Community Guidelines

Welcome to DPC Hub

DPC Hub is a physician-led community where direct primary care practices connect: running a practice, mentoring each other, teaching patients, finding good specialists, and getting together in our regions. It's run by volunteers from our own practices. There are no dues and no officers, and nobody speaks for the group.

Who can join

• Physicians practicing direct primary care in independent, physician-led practices, the clinicians and staff who work alongside them, people seriously planning a DPC practice, and physicians who owned one and have since retired or moved on ("DPC Emeritus"), wherever you practice. See What we mean by Authentic DPC.

• New accounts are approved by a volunteer before they go live. Please use your real name and your practice's name.

• Practice owners can invite their own team from their profile.

• If your region doesn't have a group yet, you're still welcome. Join the national forums, introduce yourself in Welcome & Introductions, and find others near you in Start a Regional Group. When a few of you nearby want a group, we'll help you start one.

• Practices only, and no selling. DPC Hub is for DPC practices, not the companies that serve them. Networks, management companies, benefit firms, vendors and recruiters can't join. If you also work for or have a stake in a business that sells to DPC practices, say so when it's relevant, and don't use DPC Hub to recruit practices or pitch services.

How it works

Posts are where you ask a question, comment, rant, rave or just share a fun photo: click + New Post. Other members reply to keep the conversation going, and everything can be searched and found later. (Discourse calls a post that starts a conversation a "topic.") Every post lives in one of these forums:

National forums, for everyone

• Welcome & Introductions

• Practice Management, including Owners Only for practice owners and DPC Emeritus members: staffing, partnerships and the hard decisions of running a practice. Other members won't see Owners Only.

• Careers (in Practice Management): member practices can post their own openings. If you'd like, we'll also share them on DPCHub.org/careers. Applicants contact your practice directly. Recruiters and staffing agencies can't post, and as with everything here, each practice decides its own pay and hiring.

• National Resources: resources any DPC practice can use, wherever you are.

• Events: National or Virtual

For clinicians and nurses

• The Lounge (Clinical Discussions), including Patient Health Education, is for clinicians and nurses (MD, DO, NP, PA, RN, LPN). Other members won't see it.

Your region

• Regions are built around major metros and reach practices a few hours out; you choose the one that fits. Each region has its own forum and chat room, and you'll be notified about your region's new posts by default. Other regions are visible to everyone but muted; unmute any you like.

• Local resources: each region's Resources subforum keeps member-edited lists of direct-pay providers, one per service (imaging, labs, specialists and so on). Add the providers you've used. Have a question? Start a new post in your region's forum, and mark the reply that answers it as the solution.

• Meetings and events: your region's meetings are posted in its forum, with a quick poll to pick a date and see who's coming.

Live Chat is for quick back-and-forth that's only useful today. General Chat is open to everyone, and your region has its own room.

Private messages: Direct Messages (in chat) are quick private notes to one person or a few. My messages is for longer private conversations, or for reaching a group such as @kansas-city-mods.

Post or chat? If someone might want to find the answer next year, start a new post. If it's only useful today ("anyone free for lunch?"), use chat. If a chat turns into something worth keeping, a moderator can move it into a post.

Share photos! Your practice, your team, your events, what you're proud of. Pictures make this place feel like a community.

The rules

1. No patient information, anywhere, including private messages and uploaded files. Keep clinical questions general enough that no one could recognize the patient. If in doubt, leave it out. Clinical photos are welcome in The Lounge for teaching, if no one could recognize the patient: no face, tattoos, birthmarks, jewelry or background, cropped tight to the finding, and with the patient's permission.

2. Share freely, decide independently. Talk openly about how you run your practice: how you set prices, what you pay staff, which vendors and specialists you like. Just don't make group decisions about what to charge, what to pay, or who to stop working with. Those stay with each practice.

3. Talk about ideas, not other practices. If you have a concern about a specific practice, take it to the moderators privately.

4. Keep confidences out. Don't post anything someone shared with you privately.

5. Be kind and assume good intent.

Why rule 2? We're all independent practices. Sharing what you do helps everyone; deciding together on prices or pay can create legal trouble, even in an informal group like ours.

Moderation

• Each regional group has one or two volunteer regional hosts, who welcome newcomers and look after their region's space. Administrators and a few volunteer approvers look after the forum as a whole and approve every new member.

• See something that shouldn't be here, like a patient detail? Flag it. Use the flag button under any post; moderators will fix it quickly and quietly. Flagging isn't unfriendly; it's how we look out for each other.

• To reach your region's hosts privately, message their group (for example, @kansas-city-mods).

• Moderators may edit or remove posts that break the rules, usually with a private note saying why.

• Suspending or removing a member is decided by the administrators, with the reason recorded and shared with the member.

• Nobody moderates or approves anything involving a practice they directly compete with. They step aside and another moderator or administrator decides.

• If your account isn't approved, you'll be told why, and you can ask the administrators to take another look.

• To raise a concern or ask for a decision to be reviewed, message the administrators.

Leaving

You can leave at any time. Your posts stay, because they belong to the conversation, unless they break the rules. You can ask the administrators to anonymize your account.

About our sponsor

Linko, a directory of practices that publish their prices, sponsors DPC Hub's hosting. Linko is a separate company, founded by one of our members. You don't need to be listed on Linko to belong here.Linko may learn about practices and providers from posts and resource lists here and invite them to list, but what's said on DPC Hub never affects whether a practice is listed on Linko, how it appears, or whether it's removed. Linko never uses private messages or chat direct messages, and never copies anything members post into its directory.