A KevinMD Essay Named the PE Firms Behind DPC's Ownership Shift. Goldman Sachs Made the List.

Analysis by DPC Insider
#private equity#DPC ownership#corporate consolidation#KevinMD#Goldman Sachs#physician autonomy
Sources: Private equity in direct primary care is winning · Growth In Number Of Practices And Clinicians Participating In Concierge And Direct Primary Care, 2018-23

Goldman Sachs is investing in direct primary care.

So are Charlesbank Capital Partners, Blue Sea Capital, Shore Capital Partners and Revelstoke Capital Partners. A KevinMD analysis published June 29 by Dana Y. Lujan, MBA, named each firm and traced its position in the DPC and concierge medicine market.

DPC started as a physician-led alternative to insurance-based practice: small panels, direct patient relationships, no middleman. PE capital changes who controls the economics behind that model. Lujan’s piece, titled “Private equity in direct primary care is winning,” argues the data backs up that headline.

The Data Is Three Months Old. The Analysis Is New.

DPC Insider covered the underlying Health Affairs study in April: from 2018 to 2023, direct primary care and concierge practice sites grew 83%, and clinician participation rose 78%.

But independent ownership of those practices fell from roughly 84% to 60% during the same period. Corporate-affiliated sites grew 576%.

Lujan’s essay goes further. She names the firms writing the checks.

Who’s Writing the Checks

Frontier Direct Care raised a $20 million Series B. Marathon Health now operates more than 750 health centers covering over 3 million lives. Both sit in the employer-facing DPC segment, where patient volume and contract size justify PE-scale investment.

The biggest structural move came in January 2026 when Premise Health and Crossover Health merged. The combined platform runs roughly 900 wellness centers across 400+ employers. That single deal redrew the employer primary care map.

CornerHealth took a different approach, raising $7.39 million in April 2025 to build an NP-led independent practice platform. And MDVIP, PE-backed since 2014, keeps posting the numbers that explain why the money stays: 97% patient satisfaction and renewal rates above 90%.

The PE firms backing these companies include Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Charlesbank Capital Partners, Blue Sea Capital, Shore Capital Partners and Revelstoke Capital Partners. Three years ago, most of those names wouldn’t have come up in a DPC conversation.

What the Author Is Arguing

Lujan’s central point is that PE ownership changes the model in ways growth numbers alone don’t capture. “Ownership is where the story changes,” she writes. Post-acquisition, practices face pressure to expand panels, standardize care protocols and renegotiate the physician autonomy that drew doctors to DPC in the first place.

PE firms are attracted to DPC for the same reason physicians are: predictable monthly revenue. The difference is what each side does with that predictability. Physicians use it to keep panels small and visits long. PE firms use it to project returns at scale. Both sides benefit from membership-based cash flow, but the downstream decisions about panel size, visit length and physician authority look different depending on who controls the board.

The DPC community has raised ownership concerns for years. But when corporate affiliates jump from 16% to 40% of the market in five years, the conversation moves from speculation to arithmetic.

What This Means

If you’re running an independent DPC practice, PE deals don’t change your Monday morning. Your panel, your pricing and your patient relationships all stay in your hands.

What changes is the market around you. PE-backed operations bring more capital, more locations and more employer contracts. For physicians considering DPC, deciding between launching independently and joining a platform is harder than it was five years ago. Understanding who the players are is part of making that decision.

The DPC movement still has more independent practices than corporate ones. That 60% number is real. But the trajectory tells a story of its own. If corporate-affiliated sites went from 16% to 40% in five years, the next five will determine whether independent DPC stays the norm or becomes the minority.

Lujan’s essay maps the ownership changes that happened while the growth headlines got the attention. For independent DPC physicians, the 40% of the market that’s no longer independently owned is a number to track.