When their clinic closed overnight after federal legislation defunded its parent organization, three physicians lost 13,000 patients in weeks. Half of their $50,000 startup budget for Open Arms Primary Care came from strangers on GoFundMe.

Dr. Feneisha Franklin left her corporate medicine job on a Friday and took ownership of a Direct Primary Care practice on a Monday. Here is the financial and legal checklist she wishes she had before buying someone else's clinic.

At 3am, mid-shift, Dr. Victoria Leventis-Shew got a message from her supervisor: 'You're okay with it. So it's never going to change.' She used retirement savings to open a solo Direct Primary Care practice capped at under 130 patients.