I made a hiring framework mistake that almost cost me my practice. 😬 My first APP candidate countered the offer with 14 changes — written by an attorney, framed as "legal compliance." Half of them were legit. The other half were designed to gut the protections I'd built into the contract. I didn't know how to tell the difference at the time. That's the moment I realized: most DPC owners are walking into their first APP hire without the framework to negotiate confidently. We're great clinicians. We're not contract attorneys. So I built one. In this 13-minute walkthrough, I show you the 7 decisions that determine whether your first APP hire becomes your biggest growth lever — or your nearest competitor. What you'll see: 🔸 NP vs PA — the $30K/year decision most owners don't realize they're making 🔸 Compensation structure that protects your margin without demotivating your provider 🔸 The non-compete clause structure that actually survives in court 🔸 The dual-role ramp language that converts overhead into operational value 🔸 Why generic templates from the internet leave you completely unprotected The full framework — including the editable offer letter template, the Employment Agreement, the compensation calculator, the worked example, and the complete guide — is inside Module 3. Watch the preview. If anything in the video gives you an AH-ha moment... the complete module is built to take you the rest of the way and help you prevent the mistakes I almost made. 👇 Comments are open — if you've already made an APP hire and you're not sure whether your contract holds up, ask me. I'll tell you straight and then help you revise to bring to your lawyer for further clarification.

DPC colleagues — sharing something from our own clinic that I hope saves you some time. 🌲 When I launched VitaLife, one of the things I underestimated was how much a good onboarding packet would matter. In direct primary care, the patient experience IS the product — and the very first impression sets the tone for everything that follows. A patient who feels informed, oriented, and genuinely welcomed behaves completely differently than one who’s handed a clipboard and left to guess. So I built a complete New Patient Onboarding Packet, and I’m attaching it here as an example you’re welcome to use as a template for your own practice. Here’s what we put in ours and why: • How to reach us + portal setup — sets expectations early and cuts down on “how do I…” calls • Membership, billing, auto-renewal & cancellation — spelled out plainly, so there are no surprises and no awkward conversations later • An honest FAQ — refills, telehealth, seeing another provider, insurance/superbills, what happens if they cancel • Real patient education — nutrition basics, a meal tracker, a 1,200-cal high-protein sample day, hormone symptom charts, and cycle/lifetime hormone graphs • A medication dosing schematic — the mg vs. units conversion that prevents compounded-med and peptide dosing errors • Our community + coming-soon services The whole thing is built to do one job: make the patient feel that this experience is going to be different. Informed, unhurried, and on their side. A few notes if you adapt it: 🔹 Make it provider-neutral if you’re a team — ours references “your provider/care team,” not one clinician, so any of us can hand it out. 🔹 Localize the clinical pieces — our dosing example uses tirzepatide 17 mg/mL; swap in whatever matches your formulary, and have your own compliance eyes review anything clinical before it goes to patients. 🔹 Mind your disclaimers — we label all education as educational, not individual medical advice. 🔹 We built it as a 20-page saddle-stitch booklet (multiple of 4 pages) for print — easy to run through VistaPrint.

Please feel free to introduce yourself, post your "why". We have had several new additions to the group. Most are providers building DPC and a few entrepreneurs wanting to better their own communities by owning direct primary care clinics and hiring providers who want to work in this field. My name is Courtney. I have six years in general vascular surgery and also worked three years in the emergency room, Prior to moving to functional medicine. My primary focus in my clinic is hormones, longevity, and weight loss. I help providers build clinics like mine so we can all provide amazing patient transformations, enjoy our workplace, and live our lives with financial freedom. These are my "WHY"

If you missed the Webinar for Clinical Essentials of GLP1's

🎥 Sneak Peek Sunday — the DPC Field Guide is live in the Classroom. I recorded a quick walkthrough so you can see exactly what's inside before you grab it: What you get: • Condensed step-by-step of modules 1–6 (the full business build) • Slide deck + companion textbook • Video walkthrough of every slide • Access to our Tuesday night mastermind to bring your questions live If you've been circling the idea of opening a DPC but don't know where to start, this is the on-ramp. Same framework I used to build VitaLife — trimmed to the essentials so you can take action this week. See you in the Classroom 👇