Building a brighter future for physicians and patients

Partnering with Direct Primary Care to Reinvent Healthcare

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Why Partner With Us

  • Retain Autonomy

    Doctors retain control of clinical care, patient relationships, and medical decisions.

    A confident male doctor poses with arms crossed in a modern, well-lit hospital or clinic hallway, wearing a white lab coat with stethoscope and ID badge.

  • Capital to Grow

    We invest in your practice so you can hire, expand, or add locations with confidence.

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  • Permanent Partnership

    We are NOT private equity. We invest for the long haul, with no pressure to sell, exit, or chase short-term results.

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  • Operational Support

    We provide support for marketing and operations based on your terms.

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Meet the Team

Partner

John Hsieh

I come from a family of doctors. My dad is a family physician. My mom is a pediatrician. Two uncles and an aunt are physicians. Another aunt and uncle are nurses. I grew up surrounded by medicine and assumed I would become a doctor too.

But while I was studying biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, both of my parents told me something that changed everything. They said primary care was becoming unrecognizable. Less time with patients. More billing pressure. Less autonomy. They encouraged me to consider another path.

I went into engineering and business, but I never stopped caring about the future of medicine. In 2018, I left my job to help my dad leave a health system and launch a Direct Primary Care practice. That experience changed how I saw healthcare. DPC was everything primary care used to be. More time. Better outcomes. True relationships. Freedom.

I earned my MBA from the Ross School of Business and continued studying the healthcare system from every angle, including running a healthcare-focused search fund. The more I learned, the more convinced I became. The system is failing both doctors and patients, and DPC is one of the few models that actually works.

Most recently, I joined SALTA Direct Primary Care as Director of Growth, helping scale physician-led practices through employer partnerships. I have now seen DPC as a builder, an operator, an analyst, and a strategist.

Now I am focused on partnering with physicians who want to grow, stay independent, and build something enduring without selling out to private equity.

Connect with John

Our Vision for

Direct Primary Care

Direct Primary Care works because it is local, personal, and physician-led. When it grows, it must grow carefully. We have seen what happens when the wrong partners enter the space. Scale becomes more important than relationships. Autonomy fades. The model begins to look like the system it was meant to replace.

Our vision is different. We believe DPC can grow without losing what makes it special. We want more patients to benefit, more physicians to thrive, and more communities to have access to real primary care. But growth should not come at the cost of identity, independence, or clinical integrity.

We are building a partnership model, not a rollup. Not a chain. Not private equity. We invest in practices that remain rooted in their communities and led by the physicians who built them. We provide capital, support, and strategic alignment without forcing a single playbook onto everyone.

The future of Direct Primary Care should be shaped by the people who created it. Our role is to help them go further, faster, while staying true to the model that works.

Our Advisors

  • Portrait of a middle-aged man with light brown hair, wearing a blue dress shirt and a brown plaid blazer, smiling against a teal background.

    Dr. Keith Smith

    Founder - Free Market Medical Association

  • Portrait of a middle-aged man with short gray hair, smiling, wearing a light blue collared shirt and a white coat, against a teal background.

    Dr. Mike Fletcher

    Chief Medical Officer- Hancock Health

  • A smiling man with dark hair wearing a gray jacket over a blue shirt, standing against a teal background.

    Jonathan Baran

    Founder - Self Fund Health

  • A professional headshot of a smiling man with short brown hair, wearing a dark blazer and a checkered dress shirt, against a teal background.

    Patrick Nelli

    Founder - Aligned Marketplace

  • Shannon Biergans - Founder of Advocate

    Shannon Biergans FNP, BCPA

    Founder - Advocate

Behind The Name

Our name is rooted in the Greek concept of Kairos, which defines a decisive, critical window of opportunity that is perfect for action. We believe healthcare has arrived at exactly this precipice. With costs rising to unsustainable levels and frustration mounting among patients, physicians, and employers alike, we are facing an urgent inflection point where the status quo is no longer an option. Direct Primary Care provides the foundation to drive the change necessary to break free from this broken system. Karios Health exists to support and empower Direct Primary Care, helping to restore value, access, and dignity to medicine.