Better primary care, right here in the Bitterroot Valley.

Dr. Robert Hart is a board-certified family medicine physician, co-founder of True North Direct Primary Care, and a U.S. Army veteran whose diverse medical career has shaped his practical, patient-centered approach to healthcare.

Before founding True North, Dr. Hart practiced within a large healthcare organization, where he became increasingly frustrated by the barriers that corporate healthcare and insurance requirements placed between physicians and their patients. He believed patients deserved a physician who had the time and freedom to work directly on their behalf—and that belief ultimately led him to help create True North.

Dr. Hart brings an unusually broad range of experience to primary care. His background includes family medicine, emergency medicine, critical care medicine, integrative and functional medicine, wilderness and operational medicine, and extensive military medical experience. During his Army career, he served as Chief Resident at Womack Army Medical Center, Brigade Surgeon with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Battalion Surgeon with the 1st Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and Officer in Charge of Warrior Family Medicine Clinic.

His Approach to Medicine

Dr. Hart believes the body has a remarkable ability to heal when given the right foundation. His approach looks beyond simply treating symptoms to consider the factors that influence long-term health—including nutrition, movement, sleep, lifestyle, prevention, and appropriate medical treatment.

He encourages patients to ask questions, understand their options, and take an active role in their healthcare. He isn’t interested in practicing medicine simply because “that’s the way it’s always been done.” Instead, he combines evidence-based medicine, clinical experience, and a whole-person perspective to help patients make thoughtful decisions about their health.

Above all, Dr. Hart believes patients deserve a healthcare provider who works for them—not for an insurance company, corporate healthcare system, or pharmaceutical interest.

What Patients Can Expect

Patients can expect a straightforward, practical approach to healthcare and a provider who values education and shared decision-making. Dr. Hart’s goal isn’t simply to tell patients what to do, but to help them understand their health, consider their options, and determine the best path forward together.

His philosophy is simple:

Don’t settle for the status quo. Give people the right tools, remove unnecessary barriers, and help them find a better path toward health.

Stephanie Angert is a board-certified Nurse Practitioner with a passion for personalized, comprehensive care and helping patients better understand their health.

Her practice spans family medicine, women’s health, and sports medicine, with particular interests in hormone and sexual health, exercise and nutrition, and musculoskeletal and sports-related care. Her additional training includes hormone management and PRP regenerative therapies.

Stephanie brings a whole-person approach to medicine, looking beyond an individual symptom or diagnosis to understand the factors influencing a patient’s overall health. Exercise, nutrition, lifestyle, prevention, and evidence-based medical treatment all have a place in the conversation.

Her Approach to Medicine

Education is central to Stephanie’s practice.

She believes patients should understand not only what she recommends, but why she recommends it. She takes time to thoroughly explain diagnoses, treatment options, test results, and next steps—helping take some of the fear and uncertainty out of healthcare.

Her visits are intentionally interactive. Rather than simply giving patients a list of instructions, Stephanie creates space for questions, conversation, and shared decision-making so patients feel comfortable advocating for their own health needs.

For Stephanie, Direct Primary Care provides the opportunity to deliver healthcare simplified and at a higher standard. The DPC model gives her more time with patients and helps address one of the problems she has seen repeatedly in traditional healthcare: chronic difficulty accessing your healthcare provider when you actually need them.

What Patients Can Expect

Patients can expect a provider who listens, explains the why, and takes the time to have a real conversation about their health.

Whether she is helping a patient navigate hormone changes, improve nutrition and exercise, address a sports-related concern, or manage everyday primary care, Stephanie’s goal is for patients to leave with a better understanding of their health and confidence in the plan moving forward.

Healthcare shouldn’t leave you guessing.

Dr. Johanna Dreiling is a board-certified family medicine physician who combines evidence-based medicine with a forward-thinking, root-cause approach to health.

A Montana native, Dr. Dreiling attended the University of Montana before earning her medical degree from Mayo Medical School at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She completed her Family Medicine Residency in Grand Junction, Colorado, and has spent nearly 20 years practicing family medicine here in the Bitterroot Valley.

Her approach goes beyond simply managing symptoms. Dr. Dreiling is passionate about helping patients understand the complex interplay between hormones, lifestyle, metabolism, and biology so they can optimize their health, prevent chronic disease, and live vibrantly at every stage of life.

Her Approach to Medicine

Dr. Dreiling believes exceptional healthcare begins with listening.

Her practice is built around compassionate, personalized care that meets patients where they are—without judgment. She takes time to understand each patient’s story, concerns, lifestyle, and goals before developing a plan that makes sense for them.

She has a particular passion for proactive healthcare: identifying risks early, improving the foundations of health, and helping patients make meaningful changes before disease or declining health becomes inevitable.

Her goal isn’t simply to help patients live longer.

It’s to help them live healthier, better, and more vibrantly along the way.

Areas of Clinical Interest

Women’s Health & Hormone Optimization
Helping women navigate hormone balance, cycle irregularities, perimenopause, menopause, and hormone replacement therapy with the goal of restoring health, function, and vitality.

Longevity & Proactive Aging
Using metabolic screening, hormone optimization, cellular health strategies, and individualized prevention to help patients improve their healthspan. Her work may also incorporate aesthetic and intimate wellness treatments when appropriate to help patients look and feel their best.

Preventive & Lifestyle Medicine
Developing individualized strategies around nutrition, restorative sleep, movement, stress resilience, and other lifestyle factors that influence long-term health and chronic disease.

Pediatric & Adolescent Wellness
Partnering with families to establish strong foundations for health early in life while educating and empowering children and adolescents to develop healthy habits that can last a lifetime.

Why Direct Primary Care?

After years of practicing within the traditional fee-for-service system, Dr. Dreiling experienced firsthand how high patient volumes, insurance requirements, and complex billing can interfere with the relationship between a physician and patient.

Direct Primary Care gives her something increasingly difficult to find in traditional medicine:

Time.

Time to listen. Time to understand a patient’s story and goals. Time to discuss prevention, wellness, and functional approaches to health. And time to develop the kind of relationship that allows truly personalized healthcare to happen.

She also values DPC’s transparent pricing, improved access to the healthcare team, and the supportive environment it creates for both patients and the people caring for them.

For Dr. Dreiling, True North allows her to practice medicine the way she has always wanted—with the time, access, and freedom to focus on what her patients actually need.

What Patients Can Expect

Patients can expect to be heard, validated, and met where they are without judgment.

Dr. Dreiling approaches healthcare as a partnership. Whether she’s helping someone navigate menopause, improve metabolic health, prevent chronic disease, care for their child, or simply feel better, her goal is to give patients the knowledge and tools they need to take an active role in their health.

Katie Herczeg is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner with more than 20 years of healthcare experience, including 18 years as a nurse practitioner.

Her diverse clinical background spans family medicine, emergency and urgent care, hospital medicine, cardiac catheterization, hormone management, and sleep medicine. She has also served as adjunct nursing faculty, teaching pathophysiology, pharmacology, and clinical nursing courses—an experience that continues to shape her passion for helping patients understand their health.

Katie earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Columbus State University and her Master of Science in Nursing through the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Georgia State University. She is board-certified through the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

Her Approach to Medicine

Katie believes everyone has a story worth telling—and understanding that story is essential to providing truly individualized care.

Her approach looks beyond symptoms and test results to understand the whole person. She considers the ways physical health can intersect with nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, emotional well-being, relationships, environment, life experiences, and beliefs.

Katie has a particular interest in the brain-body connection and nervous-system regulation—including how chronic stress, relationships, life experiences, and unresolved emotions can influence physical health and well-being.

Her lifelong work with horses has also given her a unique appreciation for connection, intuition, nonverbal communication, and the body’s ability to move between states of protection and safety.

Rather than simply giving patients directives, Katie sees her role as listening carefully, gathering the full picture, and working alongside each person to develop a plan that reflects their individual needs, values, and goals.

Above all, she wants her patients to feel seen, known, heard, and cared for without judgment.

Areas of Clinical Interest

Full-Spectrum Family Medicine
Comprehensive primary care across the lifespan, from preventive health and acute concerns to chronic disease management.

Functional & Whole-Person Health
Exploring the interconnected factors that influence health, with a particular interest in the brain-body connection, stress, nervous-system regulation, lifestyle, and emotional well-being.

Hormone Health
Helping patients understand and navigate hormonal changes through individualized evaluation and bioidentical hormone management when appropriate.

Sleep Medicine
Identifying and addressing sleep concerns as an essential foundation of physical, cognitive, and emotional health.

What Patients Can Expect

Patients can expect Katie to be warm, approachable, honest, thorough, and fully present.

She takes time to listen because she believes the details of a person’s life and experiences can matter just as much as a test result. Her visits combine thoughtful medical decision-making with straightforward conversations and explanations that make sense.

And there may be some laughter along the way.

Katie believes appropriate humor has a place in healthcare and that even during difficult conversations, there is room for warmth, humanity, and genuine connection.

Her goal is for patients to leave with a clearer understanding of their health, practical next steps, and confidence that they have a healthcare provider genuinely invested in their journey.

Healthcare should feel like a trusted relationship—not a transaction.

Why Direct Primary Care?

Katie chose Direct Primary Care because it restores what first drew her to family medicine: time, accessibility, continuity, trust, and genuine relationships with patients.

The DPC model gives her the opportunity to know her patients well, have meaningful conversations, focus on prevention, and provide thoughtful individualized care without allowing insurance requirements or a large healthcare system to dictate every aspect of the relationship.

For Katie, True North’s commitment to personal, accessible, and collaborative healthcare closely reflects the way she has always wanted to practice.

Returning to the Bitterroot Valley is also deeply personal. After beginning her Montana journey practicing in Darby in 2016 and later spending time practicing in Bozeman, returning to care for the Bitterroot community feels like coming home.

Outside the Clinic

Outside of work, Katie enjoys spending time with her son, Carson, riding her horses, trap shooting, fishing, creating art, playing with her dogs, hiking, biking, and spending time with friends.

Horses have been a lifelong love and remain one of the places where she feels most grounded and at home.

Fun fact: Katie’s childhood dream was to become a real-life version of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Moving from Georgia to Montana in 2016 lovingly fulfilled that dream.

Katie’s Favorite Health Tip

“Your body is constantly giving you information. Pause long enough to listen.”

Good health rarely comes from one perfect diet, medication, supplement, or exercise plan. Start with the foundations: meaningful movement, nourishing food, restorative sleep, emotional well-being, supportive relationships—and a healthcare provider who truly listens.