A “Typical Day” in Direct Primary Care

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People often ask what a typical day is like in DPC. Well, there’s no “typical” schedule. Here’s a look at one day at Emerald Health Direct Primary Care. It was a full day–seven patients came in for follow-ups, procedures, an abscess recheck, telehealth visits, plus phone calls and refills. That number sounds small compared to a fee-for-service day, but when you’re the admin and front desk too, it adds up fast. Even a busy day like this in DPC still beats the best day I ever had in fee-for-service, because I have autonomy. I could have moved things around if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t feel stressed with a full day scheduled.

The best parts of the day came at the end. I had time blocked to pick up my son, and that’s something I get to build in now. Then that evening I had chorus rehearsal, two hours every Monday, and it’s one of the most rejuvenating things in my week. I even have time to participate more fully as a board member of the Hickory Choral Society. So it was a long day, but this is the kind of expanded life that DPC allows me to build. 

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About Anne Gonzalez, MD

Dr. Anne Gonzalez runs Emerald Health DPC in Western North Carolina. That was enough, until she kept seeing DPC doctors struggling to do it all themselves: marketing, patient follow-up, scheduling, social media. She developed Harmony Ops, a DPC specific CRM, so you don’t have to figure it out alone. Your practice can grow without all that extra effort eating up your life. When she’s not seeing patients or tinkering with automations, she hosts the DPC Life Podcast. Established DPC doctors talk about what works, and she coaches new DPC docs on creating their brand vision and messaging. Turns out, once you escape fee-for-service medicine, the sky really is the limit--which is why she’s got more projects than she probably should have.