From dental school, to health communication, to AlignedMD.
Before building AlignedMD, I trained and practiced as a dentist in Brazil. It taught me what it costs to ask someone to trust you with their body, and how little of that has to do with your credentials.
I left clinical practice to pursue an MSc in Health Communication at Boston University, followed by postgraduate training in neuromarketing. The goal was to understand not just how to communicate about health, but why people make the decisions they do when they choose a physician, trust a practice, and reach out for care.
That combination is what AlignedMD is built on. A clinical background, communication training, and the science of how people decide who to trust.
A trust-based model needs trust-based marketing.
Direct Primary Care is a model built on trust. Patients pay a monthly membership for direct access to a physician who actually knows them. That relationship is the product, and marketing for it requires a fundamentally different approach than anything built for volume-based medicine.
Most marketing advice available to independent physicians was built for the wrong model. It optimizes for reach and frequency, which make sense when you are selling to strangers at volume. The people who fill a practice are local and specific, and reach alone does not find them.
I started working in the DPC space through My DPC Story, the leading podcast in the Direct Primary Care community hosted by Dr. Maryal Concepcion. Being embedded in that community gave me a close view of where physicians actually get stuck. Not just marketing in general, but DPC marketing specifically. The identity tension between physician and marketer. The time constraints of running an independent practice. The particular way DPC patients make decisions.
“Her deep understanding of the U.S. healthcare system, both from a clinician’s and a patient’s perspective, sets her apart.”
Dr. Maryal Concepcion · Host, My DPC Story Podcast