today we're replaying my conversation with Dr. Erik Petersen, co-founder of First Call DPC in Panama City Beach, Florida. Erik is an emergency medicine physician (med-peds trained) who turned two decades of ER experience into a hybrid DPC that spans 25 states, includes a partner practice in Missouri, and runs a vacation medicine funnel that converts 25% of visitors back as members. We get to nerd out about automations, workflows, a...

Today we're replaying my coaching conversation with Dr. Jo Ann Beltre, the founder of Wander Caare Pediatrics in Epping, NH. Dr. Jo Ann is a pediatric DPC doctor with more than 20 years of experience across pediatrics, urgent care, and travel medicine, and she just made the leap from urgent care into full-time DPC. We talk about her career path from a National Health Service Corps scholarship through the New Hampshire pediatric pra...

Today we're replaying my conversation with Dr. Catherine Lok, the founder of now Well Woven Direct Primary Care. Catherine went straight from residency into DPC after eight weeks of soul searching in a wilderness survival school, and her first two years have been anything but a straight line. She had six weeks of zero patients when she first opened, then survived Hurricane Helene destroying her clinic and a life-threatening car acc...

Huge congratulations to Dr. Michelle Cooke, the 2026 DPC Physician of the Year. 💛 We are so proud, so inspired, and so grateful for the work she is doing at Sol Direct Primary Care in East Point, GA. This episode is a replay of our original conversation from last year, and it's a perfect look at the vision, courage, and community leadership that earned her this recognition.

Today we're replaying one of my favorite conversations fro...

Huge congratulations to Dr. Wendy Molaska, who was recently honored with the inaugural DPC Physician of the Year Award at the DPC Summit. We could not be more proud of her leadership, her advocacy, and the DPC community she has helped shape. This episode is a replay of our original conversation, and it's a perfect look at the work that earned her this recognition.

Today's episode is a replay of one of my favorite conversations from ...

Today I'm coaching Dr. Maheswari Raja of Flower Mound, TX, an 18-year family physician who just walked away from her seventh job in corporate medicine and is opening Anchor Primary Care later this summer. Dr. Raja is doing what most physicians tell themselves they can't: self-funding her practice, working urgent care shifts twice a week to keep the pressure off, and building the practice she’s been dreaming about since reside...

Dr. Chelsea Johnson is back on the podcast, four months into her pediatric DPC in Liberty, MO. When we last talked, she was two weeks out from opening. Today, she's running her practice, doing weekend locums shifts, consulting for pediatric medical device companies, and prepping her teenage daughter to intern with her over the summer. We get into the surprises of the first four months, the marketing philosophy she's built (60% educ...

Six weeks ago, Dr. Brian Bost was a telemedicine-only doc with a soft launch and a long timeline. Today, he's standing in his brand new brick-and-mortar office in Denver, recording from a window seat inside a wellness practice with an acupuncturist next door and a balcony off the exam room. This is the second call in our Hospitalist to DPC series. We cover the office search, the elevator pitch he's still building, and the painting ...

Today my guest is Dr. Shehzein Khan, a family medicine physician in Irvine, California who launched her practice, Solace Primary Care, during her maternity leave and never went back to her panel of 1,700 patients. Dr. Khan is part of a growing group of physicians choosing to start DPC with a telehealth-first model, keeping overhead lean while building slowly and intentionally around a life that actually fits. We talk about how she ...

Episode #2 in the DPC Series: From Resident to DPC Practice Owner - The Real Costs & Strategy with Dr. Claire Russell

Today my guest is Dr. Claire Russell, a family medicine resident in Hendersonville, NC who is weeks away from graduation and getting ready to open Clinic by the Sea in Morehead City, NC. Dr. Russell is part of a growing wave of new physicians choosing to step straight from residency into DPC, and she's building h...