Stephani McGirr

A Different Way Back to Healthcare: Stephani McGirr’s Path Helping DPC Practices Grow

Stephani McGirr’s path into Direct Primary Care was anything but linear. It didn’t start with a business plan or a deliberate move into healthcare marketing. Instead, it unfolded gradually, shaped by early exposure to healthcare, years spent living abroad, and skills built along the way.

Stephani earned an undergraduate degree in biology and spent her early years working in a hospital, assisting in surgery during her undergrad, and planning to go to medical school. Life took her in a different direction when she moved to Austria with her husband shortly after completing her degree, where she lived for nearly 15 years. Those years shaped her in more ways than one. 

She learned German, raised her family, and experienced a healthcare system that felt fundamentally different from what she would later encounter back in the U.S. Healthcare felt stable. Access was straightforward. A serious medical issue didn’t come with the same fear of financial fallout. That contrast stayed with her. 

While living abroad, Stephani also built an online business. Running that business meant learning marketing out of necessity. She taught herself how to build websites, manage email marketing, and work with SEO, long before social media became central to growth, taking courses and collecting certifications along the way.

 

Marketing wasn’t theoretical for her; it was practical, learned through trial, error, and iteration. When she returned to Texas in 2015, those skills carried forward. She began applying what she had learned to help service-based businesses grow, eventually starting EGS Marketing Solutions, where she continues to help DPC practices with marketing.

Discovering DPC as a Patient, and Then as a Partner

Stephani’s entry into DPC came through her own physician. Already a DPC patient herself, she was familiar with the model not just conceptually, but personally. When her doctor, Monica McKittrick of Impact Family Wellness, reached out with questions about SEO and websites, Stephani took a look.

What began as informal help quickly evolved into a full partnership.

Stephani worked closely with Monica as the practice grew from one location to three, including the complex transition of a traditional fee-for-service clinic into a DPC model. That experience gave her a front-row seat to the operational, financial, and emotional realities of running a DPC practice.

“It wasn’t theory,” Stephani says. “It was real-world learning.”

From there, referrals followed. More DPC practices reached out. Over time, Stephani made a deliberate decision: if she could spend her days helping grow the DPC movement and supporting the physicians doing this work, she would.



She went all in, and hasn’t looked back.

Why DPC Became Personal

Stephani’s commitment to DPC isn’t only professional. It’s deeply personal.

After returning from Europe, she and her husband struggled with marketplace insurance, high premiums, low coverage, and constant uncertainty. As two self-employed parents with four children, healthcare became a source of tension and stress.

Finding DPC changed that.

For the first time since living in Austria, healthcare felt stable again. Access was simple. Communication was direct. The anxiety that had quietly followed them disappeared.

She recalls moments that made the difference clear: texting a doctor while on vacation when her daughter had a severe allergic reaction, avoiding urgent care entirely; managing injuries end-to-end through a DPC practice at a fraction of traditional costs.



“It’s not just about saving money,” she says. “It’s about convenience, access, and peace of mind.”

What Marketing in DPC Really Requires

Working with dozens of DPC practices taught Stephani something quickly: marketing in this space is fundamentally different.

The journey from awareness to conversion is longer. People aren’t just choosing a provider, they’re unlearning decades of assumptions about healthcare.

“People still aren’t googling direct primary care,” she says. “There’s a lot of education involved.”

What converts isn’t flashy messaging. It’s storytelling.

Stories that help people understand why a monthly membership makes sense even when they’re healthy. Stories that show how DPC fits into real life, vacations, injuries, chronic care, peace of mind.

Retail Patients and Employers: Two Different Conversations

Another critical insight: DPC practices cannot use a single marketing strategy.

Retail patients and employers require entirely different messages, funnels, and expectations. On the employer side, conversion tends to be a two-step journey. The business owner needs to buy in first, followed by employees, especially in models where costs are shared or paid by employees.

Smaller employers tend to focus on caring for their people and retention. Larger organizations look closely at numbers, predictability, and long-term cost control.

“You have to meet people where they are,” Stephani says. “Some lead with heart. Some lead with spreadsheets.”



Effective marketing acknowledges both.

Building Tools That Give Time Back

As Stephani worked with more practices, a pattern emerged. Many DPCs were bootstrapped. They couldn’t afford full-service agencies, but they still needed consistent marketing, communication, and follow-up.

That realization led to the creation of Amplify DPC, a platform designed to give practices access to the same systems her agency used, without requiring physicians to become marketers.

Her philosophy is rooted in empathy.

“Doctors didn’t leave insurance to spend their nights running campaigns,” she says. “They did it to take better care of patients.”

The right tools, she believes, protect time and sanity.

Advice for Those Entering Healthcare Marketing

For students, clinicians, or early-career professionals interested in healthcare marketing, Stephani’s advice is straightforward: deeply understand the people you serve.

“You have to speak their language,” she says.

Just as physicians must understand patient pain points and goals, marketers must understand the realities of providers, the pressures, the trade-offs, and the constraints they operate under.

Trust follows understanding. And in healthcare, trust is everything.

What Sets Winning Practices Apart

Today, Stephani works with dozens of DPC practices as a marketing partner and fractional CMO. She keeps her agency intentionally small, prioritizing depth over scale, while allowing her software platform to grow independently.

The practices that succeed, she observes, share a few traits: they show up, they tell their stories, and they stay visible.

“People aren’t ready the first time they hear about DPC,” she says. “But when the moment comes, they remember who was there.”

For Stephani, helping DPC grow isn’t just a business decision. It’s the convergence of healthcare, storytelling, and lived experience, proof that care can feel different when the system allows it to.