Episode 53 - How to Explain Direct Primary Care to Someone Who Has Never Heard of It with Dr. Michelle Mark

Dr. Michelle Mark is a family medicine physician in Henderson, Nevada getting ready to leave her fee-for-service job and open her own Direct Primary Care practice this fall. In this coaching call, she and Anne work through the pain points, the pitch, and the mindset that come before day one...

Dr. Michelle Mark has spent years practicing family medicine the way most doctors are trained to, rushed visits, overflowing task lists, and patients who keep getting passed between the front desk, the back office, and the medical assistants before a question ever reaches her. She knows the model well enough to see exactly where it breaks down.

She is also four months out from leaving it behind. In this coaching call, Michelle and Anne dig into the parts of a DPC launch that do not show up on a checklist: figuring out your why, naming your patients' real pain points, and building a short, honest way to explain Direct Primary Care to someone who has never heard of it.

"So it seems like a lot of the pain points my patients would be the access, being able to see me, but also even just to get an appointment at all in the clinics, aside from being told to go to the ER for everything."

A lot of the conversation lands on message. Michelle knows she wants to spend real time with patients, but turning that into something she can say out loud to a stranger is a different skill entirely. Anne walks her through a simple reframe: stop leading with features like same-day visits and 60-minute appointments, and start with what the patient actually gets out of it.

"You know when you call your doctor's office and you need to get in because you're sick, but you can't get in for two weeks. Well, at my practice, we can see you same day or next day because we're available when you need us."

The two also talk about practicing an elevator pitch until it stops feeling forced, especially for physicians who describe themselves as shy or introverted. And they touch on something every new DPC doctor eventually has to sit with: figuring out your ideal patient, even when your instinct as a family doctor is to say you love everyone.

Michelle is still a few months from opening her doors, but the groundwork she is doing now, on her why, her pain points, and her pitch, is what will make that first conversation with a new patient feel natural instead of rehearsed.

Are you a new DPC physician drowning in admin work before you even hit 50 patients?

The Harmony Ops Early Practice Plan was built for doctors who have opened their practice within the past six months or are opening very soon.

The goal is simple. Get your systems set up before things get busy, so when the patients do come, everything runs smoothly in the background while you focus on what you actually went into medicine for.

👉 Go to Harmony Ops for DPC to learn more about the Early Practice Plan.

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