Dr. Kyle Hampton, DO is the founder and owner of Arktos Direct Care. Dr. Hampton provides direct primary care services at Artkos along with osteopathic manipulation and regenerative medicine through prolotherapy and platelet-rich plasma treatments. He believes that health and healthcare are a life-long journey and feels that your primary care doctor should help to play a guiding role on that journey. Keep reading to learn about Dr. Hampton and Arktos Direct Care.

When did you know you wanted to be a doctor?

Dr. Kyle Hampton:

I first came to that decision while I was in undergrad at Oregon State. I had started college with the hopes of majoring in mechanical engineering and eventually going into aeronautical engineering. I always thought that I wanted to design airplanes and jets. I did well in math and science in high school and engineering seemed like that natural progression from there. Then during my sophomore year of college, I became ill and had to take some time off from school. During that time off I realized how much I did not enjoy engineering and felt that I wanted to work with people. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, but I remember how much I respected the doctors that cared for me during my illness and how interesting the field of medicine really was.

When it was time to start getting ready to return to school I found myself discussing my options with my academic advisor and it was suggested that I change my major to biology with a goal of going into pre-med. Since that time, it has just felt right to be in the study of life sciences and eventually to move onto medical school and a career in medicine. My passion for working with and caring for others started then with a change in my major in college.

Why did you decide to make the change to direct primary care?

Dr. Kyle Hampton:

The choice to move into a DPC (direct primary care) practice was a slow process. I remember first learning about concierge medicine back in residency and thought it sounded exciting, but almost out of reach for a majority of patients. Early on, concierge medicine sounded really expensive and the ideas of much more afforable DPC practices were not really well developed. After residency I started working in a private practice family medicine group and then later moved to a community health center. Both private practice and community medicine showed me different sides of primary care and in both aspects I felt fulfilled in my career. However, I always felt that there were barriers to care and obstacles for patients in both settings. I felt that the middleman or third-parties always had too much say in a patients care and created lots of barriers to truly getting the patient to good health. Primary care in those settings, like many others, was more concerned with treating a problem or illness and not actually about working to help patients achieve better health. One of the biggest constraints was always time. There just wasn’t enough time spent with patients to be able to make any real progress towards better health. 12 to 20 minute office visits every 3 to 6 months was just barely scratching the surface. It wasn’t fair to patients and it was frustrating for me.

Then in about 2015-2017 direct primary care started to gain more traction and was getting more popular across the country. I kept hearing more and more about the movement of primary care doctors into DPC. DPC seemed like a good solution to the problems I was experiencing in primary care. In late 2017, I decided to make the transition to a model that fit better with how I wanted to practice medicine and that would allow a more personal relationship based partnership with my patients. The idea for Arktos Direct Care was born and over the next year I worked to make a new clinic and DPC practice a reality. At the end of 2018, Arktos opened with the goal of providing affordable direct-access primary care for our members. It allows me to spend more time with patients to work towards their healthcare goals and a better overall state of health, not just focusing on certain illnesses. It has helped to remove those barriers and allows more accountability to my patients and not insurance companies or other third party interests. It really is a refreshing change of getting primary care back to its foundations of a patient-doctor partnership.

When did you start adding regenerative medicine to your practice?

Dr. Kyle Hampton:

I think the idea of regenerative medicine has always been there. As a DO, the idea that the body has the ability to heal itself is a large part of my philosophy of healthcare. I’ve incorporated osteopathic manipulation into my practice from the beginning. However, I began adding in prolotherapy and actual regenerative therapies over the last 2 years. I really wasn’t seeing great results with the traditional approach of anti-inflammatories and steroid injections for musculoskeletal injuries or problems. Patients would get some temporary relief, but overall, actual healing just wasn’t happening. Around the same time regenerative medicine was getting more attention due to stem cell treatments becoming more popular. Prolotherapy was a treatment modality that I had always been interested in, but I just never knew where to start. That’s when I sought out the American Osteopathic Association of Prolotherapy and Regenerative Medicine and began adding prolotherapy into my practice. It has changed the way I think about some of these chronic injuries and joint pains and now we are actually seeing patients improve and heal. Changing my thought process and incorporating more osteopathic manipulation with prolotherapy and PRP treatments has really made treating chronic musculoskeletal pain interesting and rewarding again.

Arktos

What do you do in your spare time?

Dr. Kyle Hampton:

I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors and since we moved to Fort Collins I have been able to do pursue that more. I love mountain biking and typically try to get in as many local rides as I can. I also like to spend time hiking, snowboarding, camping, and foremost, spending time with my wife and kids. One of the best things about living in Fort Collins is how much there is to do and how much kid friendly activities there are here. With a 4 year old and a 2 year old we are always finding more things to do outside with them.

What are the goals of Arktos Direct Care?

Dr. Kyle Hampton:

With Arktos, we first and foremost want to be here for our patients and members. I really want to make the practice and the clinic a place that our members are super comfortable with. Whether that is calling to talk to me on the phone or even just stopping in to ask a question. We have limited membership spots available and for our members we really want them to feel they are getting the most out of their DPC clinic.

We are also hoping to become more involved with the community over the next year and beyond. Expect to see us at some of the local events around town and really trying to integrate with everything that makes Fort Collins the great community it is. I am also hoping to start working more with some of the other local DPC clinics and other providers to start increasing awareness about the model and how great it can be for patients. I feel that physicians should be leading the charge to bring about changes in our healthcare system and direct primary care is a great start for that.