Poulsbo, WashingtonA practice rooted in its community.
01
Executive Summary
This is not a primary care clinic.
Hilmy Health is selling access, time, trust, and prevention in a healthcare system that has systematically removed all four. The current website communicates what the practice does, but not yet why it matters.
Today the brand is positioned as a doctor who does not take insurance. That is factually true, but strategically weak. The strongest healthcare brands are not defined by what they reject; they are defined by what they create.
Healthcare built around the patient instead of the insurance company.
Recommended positioning, Hilmy Health
The opportunity is much larger than a local clinic. The future business is Direct Primary Care, preventive medicine, metabolic health, weight management, longevity, employer healthcare, and community health education. The current site establishes credibility. The next version should establish a movement.
02
Section Two
From the founder.
Dr. Mark Hilmy is a board-certified internal medicine physician with eight years of acute-care experience, including five years caring for hospitalized patients. He has watched the same story play out hundreds of times: a preventable chronic illness, allowed to escalate by a primary care system too rushed and too fragmented to actually intervene. Hilmy Health exists because that pattern is not a fact of life. It is a choice the current system has made.
Chronic illness is at epidemic levels in America. The current way we deliver primary care plays a huge part in the mismanagement of it. This is a solvable problem.
Dr. Mark Hilmy, founder
The thesis of the practice is simple. When a physician has time, when a patient has access, and when prevention is treated as the product rather than an afterthought, most of what currently shows up in hospital beds never has to happen at all.
Hilmy Health is patient-centric primary care for the people who are ready to actually engage in their own health, and a physician who is finally set up to meet them there.
03
Section Three
Meet Alex. The patient Hilmy Health is built for.
Every strong brand has a single person it is built for. For Hilmy Health, that person is Alex.
Alex
Detail
Age & life stage
35–55, professional, often with a family. Lives or works in Bainbridge, Poulsbo, Kingston, or Silverdale.
Income
Household around $100K+. Currently paying ~$570/month for a BCBS HMO that requires referrals just to see a specialist.
Mindset
Health-conscious. Open to ideas outside the status quo. Reads, listens, thinks for themselves.
What they value
Their time. Their family's time. A doctor who knows their name and picks up the phone.
What they are tired of
Three-week waits. Eight-minute visits. Referrals to see anyone real. Protocolized, impersonal, checkbox medicine.
The trigger
A moment they couldn't reach their doctor when something was wrong, and realized they were paying $6,000+ a year for that.
I'm paying thousands of dollars for an insurance that doesn't allow me to actually see my doctor when I need to. There has to be a better way to do this.
What Alex says to a friend
Alex is the wedge. They are who the website speaks to, who the ads target, and who the testimonials sound like. Other audiences , small business owners, Navy retirees, metabolic health patients, radiate out from this center, but the voice never changes.
04
Section Four
The offer, in Dr. Hilmy's own words.
The product is not "membership medicine" in the abstract. It is a short list of concrete, specific things a patient gets that their current doctor cannot give them.
Convenience
Same-day or next-day appointments. A slot is reserved every day for urgent visits.
In-office lab work. Results without a second trip.
In-office pharmacy. Most medications dispensed at cost, on the spot.
Direct phone, text, and email access to Dr. Hilmy.
Your time is valuable. Don't spend it waiting for your appointment.
Convenience, plain language
Peace of mind
Patients describe membership the same way every time: "I don't have to worry anymore." The message ladders directly to that. "Now you don't have to worry. We've got you. When you need us, we're there for you. We'll make it easy for you."
The clinical scope
What we treat
What it looks like in practice
Common primary care complaints
The everyday medicine your old doctor was always too rushed for.
Chronic illness
Hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular risk, autoimmune, mental health, actively managed, not just maintained.
Comprehensive screening, beyond the basics
Guideline-recommended screening, plus tests insurance refuses to cover. Example: sarcopenia (low muscle mass) is tightly linked to hip fractures, worse sepsis outcomes, and shorter lifespan, and almost no one checks for it.
Metabolic health & obesity treatment
Both non-pharmacological and pharmacological options, including GLP-1s where appropriate. Nutrition, exercise, lifestyle coaching, built into the relationship, not outsourced.
Health optimization
Helping patients get to their best physical, mental, and emotional selves. As deep into the numbers as the patient wants to go, or as simple as they want it to stay.
This is evidence-based, patient-led, compassionate care. No robots. We help you get to your health goals, yours, not a protocol's.
The clinical promise
What it costs
Membership is priced the way patients already think about recurring spend, not the way insurers think about it.
Comparison
What that buys today
The cost of a gym membership.
An entire year of unhurried primary care.
The cost of a cell phone plan.
Direct access to a physician who picks up the phone.
One avoided ER visit.
Pays for the membership for the year.
Lab work is discounted through a Labcorp partnership. Metabolic health assessments are discounted through Dexafit. Medications are dispensed in-office at cost. The practice is actively building more of these partnerships so the membership consistently delivers more value than its price.
The onboarding promise
Mechanic
Why it works
Two months free for every new member who tells a friend or leaves a Google review.
Removes risk for the patient, generates the social proof the category requires, and turns the first 60 days into a referral engine.
Capped at ~10 new patients per week.
Protects the experience. Creates real scarcity. Signals, accurately, that this is not a volume practice.
Clear, plain-language refund and disclosure policy.
"In order to offer the best possible value to our patients…" Trust is built before money changes hands.
This is a slightly different way of delivering primary care. We want you to see how good your primary care can be. Once you join, you'll want to stay.
Why the free-trial works
05
Section Five
The Direct Primary Care and concierge market.
Direct Primary Care and concierge medicine are no longer fringe. They are the fastest-growing segments of U.S. primary care, driven by patients and physicians walking away from a model that works for neither.
2,400+
Active Direct Primary Care practices in the U.S., up from fewer than 250 in 2014.
DPC Frontier Mapper, 2024
~12,000
Practicing concierge physicians in the U.S., roughly 3× the count a decade ago.
Concierge Medicine Today
$7.0B → $13.6B
U.S. concierge medicine market in 2023 with a projected ~10% CAGR through 2030.
Grand View Research
$70–$100
Typical adult DPC monthly membership. Concierge averages closer to $200/mo.
Hint Health benchmark
The category exists because the math underneath conventional primary care has stopped working. Insurance-driven panels of 2,000+ patients, 8-minute visits, and three-to-six-week waits are not a bug, they are the operating model.
38%
U.S. adults who skipped or delayed medical care in the past year due to cost.
KFF Health Tracking, 2024
26 days
Average wait for a new-patient family medicine appointment in major U.S. metros.
Merritt Hawkins Survey
~2,000
Patient panel size for a typical insurance-based PCP. DPC physicians cap at roughly 600.
Hint Health, DPC Frontier
8–12 min
Median length of an insurance-driven primary care visit.
Annals of Family Medicine
Hilmy Health is not selling a discount on the existing system. It is selling the relationship the existing system can no longer deliver. That is the category tailwind.
06
Section Six
Why patients are walking away from insurance-first care.
The decision to leave a traditional primary care practice is rarely about price. It is about being unable to reach a doctor when something is wrong, and being unwilling to keep paying premiums for the privilege.
61%
Americans who report difficulty getting timely primary care appointments.
Commonwealth Fund
94%
Year-over-year patient retention reported across the DPC network.
Hint Health benchmark
+80
Typical DPC patient NPS, vs. ~3–9 for traditional insurance-based primary care.
DPC Alliance, NRC Health
25%+
Annual growth in employer-sponsored DPC contracts since 2020.
Hint Health State of DPC
DPC patients do not leave. The retention numbers look more like a great SaaS product than a healthcare practice.
Pattern across the category
01
Access is the headline benefit.
Same-day or next-day visits, direct phone and text access, and 30–60 minute appointments are what members talk about first.
02
Predictable pricing closes the deal.
A flat monthly fee with no surprise bills is uniquely powerful for self-employed patients, families on HDHPs, and small business owners.
03
Prevention is the long-term reason they stay.
Members who feel known by a physician are more likely to act on labs, screenings, and lifestyle change, which is what produces actual health outcomes.
07
Section Seven
Strategic positioning.
The current positioning is defensive. The recommended positioning is generative.
Layer
Direction
Current
We do not bill insurance.
Recommended headline
Healthcare without the middleman.
Supporting line
The doctor relationship healthcare was supposed to be.
Conversion line
Direct access. Preventative care. Better health.
Hilmy Health is a membership-based primary care practice that helps individuals and families stay healthier through direct physician access, preventative medicine, and personalized care without the delays and bureaucracy of insurance-driven healthcare.
Hilmy Health positioning statement
Patients will inevitably describe what they receive as "concierge medicine." That is fine. The brand should make it the kind of thing they bring up with their spouse over dinner, not as a luxury purchase, but as the obvious answer to a problem they were tired of having.
08
Section Eight
What the brand has, and what it is missing.
The brand has unusually strong raw material for a local practice: a credible founder story, real patient trust, and a tone of voice that already sounds like a person rather than an institution.
Working
Why it matters
Founder story
Dr. Mark Hilmy is the most differentiated asset the brand owns.
Trust
Patient relationships are deep and earned, not marketed.
Simplicity
Membership pricing is clear and honest in a category built on confusion.
Missing
Cost of not fixing it
Emotional differentiation
Most DPC websites sound nearly identical. Without a deeper emotional territory, Hilmy Health is interchangeable with the next DPC clinic a patient finds on Google.
Category leadership
No claim on the larger conversation about preventative health, longevity, or employer care. Leadership is sitting on the table, unclaimed.
Outcome language
The brand talks about access; it does not yet talk about what access produces, better health, fewer surprises, longer life.
09
Section Nine
Website audit.
The existing site establishes that Hilmy Health is real, local, and trustworthy. It does not yet establish that the patient is about to experience a different kind of healthcare.
Current hero
“Stay Healthy, Live Well.”
Generic. It could belong to any clinic, gym, supplement brand, or yoga studio. It does not earn the click.
Recommended hero options
Option
Headline
A, Problem-led
Healthcare without insurance hassles.
B, Relationship-led
Finally, a doctor who has time for you.
C, Aspirational
The relationship your healthcare has been missing.
Each option pairs with a one-sentence subhead clarifying the membership model, a primary CTA to join, and a secondary CTA to book an intro call with Dr. Hilmy.
10
Section Ten
Recommended homepage structure.
01
Hero
Direct headline, one-line membership explanation, primary CTA to join, secondary CTA to book a free intro call.
02
Healthcare is broken
Name the patient pain in plain language: wait times, eight-minute visits, surprise bills, no one knows you.
03
The Hilmy Health difference
How membership actually works: same-day or next-day appointments, direct access to Dr. Hilmy, longer visits, transparent pricing.
04
Meet Dr. Mark Hilmy
Founder section with photo, short video, philosophy, and credentials. The doctor IS the product.
05
Who we help
Three clear audiences: individuals and families, small business owners, and patients managing weight or metabolic health.
06
Membership pricing
Simple, transparent tiers. No asterisks. Include what is and is not covered.
07
Patient testimonials
Real names, faces, and outcomes. Ideally video. This is the single highest-leverage addition the site can make.
08
Strong CTA
One unmistakable next step: become a member, or book a 15-minute intro call.
11
Section Eleven
The biggest missed opportunities online.
Patients buy the doctor, not the clinic. The current site does not yet let prospective members meet the doctor before they decide.
Gap
Recommended fix
No testimonials
Capture five short patient stories on video. Publish two on the homepage, three on a dedicated stories page.
No founder video
A 60–90 second Dr. Hilmy video above the fold. Why he started Hilmy Health, who it is for, what to expect.
No outcome messaging
Show what membership produces: caught early, avoided ER, reversed pre-diabetes, lost weight, slept better.
No employer page
A dedicated page for small business owners with a memo they can forward to a partner or HR contact.
No content engine
No blog, no email list, no SEO content. The category is search-driven and Hilmy is invisible in it today.
12
Section Twelve
The Greater Kitsap market opportunity.
Poulsbo sits inside one of the most underserved high-income primary care markets on the West Coast. The combination of affluent households, an aging population, a large military and defense workforce, and a documented PCP shortage makes Kitsap County a near-ideal launch market for Direct Primary Care.
~275K
Kitsap County population, and growing faster than Washington state overall.
U.S. Census, 2023
$135K
Median household income on Bainbridge Island. Poulsbo ~$95K, Silverdale ~$92K.
U.S. Census ACS
1:1,500
Kitsap residents per primary care physician, vs. the HHS-recommended 1:1,300.
HRSA designations
~13K
Active-duty Navy and DoD civilian workforce at Bangor, Keyport, and Bremerton.
Navy Region NW
Local serviceable market
Within a 30-minute drive of the Poulsbo practice, the realistic serviceable market is on the order of 25,000–35,000 households that can afford a $100–$150/month membership today. Capturing even 1% of that base supports a full panel.
Town
Population
Median HHI
Affordable households (est.)
Bainbridge Island
~25,000
$135,000
~8,500
Poulsbo
~13,000
$95,000
~3,200
Silverdale
~21,000
$92,000
~5,000
Bremerton
~44,000
$66,000
~6,000
Kingston / N. Kitsap
~12,000
$88,000
~2,800
Port Orchard
~16,000
$78,000
~3,400
Affordable households estimated as the share above $75K HHI in each town. Directional, not audited.
Competitive landscape
Competitor type
Position vs. Hilmy
MDVIP-affiliated concierge (Bainbridge / Seattle)
Higher price point ($1,800–$2,500/yr), insurance-still-billed model. Hilmy is the simpler, transparent alternative.
Hospital-system primary care (Harrison, Virginia Mason Franciscan)
Long waits, insurance-driven, high turnover. Hilmy is the relationship-based alternative.
Other Kitsap DPC practices
Few. Most are part-time, single-provider, or pediatric-only. Hilmy has room to be the category leader for adult and family DPC.
Telehealth (One Medical, Forward, etc.)
App-first, low-trust, transactional. Hilmy is the local, human, in-person alternative.
Three priority segments
01
Bainbridge & N. Kitsap professionals.
Remote-working tech, finance, and creative households on the Seattle ferry corridor. High income, low patience for insurance friction, primed for DPC.
02
Small-business owners and self-employed tradespeople.
Construction, marine services, breweries, dentists, and professional services owners across N. Kitsap. They pay for their own coverage and feel every premium increase.
03
Navy retirees and DoD-adjacent households.
Large, loyal population that supplements TRICARE with private care for access and continuity. A natural fit for membership medicine.
13
Section Thirteen
Growth & marketing strategy.
Hilmy Health does not need a massive marketing budget. It needs a disciplined, repeatable system across eight channels, most of them organic, all of them ladders to the same outcome: a 15-minute intro call with Dr. Hilmy.
Local trust compounds. One channel feeds the next. Skip any of the first four and growth stays linear.
Operating principle
The marketing budget
Dr. Hilmy has indicated comfort spending up to ~$5,000/month on marketing, provided the spend is geared to a clear outcome. That is more than enough, for a single-physician practice in this market, to fund the paid, content, and PR channels below while leaving room for production (founder video, patient stories) and event sponsorship.
Allocation
Monthly spend
Paid acquisition (Meta + Google Search)
$1,800, $2,400
Content production (writing, founder video, patient stories)
$1,200, $1,500
Local SEO, GBP, and review systems
$400, $600
Community sponsorships and events
$300, $500
PR retainer or freelance outreach
$0, $500 (optional)
Total budget envelope: ~$3,700, $5,500/mo. Scale up or down based on member-acquisition results in the first 90 days.
The eight channels
01
Local SEO foundation.
Optimize Google Business Profile, add location and FAQ schema, build dedicated landing pages for Poulsbo, Bainbridge, Silverdale, and Kingston. Target: top-3 ranking for 12 local commercial keywords in 6 months. Effort: medium. Payoff: long-term, compounding.
02
Employer & SMB outreach.
Direct outbound to 50 N. Kitsap employers with 15–100 employees: contractors, marine services, breweries, dental and law practices, agencies. Pitch: a flat per-employee/month membership vs. rising group health premiums. "Your employee's time is your time." Owner-to-owner conversation, not cold email.
03
The two-months-free referral engine.
Every new member is offered two months free in exchange for telling a friend or leaving a Google review. This is the highest-leverage acquisition mechanic the practice will ever run: it lowers risk for the patient, generates the social proof the category requires, and turns the first 60 days into a marketing channel.
04
Pain-point-first content.
Everything published should hit Alex's pain points by name: "I'm paying $570 a month and I still can't reach my doctor," "Why your eight-minute visit isn't your doctor's fault," "What an in-office labs visit actually looks like." Repurpose to LinkedIn, Instagram Reels, and a short monthly email.
05
Community presence.
Sponsor or table at Poulsbo Farmers Market, Viking Fest, Bainbridge Rotary, the Kitsap chamber, and N. Kitsap school events. Host a quarterly free "Ask the Doctor" community talk. Earned trust, not paid reach.
06
Targeted paid acquisition.
Meta ads geo-fenced to Bainbridge, Poulsbo, Silverdale, and Kingston zip codes, age 35–65, HHI $100K+. Google Search ads on high-intent terms ("direct primary care Poulsbo," "concierge doctor Kitsap," "family doctor Bainbridge"). Target ~$300 CAC per member at this budget level.
07
PR & earned media.
Pitch the Kitsap Sun, Bainbridge Review, Seattle Met "Top Docs," and KING5 health segments. The recurring angle: "the doctor who quit insurance to actually practice medicine." Patients will call this concierge medicine, let them. The goal is to be the practice people bring up with their spouse over dinner.
08
Lifecycle & retention.
Quarterly member health reviews, anniversary touchpoints, NPS at 30/90/365 days, annual member appreciation event. The goal is 95%+ retention, at which point growth becomes pure addition, not replacement.
Capacity is the strategy
The practice can responsibly on-board roughly 10 new patients per week without degrading the experience. That cap is not a marketing problem, it is the marketing message. Every page, ad, and email should reflect that this is not a volume practice and spots are limited. Scarcity, used honestly, is the most powerful asset a small DPC has.
12-month roadmap
Quarter
Primary initiative
KPI
Q1
New site launch, local SEO foundation, GBP optimization, founder video, 3 patient testimonials.
Top-10 local rankings on 6 keywords. 2× site traffic vs. baseline.
Q2
Employer outreach pilot (10 conversations), referral program live, first paid campaigns.
1–2 employer pilots signed. 25 new member inquiries/mo.
Q3
Content engine in cadence, first PR placement, community talk #1.
30% of new members from organic search or referral. NPS ≥ 70.
Q4
Hilmy Metabolic / GLP-1 sub-page, second employer cohort, member appreciation event.
300 active members. 95% YoY retention. Defined waitlist.
Channel mix (year one)
Channel
Share of new members
Member & partner referrals
~40%
Local SEO and content
~25%
Employer / SMB contracts
~20%
Paid social and search
~10%
PR, community, earned
~5%
14
Section Fourteen
Year-one KPIs & targets.
A small practice should measure a small number of things, with discipline. The following targets are realistic for a single-physician DPC in a market of this size and income profile.
300
Active members by end of year one (from a 150-member baseline).
Growth target
≤ $300
Blended customer acquisition cost across all paid and organic channels.
CAC target
95%
Annual member retention. Industry benchmark for top-quartile DPC practices.
Retention target
≥ 70
Member Net Promoter Score, measured at 30, 90, and 365 days.
Experience target
2–3
Signed employer contracts representing 30+ employee members.
Employer pipeline
3×
Organic search traffic to the new HilmyHealth.com vs. today.
SEO target
12
Local commercial keywords ranking in the top 3 of Google for Kitsap.
SEO target
12
Long-form articles published and indexed by end of year one.
Content cadence
15
Section Fifteen
Content strategy and SEO.
The category is searched constantly. Hilmy Health currently ranks for almost none of it. A modest, consistent content engine, one or two pieces a month, will compound for years.
Pillar
Example topics
Direct Primary Care 101
What is Direct Primary Care, DPC vs concierge medicine, does DPC replace insurance, what a DPC visit actually looks like.
Preventative health
Preventing diabetes, reading your basic labs, what an annual physical should actually include.
Weight & metabolic
GLP-1 medications explained, when weight loss medication is appropriate, metabolic health for men over 40.
Men's health
Testosterone, sleep, cardiovascular risk, the annual physical men actually skip.
Best primary care doctor in Poulsbo, family doctor in Kitsap County, concierge medicine Bainbridge Island.
Each pillar feeds the same funnel: free article, optional email opt-in, soft CTA to book an intro call.
16
Section Sixteen
Future brand expansion.
The current business is a clinic. The future business is a comprehensive health platform with Dr. Hilmy at the center and a small number of clearly named service lines around him.
The employer plan productized: pricing, onboarding, reporting, account management.
Hilmy Wellness Membership
An entry-tier membership with education, group programming, and limited physician touchpoints.
These do not need to launch at once. Naming them now means the brand architecture is ready when each is.
17
Section Seventeen
The real competitive advantage.
Direct Primary Care, as a model, is not defensible. Any local physician can open a DPC practice tomorrow. The real moat is not the model.
The competitive advantage is Dr. Mark Hilmy. His credibility, mission, philosophy, and personal story cannot be replicated.
The brand's true asset
The brand should elevate him as the face of the movement, on the homepage, in video, in writing, in local press, and in every employer conversation. The product is the doctor.
18
Section Eighteen
Design direction for the new site.
The aesthetic should feel calm, credible, and human, not clinical, not corporate, not wellness-soft. The reference point is a quiet editorial publication, not a hospital website.
Element
Direction
Color
Warm off-white paper, deep ink, a single restrained teal or slate accent. No bright medical blues.
Imagery
Real Dr. Hilmy, real patients, real Poulsbo. Pacific Northwest light. No stethoscope-on-laptop stock.
Typography
Editorial display face paired with a clean, humanist sans. Generous line-height.
UI
Hairline rules, generous white space, one or two CTAs per page, no carousels, no pop-ups.
Voice
Plain, direct, confident. Short sentences. The voice of a doctor who has time to explain.
Avoid
Stock doctors in white coats, gradient hero blobs, '24/7 access' badges, vague wellness language, exclamation points.
The document you are reading is the first proof of this direction.
19
Closing
The thesis.
Stop positioning Hilmy Health as simply a healthcare practice. Position it as a response to everything patients hate about modern healthcare.
The brand should stand for:
More access.
More time.
Better prevention.
Fewer surprises.
Real relationships.
Hilmy Health helps patients take control of their health through direct physician access, preventative care, and a healthcare experience built around people instead of insurance companies.
Hilmy Health, in one line
That is the brand. Everything else should ladder up to it.
