This Texas DPC Company Went From a Shared Office to 11 Clinics in Seven Years

Practice Spotlight by DPC Insider
#employer DPC#Texas#DPC growth#Frontier Direct Care#practice expansion#near-site clinics
Sources: Frontier Direct Care Expands Clinical Hiring in Key Texas Markets · Frontier Direct Care - About Us · Frontier Direct Care - Locations · Frontier Direct Care on DPC Frontier Mapper · The 1% Threshold: Why 2026 is the Tipping Point for Direct Primary Care

In 2018, Dr. Peter Lazzopina opened a direct primary care practice in a shared office in Harlingen, Texas. He had minimal resources and improvised furniture. Seven years later, Frontier Direct Care operates 11 clinics across the state, serves more than 100 employer clients, and is actively hiring clinical staff for its newest market: Dallas.

That growth trajectory tells you something about where employer-sponsored DPC is headed.

From the Rio Grande Valley to the Dallas Metroplex

Frontier’s clinic network reads like a map of Texas’s economic corridors. Seven locations anchor the Rio Grande Valley: Harlingen, Brownsville, McAllen (two locations), Edinburg, Pharr, Raymondville, and Weslaco. Three more extend into Central Texas at San Marcos and Leander, just north of Austin. And now Dallas brings the count to 11.

The expansion isn’t random. Frontier has built what looks like a hub-and-spoke model, anchoring in the Valley where it started and pushing into larger metros where employer demand is strongest.

The client list tells the story. Frontier works with municipalities, school districts, and private employers. One of its marquee relationships is with Leander ISD, a fast-growing school district northwest of Austin. Another case study, a Southern Texas municipality, reported $8 million in net savings and a 74% reduction in ER visits within two years of partnering with Frontier.

Those are the kinds of numbers that get benefits administrators to pick up the phone.

The Employer-First Model

What makes Frontier different from many DPC practices is that it was built employer-first from the start. Most DPC physicians launch with a retail membership model and add employer contracts later. Frontier reversed that sequence. The company’s CEO, Bibb Beale, joined as Dr. Lazzopina’s lead investor in 2019 and transitioned to full-time leadership in 2020 after selling his previous business ventures. That brought a business development mindset to a clinical operation.

Members get what you’d expect from a DPC practice: unlimited visits with no copays or deductibles, same-day and next-day appointments, and direct access to their care team by phone, text, email, or video. Retail memberships range from $70 to $150 per month, though most members join through an employer-sponsored benefit.

This tracks with broader industry trends. According to DPC News, roughly 58% of DPC practices now work with employers, and more than half of all DPC memberships nationwide are employer-sponsored. Frontier has been riding that wave since before it crested.

Why Texas Matters

Texas is the second-largest state by population and one of the most fragmented primary care markets in the country. Rural areas of the Rio Grande Valley face some of the worst physician-to-patient ratios in the nation, which makes the DPC model especially relevant. A flat monthly fee and direct doctor access removes a lot of friction for patients who might otherwise wait weeks for an appointment or default to the ER.

Dr. Lazzopina has also been active on the policy side. He testified before the Texas Legislature in support of House Bill 484, which would allow Medicaid recipients to use government benefits for DPC memberships. That bill reflects a growing national push to expand DPC beyond the employer and retail markets into public insurance programs.

The company’s latest hiring push includes a Patient Care Navigator in Harlingen and a Medical Assistant in Dallas. Patient Care Navigator is a role you don’t see in traditional primary care. It’s the kind of position that only makes sense when your business model depends on keeping members engaged and managing complex benefits.

What This Means

If you’re a DPC physician running a solo practice, Frontier’s trajectory raises an important question: what does DPC look like when it scales?

Frontier hasn’t taken the venture capital route that some DPC companies have pursued. It grew through employer relationships and geographic expansion, not by raising massive funding rounds. But the result is still a multi-location, multi-market operation that looks very different from the typical DPC solo practice.

For physicians considering DPC, the employer channel is increasingly the path to a full panel. Most DPC practices charge between $70 and $100 per month for individual memberships. But filling a panel one retail patient at a time is slow. Employer contracts can bring 50 or 100 members in a single deal. Frontier’s model shows what happens when you build around that channel from day one.

And for the DPC movement as a whole, Frontier’s expansion into Dallas signals that employer-focused DPC isn’t just a small-market play. The same model that works for a municipality in the Rio Grande Valley can work for a mid-size employer in a top-five metro. That’s the kind of scalability that gets the attention of benefits consultants, TPAs, and the employers they advise.