Brian R. Forrest, M.D.

CEO and Network Manager, Access Healthcare Direct

Dr. Forrest completed medical school at UNC Chapel Hill and Residency at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (Bowman Gray). He is CEO and Founder of the Access Healthcare Direct national network of Direct Primary Care (DPC) practices. In 2001, he founded Access Healthcare, the first DPC family medicine micropractice in the country. He helped organize the first DPC National Summit and has served as its CME Director.

He has helped physicians around the country to transition to new models and is currently helping physicians in direct care practices in over 24 states. He has consulted for integrated health systems and health care industry companies about how to engage the DPC model.

Dr. Forrest teaches a class for the UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine called “New Models of Care” and also the “Disruptive Innovation in Health Care” Practicum for the NCSU Poole College of Management MBA program and has developed a Direct Primary Care Residency Curriculum. He has been a featured/keynote speaker at many national conferences including at “12 Gurus,” a TED type presentation on innovations in health care that was presented live on Broadway. He has made numerous TV and radio appearances and has been featured on the cover of several publications including Medical Economics and the Weekly Standard magazine for his practice innovation. He has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Health Affairs, Physician’s Practice, and Kiplinger’s.

He is the current President of the DPCMH Association (DPCMH.org) a not-for-profit dedicated to the DPC model with an emphasis on medical student and resident education and free DPC resources. He is the DPC MIG Liaison of the Commission on Quality and Practice Enhancement for the AAFP and was the Founder and first Chair of their DPC Interest Group. He has helped shape policy on DPC and helped design the DPC Toolkit and DPC Workshops for the AAFP.

He currently serves on the Board of Directors of AAPP as President-Elect and COSEHC, which recently received a $15.8 million grant from CMS as a Practice Transformation Network for up to 4,500 practices including up to 600 DPC practices. He served as NCAFP President in 2012. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill and East Carolina University. He is a founding pioneer in Direct Primary Care with his original clinic operating in this model for its 15th year. As leader of one of 33 National Cardiovascular Centers of Excellence since 2009 he has been a national thought leader in hypertension and cardiovascular disease with over 200 lectures on these topics in the last five years.

Dr. Forrest authored the chapter on Hypertension in the textbook Essentials of Family Medicine, and has been an ASH Certified Hypertension Specialist since 2009.  He has published research on clinical interventions and quality improvement on cardiovascular disease at the primary care practice level that was evaluated as one of the Best Practices by the CDC in 2014.

He was recently nominated to the Cardiovascular Committee of the National Quality Forum which evaluates and updates quality metrics for payers such as CMS and guideline producing organizations. As a faculty member for COSEHC he has designed, participated, and facilitated grant funded quality improvement projects at practices throughout the Southeast resulting in NCQA recognition of those practices as centers of excellence and resulting in publications about those projects (COSMIC, AT GOAL). He has served on the Justus-Warren Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Task Force since 2012 where he advises policy for the North Carolina Legislature and State of North Carolina.

In his non-professional time, Dr. Forrest enjoys his family, including his two foster children and rescued chocolate lab, composing music, organizing free clinics, placing Bibles as a Gideon, having fun as an amateur magician, and teaching martial arts. His Twitter feed devoted to DPC is @innovadoc and more information on his practice model can be found at www.accesshealthcaredirect.com or www.dpcmh.org. You can email questions or request to participate in the free TCPI grant project for DPC practices at [email protected].

Read Dr. Forrest’s C.V.

Brian R. Forrest, M.D. Contributions

July 28, 2017
  • Government & Politics
  • Government & Liberty
  • Health Care
July 18, 2017
  • Government & Politics
  • Government & Liberty
  • Health Care
July 13, 2017
  • Government & Politics
  • Government & Liberty
  • Health Care

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