Thought Leadership

How Pinnacle Built a Scalable DPC Model

When Pinnacle Advanced Primary Care launched four years ago, the goal was clear: create a Direct Primary Care (DPC) experience that worked better for patients, clinicians, and employers alike. What quickly became evident, however, was that scaling that practice would require a partner designed for DPCs. Enter, Akute Health.

Here's How Pinnacle Advanced Primary Care Grows With Less Admin and Better Patient Care

Based in Colorado Springs, and serving patients along the I-25 corridor from Denver to Pueblo, Pinnacle is now one of only a handful of multi-location DPC practices in the region, and it’s their mission to be the best provider. Approximately 70% of its patients come from employer-based programs, with the remaining 30% enrolling individually. That mix brings both opportunity and operational complexity; they want patients to use Pinnacle within their first year, so they need tools to welcome patients to the practice and engage them.

For Travis J. Bockenstedt, President and Chief Experience Officer, the challenge has always been balance: how to grow quickly without sacrificing the patient experience or overwhelming the clinical and administrative teams that support it.

The Challenges

Designing for the DPC Experience

At Pinnacle, Travis’s role centers on one core responsibility – ensuring patients receive an excellent care experience. That responsibility extends behind the scenes as well, where he oversees technology platforms and works closely with staff to ensure the systems support their work.

“DPC is a unique opportunity to change the experience of healthcare for the better,” Travis says. “But most traditional EMRs weren’t designed with the DPC model in mind.”

As Pinnacle expanded into employer-based DPC, limitations of traditional systems became more pronounced. Communication tools were fragmented. Patient onboarding required manual effort. Staff time was increasingly consumed by administrative tasks that did little to improve care delivery.

“Traditional EMRs aren’t built for the DPC ecosystem,” Travis explains. “We needed something more streamlined. Something that actually fits how DPC works.”

Finding a Collaborative Technology Partner

Rather than searching for a one-size-fits-all solution, Pinnacle looked for a partner willing to collaborate and adapt alongside them. Their needs were specific:

Multi-location support
Employer-based workflows
Ability to handle rapid growth periods, such as onboarding hundreds or even thousands of patients during the same enrollment period

What stood out early in working with Akute was the pace of iteration. “We’ve seen meaningful product improvements in three to six months,” Travis notes. “The responsiveness has been impressive.”

Together, Pinnacle and Akute approached implementation in phases. The first focused on improving patient communication and engagement. The second shifted attention to optimizing the provider and staff experience within the platform.

The Solutions

Improving Communication at Scale

One of Pinnacle’s primary goals is to see patients actively using their DPC benefits, ideally within the first year of enrollment. That requires welcome communication, particularly when large employer groups join the practice all at once. Then, it needs to be supported by consistent messaging to stay top-of-mind with patients.

Previously, onboarding messages were sent manually, consuming significant staff time. With Akute, those messages are now automated. When new members are enrolled, they receive a welcome message and weekly outreach that introduces them to the practice and encourages engagement. These automations are built directly in Akute, and the lists, sequencing, and messaging can all be customized.

“By leveraging automated messages and streamlined in-app communication, we’ve been able to build a scalable EMR for DPCs working with large employer groups,” Travis says.

The impact was immediate. Automated patient messaging alone saved Pinnacle’s Enrollment Specialist approximately 15 hours per month—time that could be redirected toward more patient-facing, relationship-driven work.

“You don’t want your top employees acting as bean counters,” Travis adds. “We want them focused on patient and practice satisfaction challenges.”

Reducing Administrative Load and Supporting Care Teams

Beyond patient-facing improvements, Pinnacle also focused on simplifying internal workflows. Prior to adopting Akute, staff relied on multiple disconnected communication tools, some of which required manual data uploads and introduced risks to data integrity.

Consolidating communication within Akute allowed Pinnacle to eliminate several standalone systems and reduce administrative complexity. Secure, in-app messaging replaced clunky workflows, and after-hours communication was routed directly to providers in a way that kept everything connected to the patient record.

Just as importantly, Pinnacle has been able to maintain a flat administrative headcount, even as the practice continues to grow.

“We want to invest in our clinical team,” Travis says. “Working with Akute has allowed us to do that instead of building an admin-heavy operation.”

Staff satisfaction has improved as a result, a theme that has surfaced repeatedly in internal discussions and journey-mapping exercises.

Supporting Rapid Growth

Pinnacle’s growth trajectory shows no signs of slowing. Last year alone, the practice experienced 85% net growth – with no additional admin overhead. Looking ahead, they plan to continue expanding with employer groups of 50 or more employees, including school districts.

Supporting those rapid growth periods requires systems that are stable, flexible, and purpose-built for scale.

“Our mission is to be the best employer-based DPC in Colorado,” Travis says. “To do that, we need partners who understand our model and can grow alongside us.”

For Pinnacle, aligning with technology partners who share that understanding has been essential — not just to growth, but to preserving the patient-centered values that define their approach to care.