DPC Physicians Vote Spruce Health Their Most Essential Tool in 2026

Direct primary care practices voted in My DPC Story’s “2026 Battle of the Support Stack”. Spruce Health won two categories and topped the list of single tools DPC Physicians would keep to run their practices.

Every year, direct primary care physicians vote on the tools that actually hold their practices together. This year, they told us something worth sharing: when the choice came down to one tool, they chose Spruce.

The Toolkit, a publication for the DPC community from My DPC Story, ran its 2026 “Battle of the Support Stack” this summer. A reader-voted survey of 131 DPC practices spanning 40 states voted across their top tools in nine categories from billing to virtual care to daily operations. Spruce Health is proud to have won two categories and was named the single tool DPC practices said they would keep if they could choose only one.

Here is what the results showed, in physicians’ own words.

Patient Communication: the most decisive win of the Battle

Spruce won the “Patient Communication” category by more than two to one, with the Toolkit calling the results “the most decisive win of the entire Battle.”

Physicians pointed to three Spruce features: texting patients love, an after-hours auto-reply that sets clear boundaries without going silent, and EHR integrations that offer seamless documentation across services.

“Other staff can easily monitor messages, respond and create tasks. Also easy to set reminders and future messages to staff or patients.” — Battle survey respondent quote about Spruce Health

Telemedicine and Virtual Care: a tie broken by trust

This category ended in a tie, and Spruce took the win on stronger ease-of-use and value scores from survey respondents.

As The Toolkit put it, physicians choose Spruce for telemedicine because the visit lives right alongside the rest of the patient conversation, as Spruce provides one connected platform instead of separate apps to juggle.

“I use Spruce anyway so I continue it, plus it integrates with my EMR so much easier to transfer over data.” — Battle survey respondent quote about Spruce Health

The one tool DPC physicians would keep

At the end of the ballot, physicians faced a deliberately hard question: if you could keep only one tool and everything else had to go, what would it be? Spruce Health pulled clear of the field with 20 votes, ahead of the next two tools in the running.

Billing tools and charting systems all had their champions in the Battle. But when physicians were forced to strip their stack down to one tool, they kept the one that carries the conversation. The Toolkit’s takeaway: communication is not a feature of a DPC practice, it is the foundation everything else is built on, and Spruce is what physicians trust most.

“It’s so easy to use. I’m on vacation right now and don’t need my computer. My entire team can communicate on it. The patients love the texting feature.” — Battle survey respondent quote about Spruce Health

Why this matters

Many DPC physicians run practices without a procurement department behind them. When 131 practices vote, category by category, on the tools that genuinely hold up a relationship-based practice today, Spruce comes out on top in patient communication, in telemedicine, and as the one tool they would not give up. Spruce is doing the job it was built to do, by keeping physicians and patients connected without adding friction to either side and letting the focus remain on patient care.

Spruce is trusted by more than 50,000 healthcare professionals. Curious what Spruce could do for your practice? Explore Spruce Health or get in touch with our team for a demo today.

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Source: “The 2026 Battle of the Support Stack,” The Toolkit, Summer 2026, published by My DPC Story (toolkit.mydpcstory.com/summer26).