Michael Cui, MD
Primary care for all
I’m building toward a world where everyone has a primary care team. I design the care models, workflows, and technology that let primary care teams care for more patients together. Right now, I’m building an independent practice from scratch and documenting the playbook as I go.
Board-certified, internal medicine and clinical informatics · MD, MS, MBA, University of Chicago
Founded Rush Connect virtual-first primary care · Former Associate CMIO, Rush University System for Health
Selected Work
Rush Connect: virtual-first primary care
Founder & Inaugural Medical Director
Rush University System for Health · 2024–2026
Designed and launched a team-based, protocol-driven, virtual-first primary care clinic, launched as Rush Primary, Virtual First. Demand outran capacity in the first month: the clinic was fully booked, with appointments scheduled six months out. That lesson shaped the practice I’m building now. Within about 21 months, the clinic reached financial parity with traditional primary care while running a larger care team.
Hypertension control on the West Side
Project Lead and Health System Champion, AMA MAP BP
2021–2026
Led Rush’s implementation of the American Medical Association’s evidence-based MAP BP program across primary care sites and built the first EHR-embedded MAP BP dashboard in the country.
30–40% → 70–80%
Blood pressure recheck rates
10–12% → nearly 20%
Treatment intensification
+3–4%
Blood pressure control
Health Equity Care & Analytics Platform
Co-Principal Investigator & Project Director
Rush University System for Health · 2021–2024
Led a FHIR-based data platform for high-social-needs patients, funded by a $1.87M Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant with in-kind support from Amazon Web Services. Integrated clinical and community data with community partners to improve chronic disease care, and shared the reference architecture with public health agencies.
Featured: WIRED Brand Lab (2024) · Becker’s Healthcare/AWS (2023) · HIMSS23 Executive Summit
Funding team-based care
Remote Patient Monitoring Program Lead · 2021–2023
Advanced Primary Care Management Sponsor · 2025–2026
Built a pharmacist- and nurse-staffed remote patient monitoring program and its billing workflow, then sponsored system-wide standardization of Advanced Primary Care Management. Both expanded care between visits without adding work for front-line clinicians.
Point of View
Access is the product.
Primary care is judged by whether someone gets back to you. Faster answers and more contact between visits do more for people than waiting months for a single appointment.
The team carries the panel.
Medical assistants, nurses, pharmacists, and care coordinators working from clear protocols can do far more than they are usually allowed to. A bigger, well-designed team around every patient is how one practice cares for more people without burning out its healthcare team.
Pay for the work between visits.
Much of primary care happens outside the exam room: monitoring, outreach, coordination. Medicare now pays for much of it. Practices that are paid for that work can afford the team that access requires.
The inbox is the new exam room.
Messages are now one of the main ways patients get care. They should be designed, staffed, and paid for like any other visit, not squeezed in at night.
Work With Me
I take on a small number of advisory and speaking engagements alongside building my practice. If you’re working on primary care access, care-team design, or clinical informatics, I’d like to hear about it.
THE BUILD
I started building an independent primary care practice in Orange County, California, in July 2026, beginning with my California medical license. In November I began documenting it publicly. Every Monday I share what I decided, what it cost, how long it took, and what I’d do differently, so more independent practices can succeed.
Day 125
Days into the build
Updated Nov 2, 2026
$11,000
Startup spend to date
[N] of [M]
Milestones complete
LATEST EPISODES
WEEKLY UPDATES BY EMAIL
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SPEAKING & MEDIA
SPEAKING
ATA Nexus 2026: Virtual Primary Care: Reimagining the Foundation of Care Delivery
ATA Nexus 2026: Go Direct: Building Direct-to-Consumer Virtual Care Within Health Systems
AMIA Amplify 2026: Inboxology: The New Paradigm of Message-Based Patient Care
Becker’s Health IT + Digital Health + RCM: Future-Ready EHRs, keynote panel (2025)
Becker’s Health IT + Digital Health + RCM: Sustaining Primary Care (2024)
AWS Healthcare Innovation Forum: Innovating Primary Care Through Technology-Enabled Models (2025)
HIMSS23 Executive Summit: Advancing Health Equity Through Powerful Technology Solutions
MEDIA
American Medical Association: How Rush Boosted BP Control on Chicago's West Side (2025)
Perspectives with the AMA, ReachMD (2024)
Bright Spots in Healthcare podcast (2025)
WIRED Brand Lab (2024)
Becker's Healthcare/AWS eBook (2023)
Invite me to speak: advisory, conference, and podcast requests welcome.
WORK WITH ME
I take on a small number of advisory and speaking engagements alongside building my practice. My practice comes first, so availability is limited.
Advisory: for health systems, medical groups, and digital health companies. Virtual-first and team-based primary care design, care-team workflows and protocols, clinical informatics and EHR strategy, and care models that are paid for the work between visits.Speaking: virtual and team-based primary care, the future of the primary care inbox, and building an independent practice in public.Independent physicians: practice-launch advisory opens after my practice is up and running.
For advisory, speaking, media, and collaboration inquiries. I can’t provide medical advice or answer personal health questions through this site.