Why Medicine? How Direct Care Restores the Heart of Medicine

In this interview, we have the privilege of speaking with Dr. Jeannine Rodems, a family medicine physician with more than 25 years of experience. Dr. Rodems' journey in medicine reflects her passion for patient education, continuity of care, and building meaningful patient-physician relationships. 

She is the founder of Santa Cruz DPC, a Direct Primary Care practice established in 2016 in California, offering excellent care, personalized service, timely access for patients, and affordability.

Join us as Dr. Rodems takes us through her career, the inspiration behind her DPC practice, and the impact she makes both locally and within the broader healthcare landscape.

Meet Dr. Jeannine Rodems: Bringing Medicine Back to Its 'Why'

Dr. Rodems, why medicine? Could you please tell us what inspired you to pursue this path?

I was always interested in medicine. I've been drawn to science, particularly biology-related fields. When I began my undergraduate studies at UC Santa Cruz, I was considering both research and medicine. 

As I progressed, I came to appreciate the opportunity that medicine provides in educating patients about their conditions, how they’re managing their health, and improving their well-being.

Both of my parents were educators, which made the teaching aspect of medicine especially appealing to me. After graduating, I spent a couple of years working in research at a biotech company. Then, I decided to apply to medical school and was accepted into UCLA School of Medicine. I also completed my residency training in Family Medicine at UCLA. I stayed in Los Angeles for several years after my residency.

"Family Medicine really resonated with me because it offered the chance not only to educate others but also to build continuity in care. I loved the idea of working with entire families and practicing different aspects of medicine."

After finishing my residency at UCLA, I moved back to the Bay Area and started working at a practice in Sunnyvale. I stayed there for a couple of years. Eventually, due to changes at that clinic and my husband's career – he’s a computer engineer – we relocated to the Santa Cruz area.

Over the past couple of decades, I've mostly worked in Santa Cruz. At one point, I even returned to the same group I worked with early in my career. Eventually, I came back to Santa Cruz to launch this DPC practice. We are now in our ninth year running the practice, and it's been a rewarding journey.

Tell us more about what motivated you to transition to the DPC model. Were there any pivotal moments in your career that led to this decision?

I had been practicing here in Santa Cruz until around 2012. We really enjoyed our small practice because we knew our patients well, and we still did our hospital work. However, it became clear that the fee-for-service model wasn’t going to sustain us well within our community. At that time, my partner wanted to explore other opportunities.

So, I decided to join a larger group and see how things were there. But I quickly realized that the big-group model wasn’t for me. I had signed a two-year contract with that group and started thinking about my next steps – whether I should go part-time, coast through my final years before retirement, or try something different.

In May of 2013, I came across a webinar that described the DPC model, and I was amazed that they had made it work. Initially, I thought, "Well, that’s interesting, but it probably wouldn’t work in California." However, I kept following the developments.

The more I learned about the model and spoke to some former faculty from UCLA, the more I thought it might be worth a try. I attended the second DPC Summit in Washington, D.C., in 2014, and that was the turning point – I decided I would give it a shot.

After finishing my two-year contract with the larger group, I started putting things together. It took about a year to find the right medical office location and build the business. We ended up constructing a 1,400-square-foot practice site, which you can see behind me. We officially opened our doors at the end of February 2016.

Awesome! Dr. Rodems, what services do you offer that your patients seem to value the most? 

I think our patients really appreciate the time we give them during appointments. We schedule 30- and 60-minute sessions, and for patients with more complex needs, we extend that to 90 minutes. We also strive to offer same-day or next-day appointments.

Our communication is another thing they value. We have a texting platform, an email system, a patient portal, and, of course, phone access. Patients know they can reach us when they need to.

To maintain continuity of care, we still do hospital work. We're both active staff members at our local hospital, and when patients end up in the ER, they often text us to let us know they’re there. If we anticipate that a patient may need hospitalization, we’re ready to manage the admission and follow through on their care.

If the ER visit doesn't result in an admission, we’ll coordinate with the patient and ensure everything runs smoothly. Sometimes, navigating the hospital system can take hours, but patients truly value having someone who knows their medical history and can provide continuity of care.

Even specialists appreciate our involvement because we know the full background of our patients. It’s not like working with a new patient with no prior information. We can communicate exactly where we are with an illness and what steps we’ve already taken.

"I believe the key things our patients value are the time we spend with them, the continuity of care, and the ease of communication. When you build that trust, patients are more willing to follow your recommendations because they know we're on the same page, working together toward their health goals."

It’s impressive how the DPC model enables you to build stronger relationships with your patients. Do you have patients who have been under your care since the start of your practice, in 2016?

Yes, in fact, even with my history of bouncing around to a few clinics, when we started in the DPC model, quite a few of the ones who had seen me here in our area came back to me for follow-up. And it's that relationship – it’s the trust, it’s the continuity – that they just so appreciate. 

It's like a friendship that develops, and we still try to keep that in a professional context. But, you know, you feel compassion for the people you care for.

You feel like, if something serious is going on, you want to be there, and you need to help them. You live through the good moments and the bad moments with them, and you go through the grief if someone dies or if something serious happens.

Those relationships are why I continue in primary care. That’s what keeps me involved in family medicine and part of what motivated me to continue choosing family medicine. Not doing the piecemeal thing where there’s just one issue to deal with and then the patient moves on. 

No – you’re there from birth to death, following that whole life arc and all the developmental components of it, even shifting how you treat patients over time – from diagnostic workups to focusing more on comfort and functionality. That’s what appeals to me as a physician and what keeps me in the model. I mean, I probably would have retired by now if I had stayed in the fee-for-service model. 

"We love what we’re doing in DPC so much – it’s brightened what we do in medicine. It goes back to the core of our training and what we can offer as family physicians, developing those meaningful relationships."

The fee-for-service model, with its fifteen- to seven-minute visits and the 4,000 patients that primary care doctors carry as a burden in our community, is terrible.

Dr. Rodems, how do you view the support among doctors who want to practice medicine in the Direct Care model?

Part of the reason why I like to participate is that I really see our mission as sort of twofold. The first mission is to provide better care – we have good relationships with patients, and the patients really feel like they're supported. The physicians feel good in the model.

But my second motive behind being active and involved at the national and state levels to try to promote this model is that I do see this model as sort of saving doctors. There are so many physicians who are burnt out and don’t know what to do. They’re now even burning out as they come out of residency, which is, you know, just horrific.

Being able to show them a different way – that there is a model of care in the process of growing – has been so important. There's been a grassroots movement across this country, and as we help remove some of the boundaries and obstacles – legal or otherwise – in developing this innovative model of care, I see that as part of my mission: to save other physicians and show them that there is a better way to do this. That has been my motivation behind being a part of the DPC Coalition and working to put things together for our state.

Where do you see the future of DPC heading, and how does your practice plan to evolve with it?

We've just hired our third physician, and he is filling up really well. So I think we are in the process of trying to find our base and are actually working on a lease negotiation for an expansion.

My vision for our office is to expand our footprint to another site – either this site or another one – and create a larger working model with four to six physicians at one time. 

We're trying to grow because I think there's plenty of opportunity in our area. We basically have three large groups, and at the moment, they are not able to see their patients in a timely fashion or work with them effectively because they have such large panels and so few primary care doctors in our community.

So, our plans are to grow, and I think we have that opportunity now. I believe, as a movement, we are beginning to hit that wave that we call the hockey stick, where we're going to start to see some pretty big development of the model across the country.

Awesome. Dr. Rodems, thank you so much for sharing your insights and your journey with us!

Thank you for the opportunity to have this interview. I wish everyone the best of luck in the future, and I am available for anyone interested in connecting with me to learn more about the model or who would like to ask any questions. So, feel free to connect.