How Dr. Jihan Ansari Built Harbor Direct Primary Care from Patient Zero (And What Every Aspiring DPC Physician Can Learn From Her Story)
- Maryal Concepcion
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
If you've ever wondered whether you can leave the insurance-based system and build a thriving direct primary care practice without a massive marketing budget, a perfect business plan, or even total certainty about what you're doing, Dr. Jihan Ansari's story is for you.
Dr. Ansari is the co-founder of Harbor Direct Primary Care in South Orange County, California, where she practices alongside her husband, Dr. Pedram Ansari. Her path to DPC wasn't paved with a polished blueprint.
It started with a cold call to a former co-resident, a few Facebook posts in local community groups, and a willingness to put herself out there before she felt fully ready.
In her recent conversation on the My DPC Story podcast, Dr. Ansari shared the marketing lessons, mindset shifts, and real-world strategies that grew her practice from a virtual waitlist of ten patients to a flourishing two-physician clinic. Here's what every DPC-curious physician should take away from her story.
It Starts with One Cold Call
Dr. Ansari trained in family and community medicine at UCSF Fresno. She loved her training, but she knew the patient-factory pace of insurance-based medicine wasn't sustainable for her mental health or her family. After residency, she practiced in Fresno, then briefly in Calgary, Canada, where her husband is from. When the family decided to return to Southern California, she knew one thing for certain: she did not want to work for a large hospital system.
That's when she remembered Dr. Jose Buenostro, a former co-resident who had built a successful DPC practice. She picked up the phone and cold-called him. He spent an hour walking her through how he started his practice, how patients found him, and how the DPC community was built on collaboration rather than competition.
If you're DPC-curious, take the call. Make the call. The DPC community is filled with physicians willing to share what they know because there are more than enough patients for all of us.
The Decision Doesn't Have to Take Years
From the moment Dr. Ansari decided to open Harbor DPC to the day she opened her doors was just a few months. She started building in the winter and was open by August.
She is the first to say her husband thought she was a little crazy. But she also believes you cannot start a DPC practice without some willingness to take a risk. If you wait until every variable is solved, you will never open. The physicians who have built thriving DPC practices are the ones who decided to start before they felt completely ready.
You Do Not Need a Massive Tech Stack to Open
When Dr. Ansari opened Harbor DPC, her tech stack was bare bones. She picked the cheapest options that worked for her and her patients. She built her own website. She used the texting feature inside her EMR. She kept overhead low so the math could math.
As her practice grew, she invested in better tools. She upgraded to a dedicated patient communication platform. She hired a virtual assistant who now handles records requests, onboarding, and many of the administrative tasks that used to consume her time. She added a body composition scanner only after the numbers showed it would pay for itself.
The lesson for aspiring DPC physicians: start with what you can afford and add tools as your practice grows. Do not let the perfect tech stack become the reason you do not open.
Marketing Does Not Have to Be Salesy or Expensive
Dr. Ansari's marketing strategy is one of the most relatable and replicable parts of her story. She did not buy billboards. She did not spend thousands on flashy ad campaigns at the start. She showed up.
She posted in local Facebook groups. She built a virtual waitlist of ten to eleven patients before she even opened her doors. She started an Instagram account and shared who she was, what she did, and why DPC mattered. She experimented with TikTok even though she was intimidated by it.
And then one morning, sitting at her desk before jury duty, she filmed a quick TikTok using a tagline that would change the trajectory of her practice. "I'm the doctor who doesn't take insurance." She posted it and went to court. She had no cell reception. By the time she came out, the video had hundreds of thousands of views and her husband was fielding a flood of calls from people wanting to sign up.
The lesson here is not that you need a viral moment to grow a DPC practice. The lesson is that authentic, scrappy content created consistently outperforms expensive polished marketing every time. The "I'm the doctor that..." hook works because it stops the scroll and immediately tells the viewer who you are and what you do.
Know Which Marketing Investments to Stop
Just as important as knowing what to do is knowing what to stop doing. Dr. Ansari tried Facebook and Instagram paid ads and found the conversions weren't there. She tried community events like farmer's markets and school fairs and realized people were not at those events looking for a doctor. They were there for candy and games.
She let those strategies go and reinvested her time and money into what actually worked: organic social media, Google ads, and SEO through a marketing team that specialized in DPC.
If you are building your practice, give yourself permission to walk away from the strategies that are not delivering. Marketing is iterative. The point is to find what brings the right patients to your door.
When You Hire a Marketing Team, Vet Them Carefully
Dr. Ansari did not hire a marketing team on day one. She waited until she had the budget, then interviewed several agencies before choosing one with existing DPC clients. She tailored her budget around how many new patients per month would need to join to cover the marketing cost.
If you are considering hiring help, look for these green flags: experience with DPC practices, reasonable pricing, a relationship that feels collaborative rather than pushy, and references from physicians who have grown their practices with that team.
Transparent Cash Pricing Is Itself a Marketing Strategy
One of the most surprising lessons from Dr. Ansari's experience is how many patients are actively searching for cash-pay practices. By publishing transparent pricing on her website, Harbor DPC attracts patients who are self-employed, uninsured by choice, or simply tired of surprise bills. They find Harbor DPC because they are looking for exactly what Harbor DPC offers.
If your website hides your pricing or buries it behind a contact form, you may be losing patients who would otherwise enroll the same day they find you.
Practicing Alongside a Spouse Can Work
Dr. Ansari opened Harbor DPC solo while her husband, Dr. Pedram Ansari, worked at a separate job that helped fund the early days of the practice. When he eventually joined her full-time, the transition required intentional communication. She had her way of doing things. He had his. They worked through it.
Today, Pedram takes the lead on operations and finances while Jihan focuses primarily on patient care. Their patient panels look different. Their schedules flex around their kids. The practice supports the family, and the family supports the practice.
If you are considering practicing with a spouse, partner, or close colleague, the model can work beautifully, but it requires honest conversations about roles, decision-making, and boundaries.
Boundaries Make DPC Sustainable
In her early days, Dr. Ansari kept her phone on at all hours. She wanted to take care of her patients well, and she worried about losing them if she set limits. Over time she realized the opposite was true: she could be a great doctor and not be available twenty-four hours a day.
Now her phone notifications turn off at five. Her patients know her hours. They know what counts as urgent and what can wait until tomorrow. She still delivers excellent care. She also gets to be present for her family.
If you are building a DPC practice, build the boundaries in from the start. Patients respect physicians who model sustainable practice.
Lifestyle Medicine Thrives in DPC
Dr. Ansari is trained in lifestyle medicine, and DPC gives her the time to actually practice it. She has the space to talk about diet, sleep, stress, and movement. She has the time to follow up. She sees real change in her patients because the model allows her to do the slow, relationship-based work that prevention requires.
If you are a primary care physician interested in lifestyle medicine, integrative care, or any approach that requires more than a fifteen-minute visit, DPC is where that work becomes possible.
Visibility Matters Beyond Your Practice
Dr. Ansari is also passionate about advocacy. As DPC physicians, we have the autonomy to show up at our state capitols, speak on assembly floors, and represent our model to legislators who are shaping the future of healthcare. If you are not the physician driving to Sacramento, your DPC practice is still advocacy. Every patient you take care of in this model is proof that another way is possible.
The Takeaway for Aspiring DPC Physicians
If you are reading this and thinking about opening a DPC practice, here is what Dr. Ansari's story makes clear:
You do not need permission. You do not need a perfect plan. You do not need a massive budget. You need a willingness to take the call, post the content, ask the question, file the paperwork, and open the doors before you feel completely ready.
The DPC community is here. Patients are searching for what you offer. The model works. The only question is whether you are ready to build the practice your patients and your future self will thank you for.
WATCH INTERVIEW HERE:
🎧 Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Jihan Ansari on the My DPC Story podcast wherever you listen.
📲 Visit mydpcstory.com for the Start Here page, free resources, and the DPC Toolkit Magazine.
If you are DPC-curious and ready to take the next step, head to mydpcstory.com and find your starting point.
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