How to Start a DPC

Everything it takes to open a direct primary care practice, in the order you'll need it. Costs, pricing, the legal pieces, setup and your first patients.

📅 UpdatedNovember 10, 2026

📚 Guides11

✍️ ByTabflows

🌱 Start hereHow to Start a Direct Primary Care Practice, Step by StepThe 11 steps to open a direct primary care practice in 2026, in the order you need them, from running the numbers and Medicare to opening day.

Plan it

The numbers and decisions to settle before you sign a lease.

💵 How Much Does It Cost to Start a DPC Practice? What it really costs to open a direct primary care practice in 2026, by category, with published software prices and an example budget you can adapt to your own clinic. Startup costsBudget2026 🏷️ How to Price a DPC Membership How to set direct primary care membership prices in 2026, with age bands, family caps, enrollment fees and annual discounts, plus a way to calculate your own price. PricingMemberships2026 📈 How to Write a DPC Business Plan How to write a direct primary care business plan in 2026, with panel math, a break-even formula and a simple 24-month model you can fill in with your own numbers. Business planFinances2026 ⚖️ DPC Laws by State: What to Check Before You Open What state direct primary care laws usually do, the questions to answer for your own state, two statutes we checked line by line, and where to verify the rest. LegalState Laws2026

Set it up

The legal, clinical and practical pieces of opening the doors.

🏛️ Medicare and DPC: Opting Out, Private Contracts and Your Options How Medicare opt-out works for a direct primary care practice, from the affidavit and private contracts to the 2-year renewal, urgent care rules and ordering labs. MedicareLegalSetup 💊 In-Office Dispensing in DPC: How It Works and What to Check in Your State How in-office medication dispensing works in a direct primary care practice, why clinics offer it, what state rules to check, and the software that tracks inventory. DispensingMedicationsSetup 🏠 Finding Space for a DPC Practice (Micro-Practice, Shared Space and What You Really Need) How much space a new direct primary care practice really needs, where to find it (sublease, shared suite, home-adjacent), what to equip and which lease terms to watch. Office spaceLeaseMicro-practice 🚪 Leaving Employed Medicine for DPC (Non-Competes, Tail Coverage, Timing and Your Patients) How to leave an employed physician job to open a DPC practice. Non-competes, the FTC rule's real status, tail coverage, notice periods and telling patients properly. Non-competeMalpracticeContracts ✅ The DPC Launch Checklist: A 6-Month Timeline to Opening Day A month-by-month checklist for opening a direct primary care practice, from six months out to opening week, with what to finish and when. ChecklistTimelineGetting started

Fill your panel

Getting from opening day to a full, steady practice.

🌻 How to Get Your First 100 DPC Patients Where a new direct primary care practice finds its first 100 members. Your warm network, meet-and-greets, Google, local employers, community, referrals and a simple website. MarketingGrowthPatients

The part most guides skip

Every tool in a DPC clinic is good at its own job, and none of them were built to talk to each other. A patient text turns into a refill in the chart, which needs a review, which needs a reply, and the follow-up lives in someone's head. That isn't anyone's fault. The tools just don't share a to-do list.

That's the job Tabflows does. Tabflows is a dedicated tech team for DPC clinics. We connect the tools you already chose and give your team one place for chat, tasks and patient context, with managed workflows for the repeat work like refills, lab follow-ups and onboarding. You keep every tool you picked.

See how Tabflows works with your stack