Mark Hilmy, MD

Mark Hilmy, MD, is an internal medicine physician at Hilmy Health in Poulsbo. Hilmy spent eight years in acute hospital care, treating heart failure exacerbations, uncontrolled diabetes, strokes, and complications from long-untreated hypertension. Most of those admissions didn't have to happen, and that realization shaped the practice Hilmy is building now.

Insurance-driven primary care pays for checkboxes rather than outcomes, so visits shrink and schedules fill up, crowding out the doctor-patient relationship that matters most for long-term health. Direct Primary Care sidesteps that by cutting out the insurance bureaucracy. With a smaller patient panel, Hilmy has time to manage chronic conditions before they spiral rather than just reacting once they do.

The aim is to catch diabetes before it becomes a disability, high blood pressure before it becomes a stroke, and weight gain before it becomes a heart attack, so patients feel like they have a doctor again and stay out of the hospital.