A Michigan DPC Practice Is Setting Up Inside Gyms. The Model Makes More Sense Than You'd Think.

Eleven thousand patients, 21 employer contracts, and clinics in Grand Rapids and Traverse City. MI Partner Health has spent years building a DPC practice around the employer market in West Michigan.

Now they’re doing something most DPC practices haven’t tried: putting clinical staff inside gyms.

The Setup

MI Partner Health launched its first gym-based clinic this month at MVP Sportsplex in Kentwood, Michigan. The plan is to expand later this year to MVP locations in Holland and Rockford, with Crahen Avenue and downtown Grand Rapids after that.

MVP Athletic Clubs are owned by RDV Corp., the DeVos family’s holding company. MVP already uses MI Partner Health for its own employee health benefits. This expansion opens that relationship to MVP’s gym members.

The on-site staffing starts small: physician assistants and medical assistants one day per week, with hours expanding based on demand. MVP members get discounted rates at MI Partner Health’s standalone offices. MI Partner Health members get preferred pricing for gym access.

Why a Gym

The logic here comes down to two things: distribution and alignment.

On distribution, embedding inside an existing gym chain means MI Partner Health doesn’t need to sign new leases, build out new clinical space, or wait months for patient volume to justify overhead. The physical infrastructure already exists. The foot traffic already exists. They’re piggybacking on someone else’s real estate.

On alignment, Dr. Fred Reyelts, MI Partner Health’s co-founder and chief medical officer, told Crain’s Grand Rapids that the partnership “benefits both of us by expanding that philosophical push toward prevention and activity and physical and mental well-being.”

That’s not marketing fluff. DPC’s core pitch to patients has always been about time, access, and prevention. Showing up inside a fitness facility makes that pitch concrete. You’re not asking someone to drive across town for a wellness visit. You’re catching them where they’re already investing in their health.

MVP President Chuck Osterink said the company saw “the positive impact MI Partner Health has had on our team members, making it an easy decision to extend this partnership to our members.”

What Other DPC Practices Can Learn

Most DPC practices grow by adding providers, opening a second location, or signing more employer contracts. MI Partner Health is doing all of those things, but the gym play adds a distribution channel that doesn’t look like traditional healthcare expansion.

A few things stand out.

The employer relationship opened the door. MI Partner Health didn’t cold-pitch MVP on a gym clinic partnership. They proved the model by covering MVP’s own employees first. That track record made the next step easy. If you’re already on an employer’s health plan, you’re in a position to ask about their physical locations, their member base, their willingness to cross-promote.

The overhead stays low. One day a week of PA and MA coverage is a low-risk way to test demand. If it works, they scale up. If it doesn’t, they haven’t committed to a five-year lease on a space that sits empty four days out of five.

The prevention framing is real. MI Partner Health’s practice emphasizes lifestyle and functional medicine, with a focus on fitness, nutrition, recovery, and stress management. That maps directly to what someone at a gym is already thinking about. The clinical visit becomes a natural extension of the workout, not a separate errand.

What This Means

MI Partner Health’s gym expansion is a small move in a single market. But the model underneath it is worth watching.

DPC practices often struggle with visibility. You can have the right pricing, the right care model, and the right patient experience, and still spend months trying to get in front of enough people who’d actually sign up. Embedding inside a gym puts a DPC practice in daily contact with health-conscious consumers who already pay a monthly membership for something. The mental leap from “I pay $50 a month for a gym” to “I could also pay $90 a month for a doctor” is shorter than you’d expect.

If you’re running a DPC practice and you’ve got a good employer relationship, look at what else that employer touches. Their gyms, their coworking spaces, their corporate campuses. The next clinic doesn’t have to look like a clinic.