My DPC Story

What does it look like to build a Direct Primary Care practice that protects your health as fiercely as it protects your patients? In this episode of My DPC Story, Dr. April Soto of Love and Light Integrative Medicine in South Pasadena, California shares how she systematically exited corporate medicine over three years and built an integrative DPC practice rooted in authenticity, boundaries, and h...

CLOSING SOON! VOTE IN THE 2026 MY DPC STORY BATTLE! VOTE HERE When most physicians hear the word sustainability, they think about keeping the doors open. But after a weekend with more than 80 doctors at the California DPC Summit, our host Dr. Maryal Concepcion came away certain it means so much more. In this episode of My DPC Story, five voices from the Direct Primary Care community share what mak...

What if you could get back fifteen hours of your work week without seeing a single extra patient? In this special episode, recorded live in a breakout room workshop following the California DPC Summit, Justin Lam, CEO of Cool Blue VA , sits down with a room full of physicians to talk about getting real help in your practice and in your life. Dr. Maryal Concepcion opens by sharing her own experienc...

What happens to a family physician when the system that trained him decides he no longer has value? In this deeply personal episode, Dr. Maryal Concepcion hands the introduction to a special guest, then sits down with her husband, Dr. Jeremiah Fillo of Big Trees MD, for an honest conversation about sustainability, not just as a doctor, but as a whole person. Dr. Fillo shares the path from rural Ne...

What does it take to make women's healthcare access sustainable, not just for patients, but for the physician carrying the mission? In this episode of the My DPC Story podcast, Dr. Maryal Concepcion welcomes back Dr. Esther Khatibi, family physician who does surgical obstetrics, and founder of My DOC , a nonprofit delivering high-quality, evidence-based obstetric care to women regardless of t...

In this June sustainability episode, Maryal sits down with Dr. Daniel Hochman, a psychiatrist in private practice in Texas and the founder of Self Recovery, an online addiction curriculum built from thousands of hours of one-to-one clinical work. Dr. Hochman left the insurance model early, around 2014, because the deep, philosophical therapy he wanted to practice could never be reimbursed in a fee...

Can Direct Primary Care really pay off for a physician family carrying student loan debt and no employer match? In this episode of the My DPC Story podcast, host Dr. Maryal Concepcion talks with Dr. Manuel Vogt of Texas DPC about the real financial tools behind building a thriving practice. From a billboard at a railroad crossing to a 220-patient pre-enrollment list on opening day, Dr. Vogt shares...

Dr. Emily Holt returns to the podcast one year after opening Poppy Direct Care in New Orleans, and the landscape around her has changed dramatically. When Maryal last spoke with Dr. Holt, Poppy was just months old and DPC Summit attendees were touring her 100-year-old clinic house. A year later, her panel has more than doubled, she's about to opt out of Medicare, and she's a named plaint...

What if your new patient visit didn't start with a 200-page ER record dump, scattered portal logins, and a patient saying "I think mom had some kind of cancer"? In this episode of My DPC Story, Dr. Maryal Concepcion sits down with Anna Smith, RN, MPH, CEO of Vivid Vault Health Solutions , to talk about a patient-owned, multi-generational health navigation platform built to strengthe...

This month on the My DPC Story podcast we are talking about the tools that serve us, and Dr. Michael Hobbs is a voice you do not want to miss. Dr. Hobbs is a pediatrician and founder of Lakes Pediatrics, the first pediatric Direct Primary Care practice in the Minneapolis area, serving families across Edina, Wayzata, and the western suburbs. He brings over twenty years in Twin Cities pediatrics, mo...

Dr. Maryal Concepcion welcomes Dr. Nyasha Spears , family physician and co-founder of Amity Creek Primary Care in Duluth, Minnesota. After her century-old community clinic was closed by a corporate hospital system with just 36 days notice, Dr. Spears took her former employer to court, won a temporary injunction against her non-compete, and opened the doors to Amity Creek alongside her partner Dr....

Dr. Courtney Barrett , founder of True Insight Direct Care in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, opens our May theme, The Tools You Use , with a conversation that redefines what tools means in a Direct Primary Care practice. As a DO offering osteopathic manipulative treatment alongside full-spectrum primary care, Dr. Barrett shares how OMT functions as both a clinical tool and a front door to membe...

Dr. Maryal Concepcion welcomes Dr. Jihan Ansari, founder of Harbor Direct Primary Care in South Orange County, California. Dr. Ansari shares the marketing strategies that grew her DPC practice from patient zero to a thriving two-physician clinic she runs with her husband, Dr. Pedram Ansari. From cold-calling former co-resident Dr. Jose Buenostro to learn about DPC, to filming a TikTok before jury...

After nearly a decade as a hospitalist in the Washington, DC area, Dr. Nadia Sirdar realized she had stopped feeling. End-of-life conversations had become a script. Length-of-stay metrics were drowning out the humans in front of her. She wasn't burned out on medicine. She was burned out on the system. In this episode of My DPC Story, Dr. Maryal Concepcion sits down with Dr. Sirdar, internal m...

What does it actually take to market a direct specialty care practice in a city full of competitors? For Dr. Ashley Agan, otolaryngologist and founder of Scottie ENT in Dallas, Texas, the answer had nothing to do with billboards or ad spend, and everything to do with how patients felt when they left her office. In this episode, Dr. Agan shares her journey from nearly 13 years at UT Southwestern, i...

Dr. Aleea Gupta of Family First Direct Primary Care in the western suburbs of Chicago returns to My DPC Story four years after her first appearance, and a lot has changed. Her Instagram following has grown to over 12,000 organic followers, she has partnered with national brands including GoodRx and the AAFP, and her solo practice has evolved into a model of physician entrepreneurship built on auth...

What does it look like when a physician gets laid off from a corporate-acquired DPC practice and turns that loss into the exact practice he always wanted to build? We close out Financial Sustainability Month with Dr. Josh Chow, DO and his wife Katherine Chow of Ohana Medical in Centennial, Colorado. Their story is one of resilience, financial clarity, and a deep commitment to family, both the one...

Can Your DPC Practice Survive Its Own Success? Most physicians opening a Direct Primary Care practice master the clinical side quickly. The harder challenge? Running the business that sustains it. In this episode of My DPC Story , host Dr. Maryal Concepcion sits down with Tom Squire , founder of Osprey CFO , a financial advisory firm built specifically to support small businesses and DPC practices...

Dr. Shannon Connolly, Dr. Shayne Poulin, and Dr. Amy Tressan found each other inside Melody Health, a mission-driven primary care practice embedded within Planned Parenthood, serving more than 13,000 patients across seven health centers in Orange County, California. Then, with the passage of HR 1 and the defunding of Planned Parenthood, they lost it, in a matter of weeks . They opened Open Arms Pr...

Dr. Feneisha Franklin spent a decade in corporate medicine before finding her door: a Direct Primary Care practice seven minutes from her house, owned by a retiring physician ready to pass the torch. She left her employer on a Friday. She owned Living Well Family Medicine on Monday. In this episode, Dr. Franklin breaks down what it actually takes to purchase an existing DPC practice: profit and lo...

She was working 20 hours a day in fee-for-service medicine, and her supervisor was online at 3am too, totally unbothered. That's when Dr. Victoria Leventis-Shew knew nothing was ever going to change. So she changed everything. Dr. Leventis-Shew is the founder of Victory Family Medicine in Columbia, SC, a physician-only micropractice she built intentionally, organically, and on her own terms....

Dr. Matthew Hitchcock of Hitchcock Medical Group in Chattanooga, TN has spent over a decade proving that direct primary care is not just better medicine, it's a smarter business. In this episode, he breaks down the layered economic model behind his DPC practice, in-house pharmacy, and cash-only imaging center. What we cover: Why primary care is a loss leader in the insurance world and how DPC...

Episode Summary: After our episode about Zion HealthShare sparked more listener questions than almost any other episode this season, we brought together Preston Guthrie, Head of Sales at Zion HealthShare, and Camila Guerrero, Practice Manager at Brock Family Care in North Carolina and a Zion member herself, to answer everything. We discuss pre-existing conditions and the 24-month pre-membership ru...

We’re closing out February with Dr. Aisha Harris of Flint, Michigan , a board-certified family physician, community advocate, and the founder of Harris Family Health , the first Direct Primary Care clinic in her hometown. In this episode of My DPC Story , Dr. Harris shares how returning to Flint to open a DPC practice allowed her to practice medicine with purpose - addressing trust, environment, a...

In this previously aired episode of My DPC Story , host Maryal Concepcion sits down with Dr. Jalan Burton, a Washington, DC/DMV–based pediatrician practicing at the intersection of healthcare policy and deeply relational care. As the founder of Healthy Home Pediatrics, Dr. Burton shares how Direct Primary Care allows her to deliver unrushed, home-based pediatric care in a policy-dense environment...