Why a doctor and researcher started a free directory
Harsha Moole, MD, is an internal medicine physician-scientist in Topeka, Kansas, and the founder of FindMyDirectDoctor Foundation. Internal medicine is the part of medicine that cares for adults. A physician-scientist is a doctor who also does medical research. Here is why he started this work, in his own words.
In my work as a hospitalist, I care for patients after they are admitted to the hospital. A lot of them never needed to end up there.
For years, I kept admitting the same kind of patient. Picture a 34-year-old man with high blood pressure. He has no insurance, so he never sees a doctor. Low-cost daily medicine could keep his blood pressure under control, but nobody ever checks it. Then one day he is in a hospital bed in front of me, with a stroke.
He is not one real person. He is a mix of many patients I have treated, and I have changed the details to protect their privacy. But I have met patients like him again and again. Sometimes it is diabetes that went untreated for years. Sometimes it is an infection that a regular doctor would have caught in a week.
What bothered me was that affordable doctors already existed. All over the country, doctors were offering care that people could pay for themselves, at prices many families could manage. Some charge per visit. Others offer direct primary care, which is a flat monthly membership with your own doctor. Most people had never heard of them. So I realized the first job was to tell people these doctors exist. The second job was to help them find one nearby.
In 2020, I started building a directory to do both. I founded it and paid for it myself. My wife, Christina Delgado, has been the backbone of this work from the start. She runs much of it behind the scenes.
The directory worked better than we ever expected. It has connected more than 10,000 uninsured and underinsured patients to a cash-pay physician. As a researcher, I watched those results closely. People were finding a regular doctor they could afford. When people have a regular doctor, their problems get caught early, and they end up healthier over time. That is what better health outcomes means.
Over time, the work grew bigger than one family could pay for out of its own pocket.
So in 2026, I formed FindMyDirectDoctor Foundation. I wanted the directory to keep growing as a free charity program, with outside support, so that it no longer depends on one family's budget. Our goal is to reach millions of patients, not just thousands. We are not there yet, and that is what we are working toward. The IRS recognized the Foundation as a 501(c)(3) public charity in September 2026. Two independent physicians sit on our board with me, and I take no salary.
Today the directory lists about 20,000 cash-pay doctors, including direct primary care and concierge practices, in all 50 states plus DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
Here is what I want. When the healthcare safety net misses someone, I want them to find a doctor who helps them stay healthy, long before they find me in the hospital.
Harsha Moole, MD
About Harsha
- Internal medicine physician-scientist in Topeka, Kansas
- More than 100 peer-reviewed publications, listed on Google Scholar. Peer-reviewed means other experts checked the work before it was published.
- Founder of the FindMyDirectDoctor directory, self-funded since 2020
- Takes no salary
Recognition
Before the Foundation existed, the FindMyDirectDoctor directory and the work behind it earned these honors.
Business Innovation Merit Award
2025 To The Stars: Kansas Business Awards, Kansas Department of Commerce, with a certificate signed by Governor Laura Kelly
Kansas State University Accelerator Program
Top three of several hundred applicants
KITE Proof of Concept award
Kansas Department of Commerce, fiscal year 2023. KITE stands for Kansas Innovation & Technology Enterprises. A proof of concept award helps test whether a new idea can work.
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