Dr. Dolapo Babalola practiced medicine for over 16 years in the traditional healthcare system. She trained at Morehouse School of Medicine, stayed on as faculty, directed the clerkship program, taught residents and medical students, and conducted research. She loved all of it, except what was happening in the exam room. In conversation with Mehul Agarwal, Founder of HealthCompiler, Dr. Babalola reflected on what pushed her toward Direct Primary Care and how she is building a practice rooted in prevention, relationship, and whole-person healing.
A System Built for Volume
"I became so concerned that the system was not designed to help patients thrive," she says. "It was just structured for volume instead of value-based care."
As a family doctor who sees patients from cradle to cane, she found herself watching patients wait months for an appointment only to be told she could spend ten minutes with them on a single problem. She was not getting to the root cause.
One of her final experiences in the traditional system crystallized the decision: a patient left an appointment still crying, and she found her in the waiting area. The issue was not the prescription refills. It was stress at home, something no ten-minute visit could address. Dr. Babalola sat with her until she left smiling.
In July 2023, she opened her own holistic and integrative DPC practice.
"This model just allows me to practice medicine rooted in relationships," she says. "And I am really big on prevention and whole-person healing."
Skills Over Pills
Dr. Babalola holds a certification in lifestyle medicine, an evidence-based discipline that uses behavioral and lifestyle changes to prevent and, in many cases, reverse chronic disease. She has woven this into every patient encounter.
She describes a 29-year-old patient who was already on four blood pressure medications. When she asked what they should do next, the patient suggested adding a fifth. Instead, she dove into his nutrition and discovered he was eating out constantly due to his work schedule. Together they built actionable steps around substitutions that fit his life. His blood pressure came under control and they were able to deprescribe.
"That is always my goal, to empower patients with tools that will help them take ownership of their health," she says. "Some people do not even know there is a relationship between sleep and blood pressure, between diet and diabetes."
She practices what she preaches. She describes habit-stacking her own movement throughout the day, doing squats in the morning, moving during every restroom break, and keeping a 12:30 breath work reminder on her phone. The message to patients is that it does not have to be excessive; simple, consistent changes make a difference.
"What you cannot measure, you cannot manage," she says. She uses blood work, vitals, and an InBody scan at her practice to track progress and guide shared decision-making with patients.
Building a Practice on Conviction
Dr. Babalola is candid about the difficulty of the entrepreneurial journey. She did not come from a business background, her mother was a lawyer in academia, her father a professor, and she never envisioned herself opening a practice.
"I never really wanted to open up my own practice," she admits. "Just give me a paycheck. I will see my patients to the best that I can and go home."
The early period tested that resolve. Growth was slow, and she considered walking away. But on her one-year anniversary, an optometry group reached out, her first employer group, having found her online without any outreach on her part. That moment kept her going.
"Word of mouth has picked up," she says. Once membership crossed a certain threshold, referrals compounded. One patient would refer family members, then colleagues, then entire circles. The slow start, she now recognizes, gave her the time to refine her processes, her systems, and her patient experience.
The Breaking Points
Asked whether there was a single moment that drove her out of the traditional system, Dr. Babalola laughs. There were many.
She had built a diabetes group visit program at her previous practice, a two-hour monthly session for patients with pre-diabetes or diabetes. Patients improved their health markers. A1C levels dropped. But the administration canceled it, preferring she see more volume in standard clinic slots.
She proposed putting health education content on the waiting room screens instead of cable news. She even found a free option. They declined.
The final straw was a day when a patient who had waited three months to see her was double-booked into the same slot as another patient. The woman's husband had recently had a stroke and she needed time to understand her own risk factors. Dr. Babalola was told she was running behind.
"I cannot even provide the kind of care that my patients deserve," she recalls thinking. That realization, combined with hearing about the DPC model and a patient asking if she had her own practice, was the catalyst. "That was the day I said, you know what, you might be on to something."
What DPC Changes for Patients, and for Physicians
Dr. Babalola sees DPC not as an alternative to the traditional system, but as what healthcare should look like.
"Every patient that has given me the honor and the privilege of taking care of them, they are so pleased and happy and joyful that it is so different from what they used to experience," she says. Patients email her and get a response. They are not frustrated by rising costs or limited access.
For her personally, the shift has been just as significant. She used to dread Monday mornings. Now she does not even track what day of the week it is. The stress of running a business is real, she says, but it is a fundamentally different kind of stress than what she carried inside the traditional system.
She is particularly passionate about employee wellness and sees a natural fit between DPC and employer groups. Employees who have a real relationship with their physician are healthier, have fewer urgent care and emergency room visits, and are more productive.
Advice for Those Starting Out
For anyone considering the leap into DPC, Dr. Babalola's advice comes down to clarity and courage.
"Know your why," she says. "Be very clear about your why."
She recommends investigating thoroughly before starting. She herself shadowed other DPC physicians, asked questions, and spent a full day observing a colleague's practice. That experience confirmed what she had been hoping for: a model where you sit with a patient for 30, 40, even 60 minutes and figure things out together.
Beyond mindset, she stresses understanding the financial model from day one. "Do not wait till you have 50 or 60 members to understand your numbers," she says. "Do the reverse engineering first." Start lean, grow intentionally, and invest heavily in the patient experience.
Her own slow growth, she says, turned out to be a gift. It allowed her to build processes carefully and earn consistently strong reviews from every patient who walked through the door.
And she emphasizes community. She leads a Walk with a Doc program in her area, bringing the local community out for walks alongside health professionals. She draws on the DPC community for support and collaboration.
"If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together," she says. "I do not walk this journey alone."