Blog
She walked in with a price quote for surgery. It came from a large legacy health system, the kind of number that lands with the weight of inevitability behind it. Then a specialist practicing direct specialty care looked again, and her whole path changed. Dr. Steven Borene and his partner at Renovo Health brought in […]
Quick answer: The best moment to reach direct specialty care physicians is the quarter they launch a practice, because that is when they choose every tool at once — an EHR, a malpractice carrier, a payment processor, labs, a front office — and keep those choices for years. In direct specialty care that moment is […]
Long specialist wait times are not a statistic, they are a person in pain, waiting. In the insurance model, even patients willing to pay wait months for a specialist. In a direct practice, both patients in this story were seen within days, knew their costs upfront, and got a doctor who was present. What changed […]
The Mark Cuban healthcare message is simple, and specialists have been quietly living it for years: publish the prices, cut out the middlemen, and let doctors lead. He keeps making the case for transparent, physician-led, cash-pay care where a patient sees the price before the visit and no insurer sits in the middle. That model […]
The clearest way to understand this model is direct specialty care vs concierge medicine: you get the concierge-level time, access, and relationship, without the concierge retainer on top of your insurance. Direct specialty care lets specialists treat patients outside insurance and charge them directly, so patients get same-week access and upfront pricing, and physicians reclaim […]
Patient-centered direct specialty care is a paradigm shift in how specialty medicine is delivered: care built around the patient, not the claim. It gives people more control over their healthcare journey and gives physicians back the time and relationship that drew them to medicine in the first place. Direct Primary Care and Direct Specialty Care […]
I am Dr. Diana Girnita, a board-certified rheumatologist, researcher, and author, and I left the insurance system to rebuild specialty medicine on transparent, direct-pay terms. I founded Rheumatologist OnCall, the first direct-pay telemedicine company in rheumatology in the United States, and co-founded the Direct Specialty Care Alliance. I am still standing after six years of […]
Specialist private practice ownership is no longer a fringe idea, it is the new reality. More specialists are walking away from the insurance treadmill that left them burned out and underpaid, and taking ownership of both their medicine and their income. For most of medical training, no one tells you the next chapter of your […]
If you are wondering how to start a direct specialty care practice, the short version is this: about a year, ten clear steps, and no MBA required. I know because I did it as a physician in the traditional system, seeing 25 to 28 patients a day. I spent hours writing notes to satisfy the right billing codes, […]
Here is the truth about direct specialty care economics: you finally get paid what your expertise deserves, and your patients finally take control of their own money. If you are a specialist worn down by falling reimbursements and the sense that you are running faster every year just to stay in place, the numbers are […]
Most of the direct specialty care myths that keep good specialists stuck in insurance are not facts at all, they are inherited fears. If you are burned out, tired of doing more each year for less, and quietly wondering whether there is another way to practice, the first thing standing between you and that other […]
