Doctor, TechTown alum provides equitable, accessible medical care

Dr. Paul Thomas used TechTown Detroit’s Retail Boot Camp experiences and connections to shift the healthcare focus from insurers to patients.

At Plum Health Direct Primary Care, we believe health care should be affordable, accessible — and excellent. I started Plum Health eight years ago. We are an affordable, subscription-based family primary care practice started in Detroit. We now have five clinics, 20 employees, four doctors, five advanced practice providers (nurse practitioners and physician assistants), 10 medical assistants, a nurse and a development director. We’re extremely proud that our diverse group of doctors helps us serve just about every primary care need our patients have.

As a graduate of TechTown’s Retail Boot Camp program in November of 2016, I launched my practice that same month. That small practice grew steadily from 2016 to 2019, when I hired my first doctor. With the help of grant funding — $50,000 in Motor City Match funding, $50,000 donated by Quicken Loans and $7,500 from the pitch competition at Retail Boot Camp — I was able to open our first independent space on Michigan Avenue in Corktown, where we still practice. Plum Health exemplifies the versatility of TechTown programs. While healthcare isn’t traditionally considered “retail,” I could still apply lessons learned to grow my direct-care business.

A photo of Dr. Thomas standing outside the front door of the Plum Health location in Corktown Detroit.

Dr. Paul Thomas is the founder of Plum Health, the first direct primary care service in Detroit. The organization now has five locations across Michigan: Detroit, Corunna, Lansing, Royal Oak and Van Buren Township.

A more direct option for health care

For me, Plum Health began with the idea that, when you buy insurance, you pay an insurance company to deliver care. When the doctor sees you and takes your insurance, their primary customer is not you, the patient. Rather, it’s the insurance company. The provider gets paid by the insurance company. Everything they do is geared toward insurance reimbursement.

That’s why doctors spend eight minutes with a patient and, after the visit, 15 minutes on clinical documentation. They spend a third of their time with patients and two-thirds of their time justifying what they did to the insurance company. That’s insanity. This process delays care and costs more. Ultimately, patients suffer and doctors hate it.

With our business model at Plum Health, we started by reducing 2,500 patients a year to about 500. Every patient pays $75 a month for unlimited primary care. With steady revenue and a lack of insurance overhead, we have the opportunity to give patients 30 minutes to 1 hour with us — instead of a few minutes — and we give them as much value as possible for their healthcare dollar. It’s no longer a volume business. It’s a value business.

Taking my business to the next level

When I had the idea for Plum Health, I knew I needed business training. I applied to Retail Boot Camp and I was delighted to be a part of that cohort. The curriculum was perfect. It was about marketing. It was about hiring a lawyer to help structure contracts. It was about fundraising. It was about working with a general contractor to build out a space. It gave me a perfect framework for starting a business.

TechTown is the exact ecosystem I needed. In fact, some of my first customers were in my Retail Boot Camp cohort. I’ve also learned so much from the different guest speakers TechTown has brought in. I met my first general business lawyer through the TechTown ecosystem, which saved me time, stress and effort. Retail Boot Camp program instructors truly go above and beyond for their clients. They’re champions for you as you continue to succeed and strategically make introductions at key times to get you to the next level.

Between the cohort, first customers, vendors and resources, Plum Health has become a part of TechTown’s network, which strives to support your success and wants to see you grow. That’s powerful.

A photo of a ribbon cutting event at one of Plum Health's locations.

Plum Health has a mission to serve patients with affordable, yet comprehensive, primary care.

TechTown’s Retail Boot Camp: resources, training and advice

One of the greatest things about Retail Boot Camp is the unfiltered advice from other business owners. People are often find talking about money, revenue or income generation as distasteful. It was energizing to be in a room where it’s a safe space to say, “I made X million dollars and one of the biggest things that help me do that was Y.” You can’t gain that insight that by reading news and articles online.

The city of Detroit is woefully underserved in primary care. Detroit has roughly 100 primary care doctors, one for every 6,000 residents. If you go to Oakland County or Ann Arbor, there’s one primary care doctor for every 600 residents. That’s part of why we’ve been so successful. We’re an awesome family medicine practice in a community where there are not nearly enough family doctors.

TechTown and its programs uplift, educate and empower entrepreneurs. I’ve seen plenty of success stories out of TechTown — entrepreneurs growing, building, crushing it, serving customers and becoming super successful. I’ve experienced it first-hand myself with Plum Health. This is the American dream, and nobody does it better than Detroiters.

Uplifting our community

A huge reason why I started my practice was to change a system that wasn’t working for the community. Now that Plum Health is doing just that, I thank the people who are generous enough to give to TechTown and help future entrepreneurs turn their dreams into reality. If you are able to donate, whether that’s $5 or $500, know that you are giving directly to a community where everyone has the chance to follow their dreams.

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