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By Marina Capella, MD 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 a company create and capture value over time. Zenger argued that any enduring corporate strategy must be grounded in three key features: insight, foresight, and cross-sight. […]

By Marina Capella, MD, M.Ed., FAAP, FABOIM 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 reminded just how much we adults can learn from them. Not long ago, I met a seven-year-old girl I’ll call Sarah. She had

By Marina Capella, MD 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 open your doors, and it’s tempting to believe that if you just get each one perfect, everything else will fall into place. Should you invest in

By Marina Capella, MD, M.Ed, FAAP, FABOIM In most businesses, inventory means boxes on a shelf. But in DPC, your inventory is time. Every patient uses a slice of it — not just for visits, but also for messages, school forms, phone calls, refills, and emotional labor. While a typical well or sick visit might

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 entrepreneur. That means not just asking: How do I provide good care? but also: How do I create and capture value in a sustainable way? These two concepts—value creation and

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 physicians may have about what the law actually says, when it takes effect, and how it impacts our practices and patients. Q: What does OBBB actually do for direct primary

By Marina Capella, MD, MEd, FAAP, FABOIM 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 year. That model works beautifully for many general pediatric practices offering traditional well and sick care, along with some messaging and care coordination.

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 startup budget on essentials: exam tables, EMRs, vaccines, rent. But marketing? It’s often an afterthought—tucked into the category of “I’ll get to it once I have more patients.” But the

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 stated that they “just don’t see the demand for pediatric DPC.” Their argument boiled down to this: healthy kids rarely go to the doctor, sick kids are already plugged into

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, support your lifestyle, and build a sustainable practice, maybe you’ve calculated that you need to charge $90 per member per month with a panel size of 300. But what happens