I still remember a stretch early in my career—barely two years out of residency—when I would sit in my car after clinic, hands on the

By Andrew Hertz, MD | Co-Founder & President, Zest Pediatric Network At Zest Pediatric Network, our mission is simple and urgent: Saving Pediatrics. Not just

If you’ve ever wondered why some people will wait in the Costco gas line for 20 minutes to save $2.00 while others won’t blink at

Setting prices for your pediatric DPC practice can feel both daunting and deeply personal. Unlike traditional fee-for-service medicine where insurers dictate reimbursement, in DPC we

I still remember walking into the breakroom of a busy local Ob/Gyn clinic, arms full of catered lunch trays and a stack of carefully designed

One of the most powerful exercises you can do as you design or refine your DPC pediatric practice is to create an avatar of your

By Marina Capella, MD I recall the crisp, fall day in October when I officially opened my practice. I had spent a few months doing

In business strategy, one of the cornerstones of long-term success is creating a model that competitors cannot easily imitate. The more inimitable your practice is,

A few years into running a DPC practice, almost every pediatrician has the same moment. You’re no longer just covering rent and payroll. You’re paying

In my corporate strategy course with Professor Todd Zenger, we explored what makes for a good corporate theory—that is, the set of ideas that helps

I often tell parents that children possess an extraordinary internal world—a landscape where imagination is both vivid and powerful. And every so often, I am

Starting a direct primary care (DPC) practice—especially in pediatrics—can feel like drinking from a firehose. There are dozens of decisions to make before you even

In most businesses, inventory means boxes on a shelf. But in DPC, your inventory is time. Every patient uses a slice of it — not

One of the most powerful shifts that comes with leaving insurance-based pediatrics and moving into Direct Primary Care (DPC) is learning to think like an

The recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) includes long-awaited provisions affecting direct primary care (DPC). Below, we answer the most common questions pediatric DPC

In our last article, we walked through how to design your panel size and pricing using a realistic time-per-patient estimate of about 4 hours per

Spoiler alert: Yes—especially if you’re not already a local celebrity. Why This Question Matters Many pediatricians launching a direct primary care (DPC) practice focus their

Every so often, a post pops up in a physician forum that reminds me just how misunderstood pediatric DPC still is. Recently, a pediatrician confidently

One of the most stressful decisions for new DPC physicians is setting the “right” monthly membership fee. You’ve crunched the numbers: to cover your overhead,

As an experienced pediatrician, here are five lessons that I learned after running a pediatric DPC practice.

Why do some families feel comfortable signing up for a monthly DPC membership while others balk at the idea of paying “just to have access”?

Is direct primary care contributing to the primary care shortage? This criticism can certainly give doctors pause, especially those considering opening a DPC practice. As

Direct primary care pediatrics is not for everyone. There are definite drawbacks to owning your own practice, especially when practicing direct primary care pediatrics. However,

As pediatricians, especially in DPC, we find ourselves in a unique and often challenging position when it comes to vaccines. We believe in science, public

If you’ve ever wondered why some people will wait in the Costco gas line for 20 minutes to save $2.00 while others won’t blink at