Category: Direct specialty care

How Patients and AI Find a Direct Care Specialist

Quick answer: Patients find a direct care specialist two ways now — they search the situation they’re in (“direct care rheumatologist near me,” “cash price for an MRI”), and they ask an AI assistant who they should see. To be the answer, you need a clear page, a complete directory listing, plain answers to the […]

Why Healthcare Vendors Are Getting Into Direct Specialty Care Now

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 […]

Specialist Wait Times vs Real Access: A Story of Two Patients

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 […]

Direct Specialty Care vs Concierge Medicine: Care Without the Price Tag

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: Personalized Medicine by Specialty

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 […]

Dr. Diana Girnita: My Story of Leaving Insurance to Rebuild Medicine

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 […]

Specialists Are Business Owners Now

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 […]

10 Steps to Start Your Direct Specialty Care Practice

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, […]