DPC Life: Conversations Beyond the Practice

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 mar...

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...

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 a...

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 resi...

I'm coaching Dr. Shikha Joshi of Bloom Direct Primary Care in Buffalo, New York. Dr. Joshi is four months into her DPC after nine years as a hospitalist, and she's doing what most early-stage DPC docs are doing: showing up at vendor events, talking to anyone who will listen, and wondering why it isn't converting faster. We dig into her elevator pitch and rebuild it from scratch around...

Today I'm sitting down with Alexa Torres of Care Identity, a brand and web designer who has spent close to a decade working specifically with Direct Primary Care physicians. Alexa has built over 100 DPC websites and cash pay practice brands, and she has more clarity about how DPC docs actually attract patients than almost anyone I've talked to. We get into niching down, why in-person netwo...

After almost two years of paying for DPC marketing companies that did not deliver, Dr. Moizah Saad finally decided to take control of her own growth. In Part 2 of our live coaching call, we walk through the exact networking strategies, elevator pitch formula, and social media mindset shifts she is using to grow her DPC + hybrid clinic in Princeton, New Jersey. We also unpack the “Mamdani moment” t...

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Moizah Saad, an internal medicine physician who left California corporate medicine, moved to New Jersey, and opened her hybrid DPC clinic, Jersey Family Health. She thought: “If I open my doors and put up a website, patients will come.”Reality: crickets. On this live coaching call, we unpack the marketing blind spots corporate medicine never teaches you and wal...

After 16 years as a med-peds hospitalist, Dr. Brian Bost launched B2 Direct Care in Denver, but he didn’t completely give up hospital work, unlike most DPC docs. He kept his hospital shifts, started telemedicine-only at $75/month, and is taking a deliberately slow rollout. In this first call of an ongoing series, he and Dr. Anne Gonzalez review his hybrid model practice, pricing, imposter syndrome...

You can be the most skilled physician in your city, but if nobody knows you exist, your practice won't grow. In Part 2, the real strategy comes out. Dr. Nadia Sirdar walks through the exact patient acquisition tactics that got her to 50 members- including the farmer's market funnel that outperformed everything else (and the story of Mitch, a man in his 80s who may be her most effective ref...

What happens when a hospitalist who’s spent years running codes and rapid responses is told she “can’t” do Direct Primary Care? She launches anyway, hits 50 members in her first official quarter, and ends up standing in front of the Maryland General Assembly. In this episode, Dr. Anne Gonzalez sits down with Dr. Nadia Sirdar, ABIM‑certified Internal Medicine physician and founder of Bethesda Moder...

When a patient asks "Do you take my insurance?" — do you know what to say? Most DPC doctors freeze in that moment. Not because they don't believe in what they've built — but because nobody ever taught them how to talk about money without feeling like a salesperson. This is one of our most listened episodes for a reason. We coach Dr. Donna Mayeda, founder of Ke Ola Noa DPC in Hono...

In this episode, allergist Dr. Anita Sivam shares how she left a large group practice in suburban Indianapolis to build Inspire Allergy & Asthma, a direct specialty care clinic focused on access, transparency, and food oral immunotherapy (OIT). We talk through her 6–month transition out of insurance based care, how she’s marketing a niche service like food OIT, and the simple systems she is us...

Thinking about DPC and quietly wondering: What does life actually look like on the other side? In this live Q&A replay, we answer one of the most honest questions physicians have about DPC: how do you balance ownership, freedom, and boundaries when it is your name on the door. We talk about what it really feels like to carry the practice in your mind, without being on call 24/7. We also keep c...

We walk through Dr. Rebecca Berens’ journey of building a DPC practice while navigating motherhood, uncertainty, and the unexpected challenges of opening in 2020. Instead of forcing growth, she leaned into her season of life and allowed her practice to evolve naturally through relationships and aligned care. Over time, her patient base shifted through trust and referrals rather than traditional ma...

If you feel like you spend more time checking boxes than caring for the human in front of you, this conversation will hit home. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Marissa Fusella, a family medicine physician in Latham, New York, who’s in the early days of launching her Direct Primary Care practice, Fusella Family Medicine. After eight years in employed medicine, she felt the growing tension betw...

In this episode, I share the 10 fears I hear over and over from physicians who are thinking about Direct Primary Care but feel unsure about leaving employed medicine. We talk about realistic patient follow‑through, contracts, finances, timing, and how to know if you’re actually ready to move. You’ll see that you’re not alone, you’re not the only one thinking about this, and there is a clear path f...

What if growth didn’t have to cost you your emotional bandwidth? In this episode of the DPC Life Podcast , I’m joined by Dr. Noemi Adame , a pediatric Direct Primary Care physician in rural Indiana who has deliberately built systems to protect her time, energy, and longevity. After years in employed and academic medicine, she chose DPC for more autonomy, but then realized that “freedom” without sy...

Coaching a brand-new DPC micropractice in Hawaii through pricing pushback, ‘concierge’ confusion, and early-growth doubt. When a patient asks, “Do you take my insurance?” most DPC‑curious docs freeze. In this episode, we coach Dr. Donna Mayeda, founder of Ke Ola Noa DPC in Honolulu, through exactly what to say, without feeling salesy or defensive. Just five months into her micropractice, Dr. Mayed...

Thinking about leaving employed medicine for independent practice? At the recent DPC Women Connect workshop, I kept hearing the same concern - not how to open a practice, but how to safely make the transition and what happens in the months before and after. In this short bonus episode I explain the Independent Practice Path (IPP), a small cohort designed to help physicians plan the move intentiona...

DPC can look freeing from the outside, but few people talk about the uncertainty that comes with DPC. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Cindy Ojevwe , a family medicine physician and owner of Dr. Cindy Care in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. We talked about her burnout in employed medicine and why she built her own Direct Primary Care practice. She shared the realities of starting solo, the unexp...

You can’t grow a DPC practice, be a great physician, and still show up fully at home if everything stays on your plate. At some point, something breaks, or you decide to build it differently. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Erik Petersen, founder of First Call DPC in Panama City Beach, Florida, to unpack what an automated DPC practice actually looks like. Erik shares how his background in em...

What really happens when a burned‑out family doctor walks away from the RVU treadmill and rebuilds medicine on her own terms? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Lyndsi Cress , a family medicine physician and founder of Coral Direct Primary Care in Little River, South Carolina, who walked away from high‑volume employed medicine to build a slower, more human practice. After years of rushing throu...

What if the worst day in Direct Primary Care is still better than the best day in employed medicine?  In Episode 23 of DPC Life, I talk with Dr. Wendy Molaska, family physician and founder of Dedicated Family Care in Madison, WI, and the 2025 DPC Physician of the Year. We walk through how she built a diverse, high-trust DPC clinic, expanded her team without losing her identity, and used the freedo...

What happens when a pediatrician decides she’d rather rebuild her career than lose herself to the system? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Noemi Adame , pediatrician and founder of Culver Pediatrics Center, who walked away from corporate pediatrics and rebuilt on her own terms. Known as the “Veggies Over Pills” doctor, she combines evidence-based pediatrics, lifestyle medicine, and integrative...