Ben Aiken, MD, MSPH, DipABLM

Dr. Ben Aiken founded Lantern Health - Asheville Downtown, a direct primary care practice in Asheville, North Carolina.

A resident physician with a background in public health, he was shaped early on by his paternal grandfather Bill, who practiced during an earlier, simpler and more human-focused era of family medicine. That influence stuck with him, and during his elective time he traveled the country studying emerging models of primary care, which is where his interest in direct primary care took hold.

Lantern Health launched in 2018 as part of the regional health system. In 2020, Aiken took the practice fully independent. It now includes a team of family medicine physicians and is actively recruiting another to join.