Vertical Deep Dive

PatientBot for DPC & Concierge

One bot per patient — personalized, always-on care coordination

Direct Primary Care and concierge practices offer a membership-based model with enhanced physician access. PatientBot gives each patient their own AI assistant for scheduling, medication reminders, care coordination, and secure messaging — all running in HIPAA-aligned, isolated Firecracker microVMs.

Market Opportunity

~2,000DPC Practices in the USDPC Frontier, 2026
20%+Annual Growth RateDPC Alliance
$50–200Patient Membership/moIndustry Average
34%Physician Time on AdminAMA Study

The Problem

The operational pain points that create the opportunity.

1Administrative burden: physicians spend 34% of their time on paperwork, not patient care
2After-hours triage: patients expect 24/7 access but physicians can't be available around the clock
3Appointment scheduling and follow-up reminders are manual, time-consuming, and error-prone
4Medication adherence tracking requires constant manual outreach — most practices don't do it at all
5Care coordination across specialists, labs, and pharmacies involves phone calls and faxes
6Patient communication is fragmented across phone, email, text, and patient portals
7Small practice staff (often 1–3 people) can't handle the volume of administrative tasks
8EHR systems are clunky and designed for billing, not for the DPC membership model

What the Bot Does

Specific tasks the AI agent automates — each running in its own isolated Firecracker microVM.

24/7 Patient Triage

AI-powered symptom assessment and triage that routes urgent cases to the physician and handles routine questions autonomously.

Appointment Scheduling

Natural-language scheduling that understands physician availability, patient preferences, and appointment types.

Medication Reminders

Personalized medication adherence tracking with smart reminders via the patient's preferred channel (SMS, app, email).

Care Coordination

Automated referral management, lab result follow-ups, and specialist appointment coordination.

Visit Preparation

Pre-visit questionnaires and health updates gathered automatically, so the physician walks in prepared.

Post-Visit Follow-Up

Automated check-ins after appointments to monitor recovery, answer questions, and flag concerns.

Chronic Disease Management

Ongoing monitoring and coaching for patients with diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic conditions.

Patient Onboarding

Streamlined new patient intake: medical history, insurance verification, consent forms — all conversational.

Secure Messaging

HIPAA-aligned secure messaging between patient and practice, with AI-assisted response drafting for common queries.

Competitive Landscape

CompetitorCategoryPricingStrengthWeakness
Hint HealthDPC Platform$99–299/moPurpose-built for DPC billing and membership managementNo AI agent capabilities, focused on billing not care coordination
Elation HealthEHR for DPC$300+/moClinical-first EHR designed for primary careExpensive, no conversational AI, traditional software model
Spruce HealthPatient Communication$24–49/moHIPAA-compliant messaging and telemedicineCommunication only — no automation, no intelligence
KlaraPatient Engagement$100+/moAutomated patient outreach and schedulingWorkflow automation, not agentic AI — limited intelligence
Luma HealthPatient AccessCustomEnterprise-grade scheduling and access platformBuilt for large health systems, overkill for DPC practices

HIPAA Alignment

PatientBot is designed to be HIPAA-aligned from the ground up. Each patient's bot runs in its own isolated Firecracker microVM, providing hardware-level separation of Protected Health Information (PHI).

We sign Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) with every practice. Data is encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3). All bot actions are logged in immutable audit trails with configurable retention periods.

Important distinction: we position as HIPAA-aligned, not HIPAA-compliant, until formal BAAs and third-party audits are in place. The architecture supports full compliance — the legal framework is the remaining step.

Pricing at $99/month

DPC practices typically spend $500–2,000/month on software (EHR, billing, communication tools). At $99/month, PatientBot is a fraction of existing spend and replaces multiple point solutions.

The ROI is clear: if the bot saves a physician even 2 hours per week of administrative work, that's 8+ hours/month. At a physician's effective rate of $150+/hour, that's $1,200+ in recovered value — a 12x return on a $99 investment.

For practices with 300–600 patients, the per-patient cost is $0.17–0.33/patient/month — negligible compared to the membership fees patients already pay.

Go-to-Market Channels

DPC Summit and Hint Summit — the two largest annual conferences for DPC physicians
DPC Alliance and DPC Frontier — community organizations with direct access to practice owners
AAFP's Family Practice Management journal — advertising and contributed articles
Reddit r/directprimarycare and DPC-focused Facebook groups
Direct outreach to DPC practices via DPC Frontier's public directory
Content marketing: blog posts on reducing admin burden, HIPAA-aligned AI, and practice efficiency
Partnerships with Hint Health and Elation Health as complementary (not competing) tools

Vision / Traction Organizer

Solo Mode — bootstrapped, lean, revenue-funded.

10-Year Target

To be the go-to AI assistant for 1,000+ DPC and concierge practices, generating $1.2M+ in ARR as a lean, profitable, founder-owned business.

3-Year Picture (Feb 2029)
$300KARR
$200KNet Profit
250Paying Practices
9Core Integrations
  • Well-known in the DPC community as the go-to AI assistant for small practices
  • Highly automated — minimal active maintenance required
  • Strong word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied physicians
  • HIPAA BAAs in place with formal third-party audit completed
1-Year Plan (Feb 2027)
Goals
  1. Onboard first 25 paying DPC practices at $99/month
  2. Achieve $30K ARR and validate product-market fit
  3. Complete HIPAA BAA template and sign with first 10 practices
  4. Build core integrations with Hint Health, Elation, and Spruce
Rocks for the Year
  1. Ship PatientBot MVP with scheduling, reminders, and secure messaging
  2. Onboard 5–10 beta practices and gather detailed feedback
  3. Build HIPAA-aligned audit trail and data retention controls
  4. Create self-serve onboarding flow — no sales calls needed
Rocks for the Quarter (May 2026)
  1. Onboard 5–10 beta DPC practices and gather detailed feedback on core workflows
  2. Ship MVP with appointment scheduling, medication reminders, and secure messaging
  3. Implement per-bot audit logging and HIPAA-aligned data handling
  4. Attend DPC Summit or Hint Summit to build relationships and validate positioning
  5. Publish 3 blog posts on AI in DPC practices and HIPAA-aligned automation
Issues List
  1. HIPAA compliance is a journey, not a checkbox — must be transparent about 'aligned' vs 'compliant' status
  2. DPC physicians are busy and skeptical of new tech — onboarding must be frictionless
  3. Small market (~2,000 practices) means every customer matters — support quality is critical
  4. Solo founder bandwidth: can't build product, do sales, and handle support simultaneously
  5. EHR integration complexity varies wildly between systems — must prioritize the most common ones

Interested in this vertical?

Whether you're a potential customer, advisor, or partner — let's talk about how we can bring this to life.

Bootstrapped · Revenue-funded