The Profit Loop With Alisa Conner

If you own a direct primary care or concierge practice, you may be the physician, the front desk, the marketer, the bookkeeper, and the person who orders supplies, and maybe you're still picking up shifts elsewhere while the practice grows.

In this episode of The Profit Loop, Alisa Conner starts with a question she asks almost every practice she works with, which is what you're actually building, and a one-sentence exercise that turns it into a 90-day goal. She walks through what doing everything really costs you beyond money, from burnout and lost time with family to team members who leave and members who notice you're running on empty. You'll also hear a physician's story about dreading snow days, and Alisa's own frustrating experience waiting on a follow-up from her eye doctor.

You'll learn:

The goal isn't to build a practice that doesn't need you. The goal is to build a practice that doesn't need you for everything.

Book a Growth Review Call here.

Read the blog post here.

Catch last week's conversation with Dr. Brian Juan, "From Burnout To Building His Own Practice"

What does it really take to leave employed medicine and build your own practice? Dr. Brian Juan, MD, FAAFP, knows firsthand. A former touring musician who started medical school after his dueling piano gig was replaced by a mechanical bull, he spent 9 years in corporate medicine before opening Metronome Family Medicine, a direct primary care practice in Longmont, Colorado, on June 1, 2026.

In this episode of The Profit Loop, Alisa Conner talks with Dr. Juan about the burnout that pushed him to make the leap, the pro forma (and the spouse) he had to convince first, and the break-even math behind his goal of 200 to 250 members. He explains how he chose his ideal patient, midlife adults and especially women navigating perimenopause and menopause, and how that choice shaped everything from his equipment to his content. You'll hear how he found his first members without soliciting his old panel, why only about 2% of his former patients followed him, and how 2 videos and a blog every week put him in the top local search results and even in ChatGPT answers.

Dr. Juan also shares why he doesn't offer 24-hour access, the Wednesday morning hike that was part of the deal, the systems he's still building so nothing slips through the cracks, and why he's already planning for a second physician less than 5 months after opening. He closes with advice every physician considering DPC or concierge medicine should hear: you finally have permission to fail.

Connect with Dr. Juan:

Book a Growth Review Call Here

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You left traditional medicine and opened your concierge or direct primary care practice, and now patients aren't joining as fast as you hoped. If you're lowering your price, adding perks, working longer hours, or asking everyone you know for referrals, you're not alone, and you may be rebuilding the very life you tried to escape.

In this episode of The Profit Loop, Alisa Conner brings back the idea that started this show in 2017, "Feed You, Feed Your Business." She explains the Walmart-or-Nordstrom choice every practice makes when it discounts, what patients really mean when they say "it's too expensive," and why more features can overwhelm people instead of convincing them. You'll hear her personal stories about a pelvic floor specialist who never revisited the timeline, the endocrinologist her family left and then rejoined, and her mom waiting for the next gym promotion. She also walks through the math on how a $50 discount on 100 members costs $60,000 a year and requires about 34 new members to replace.

Alisa closes with a 3-step plan: design your business around the life you want, set a price you'll stick with, and tie that price to what it means for your patients.

Book a Growth Review Call here.

Read the blog post here.

You did the hard part. You opened your direct primary care or concierge practice, bought the equipment, launched the website, and maybe did some marketing. A few friends and former coworkers joined, and then it got quiet.

In this episode of The Profit Loop, Alisa Conner explains why opening the practice isn't the real work, filling it is. She covers the questions patients ask themselves before paying outside their insurance, why "we need more leads" usually misses the mark, and 5 reasons your marketing hasn't worked yet: unanswered foundational questions, messaging that's about you instead of them, trying to be everywhere, no follow-up system, and trying to be everything to everyone. You'll also hear what growing practices do differently, including a pelvic floor specialist whose business name makes referrals almost effortless, and what panic decisions like lowering your price are really costing you.

Alisa closes with a 3-step plan for your next 100 members: define your best members in 1 sentence, rewrite your offer from the patient's point of view, and choose 2 acquisition channels to focus on for 30 days.

Book a Growth Review Call Here.

Read the blog post here.

If you run a concierge or direct primary care practice, you've probably thought a lot about what to charge and what to include. What you may not have asked is what your patients are actually paying extra for.

In this episode of The Profit Loop, Alisa Conner shares conversations with an endocrinologist who moved to a subscription model 3 years ago and a direct primary care owner who has run one for 10 years. Both had just added a PA, and neither could fill their schedule because both believed patients only pay to see the physician. One was about to discount his membership for patients who saw the PA.

You'll learn:

Book a Growth Review Call Here.

Read the blog post here.

Watch on YouTube here.

What happens when demand isn't the problem anymore? At a recent medical conference, Alisa Conner met practice after practice with more patients than they could handle: physicians who can't take vacations, teams staying late, authorizations piling up, and a practice running 4 EHR systems that don't talk to each other.

In this episode, Alisa explains why the usual fixes, like hiring, adding a PA, extending hours, or buying new software, only work for a little while, and why the real issue is usually processes that live in someone's head or no longer fit the size of the practice. She walks through what happens when a process built for 2 physicians has to carry 14, what it's really costing physicians and their teams beyond dollars, and how independent practices can build their own playbook without giving up their autonomy.

You'll leave with a 3-step action plan.

Not sure where to start? Book your Growth Review Call here.

If your calendar isn't full, the instinct is always to spend more on marketing. This week, Alisa Conner makes the case that the real problem for most independent ophthalmology practices isn't a shortage of leads, it's a patient journey full of unmanaged handoffs. She walks through where referrals fall apart, what most practices try that quietly fails, what larger competitors do differently, and the practice math on what referral leakage is really costing you per surgeon, per year. Then she closes with a 3-step action plan you can start today.

Book a free Growth Review call here.

Read the blog post here. 

According to a March 2026 Veradigm survey, 3 out of 4 independent practice owners can't point to exactly where their revenue is leaking. In this episode, Alisa Conner explains why that's not a data problem; it's a visibility problem, walks through a real scheduling example most practices never catch, and lays out the 3-step plan to build the kind of dashboard visibility that private equity groups already have.

This week we dive into:

Grab the free Referral Loss Worksheet and book a 20-minute Practice Triage Call using the links below.

Practice Triage Call

Referral Loss Worksheet

Most independent practices treat referral partnerships as relationships to maintain rather than processes to build. That gap is exactly what private equity organizations exploit. In this episode, Alisa Conner breaks down what keeps referred patients from becoming scheduled patients, runs the practice math across 3 specialties, and lays out a 3-step plan to start recovering that revenue without spending another dollar on marketing.

Book your Practice Triage Call:

https://docs.alisaconner.com/widget/bookings/medical-triage-call

Grab the free Referral Loss Worksheet:

https://alisaconner.com/worksheet/

A 15-year patient, one warm referral away from leaving. Not because she was unhappy, but because her dentist retired and nobody worked to keep the relationship warm through the transition.

In this episode, Alisa breaks down what happens to patients when a physician leaves the practice, the two communication mistakes almost every practice makes during a transition, and the practice math across four specialties: orthopedics, ophthalmology, dental, and functional medicine, showing exactly what's financially at stake. She closes with a three-step plan to protect your patient panel before, during, and after any physician transition.

In this episode:

Resources:

Book your 20-minute Triage Call

Watch the YouTube Video

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