She Rebuilt Healthcare Without Insurance—And It’s Working | Dr. Jade Norris

The healthcare system feels expensive, confusing, and slow for a reason and Dr. Jade Norris isn’t afraid to say it out loud. We sit down with the founder and CEO of Inspire Primary Care in Las Vegas to talk about Direct Primary Care (DPC), a membership medicine model that skips the insurance middleman for most everyday needs and brings back what people actually want: time, access, and a real relationship with their primary care doctor.

We get specific about how DPC works, what a typical monthly membership costs, and why transparent pricing changes everything. Dr. Jade breaks down cash-pay labs and imaging, the hidden inflation inside insurance billing, and how people can keep insurance for the big stuff while using membership-based primary care for the 90% that happens under one roof. If you’ve ever been told to “go see three specialists” or waited months for approvals, this conversation will feel like someone finally translated the system into plain English.

Then we go beyond the business model. Dr. Jade shares what it took to open her practice straight from residency while eight weeks postpartum, how she learned entrepreneurship like an MBA at night, and why mentors matter. We also talk medical weight loss, obesity stigma, and GLP-1 medications through the lens of outcomes that matter like energy, sleep apnea, and chronic disease risk. To round it out, she reflects on Las Vegas as a medical desert, her children’s books (You Can Call Me Queen / King), and practical ways to protect your energy while building a big life.

If you got value from this, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s fed up with healthcare, and leave a review. What’s the biggest barrier keeping you from getting consistent primary care?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Welcome to Vegas Circle Podcast with your hosts, Pocky and Chris. We are people who are passionate about business, success, and culture. And this is our platform to showcase people in our city who are making it happen. And on today, we have just that. We've got a powerhouse in the building who's a doctor, entrepreneur, author, nonprofit founder, wife and mom, and someone who's changing how Vegas is looking at health. So we're gonna get into that today. So let's welcome to the circle founder and CEO of Inspire Primary Care. We've got Jay Norris, better known as Dr. Jake. Welcome, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_06 0:30

Met you and your husband at uh Mutual Friends event, I think it was in December, with Shane Jasmine and Charles.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yes, shout out to the show. Sit at the same table.

What Direct Primary Care Is

SPEAKER_06 0:37

Yes, shout out to them. They put us put us together. But let's jump right in, man. So Inspire Primary Care, modern membership medical practice. But I want to hear from your perspective for our listeners. So what what is Inspire and what is it all about as far as the membership side?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yes, well, I was one of those weird kids at four years old. That's when I knew God showed me I was supposed to be a doctor. So I was one of those kids when you asked, What do you want to be when you grow up? It was, I want to be a doctor. And you know, back then people thought it was cute. You know, they figure you'll change your mind, right? But I never deviated from that dream. And I grew up in Las Vegas, and so, you know, I would see health care in our city, saw a lack of it really. It was hard to access care. I didn't even know what primary care was growing up because when we were sick, we just go to the urgent care, you know? And then once I was like a young woman, it was like, oh, I just use my Obi-Gaun. So there was never this whole primary care doctor. But the doctors that did take me under their wing on my journey, they all had private practices. So my Obi-Gaun, she let me shadow her, my pediatrician growing up, he had his own private practice. And so that was my lens as a child of I'm gonna be a doctor and I'm gonna have my own practice, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Then in residency, I learned the business of medicine in our country. And that's when I learned, oh, if you're an insurance-based doctor, you really just work for insurance companies. You really just do whatever they say do because otherwise they won't pay you. And if they tell you you have to get in and out the room within five minutes and see people back to back as fast as possible to collect as many copies, and that primary care is now just meant to be a referral center so that they can you can send the people where they make the most money, which is surgeries, hospitalizations, or specialist office for procedures. Once I realized that, where I was like, wow, I've gone through 15 years of training just to push buttons and send people to the hospital or to the emergency room or to a specialist when I'm actually trained to do 90% of health care, but I don't have the time to do it. And I was blessed during my residency training to find out about a style of medicine called direct primary care, also known as DPC, or some people are more commonly know it as like concierge or membership style practices. But I met this whole community of doctors all across the country, thanks to, you know, I was in training during COVID, so everything was virtual and the conferences were virtual. So I met this whole community of physicians. It was over like 2,000 at the time. Now we've doubled or tripled that now. But they were all opening membership-based direct primary care practices, and they were the happiest doctors I've seen. They were telling all these stories about transforming health, being a text message away for their patients, helping people reverse and prevent chronic disease, all the things that were the reasons I went into medicine. And then I met a niche community of doctors who did it straight from residency. And I said, Oh, if they can do it straight from residency, I can do it straight from residency. And so that is where Inspired Primary Care was born. The the goal was always to come back to my hometown and serve my community with quality health care, but I just didn't know how I would do that in an insurance-based practice. And so Direct Primary Care gave me that, and that's where Inspired Primary Care came from. That's awesome.

How Corporate Medicine Took Over

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Yeah, I was very nice to be here. And I think, you know, one when I was younger, I feel like care was like that a lot more. Was there like a shift in time? When did that all, you know, I think there was a time where I didn't go to the doctor for probably too many years, and then I went back, it was in this environment that was very awkward and abnormal for me because I'm going here talking, and now I have to go see three different specialists for three different things. And it I was like, this is a very you know, one, I don't have time to go do all that, or rather just you tell me what's going on. But also, but was there a clear shift in that process? Or like when did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Absolutely. If you think like back in the day when you think of like old school medicine, right? That was like the doctor with the briefcase that would come to your house and check your temperature. Smoke a cigarette, he's coming to you. Yeah, he was like the community doctor that everybody knew, and right, and he was easy to reach. And then, and at that time back then, lots of doctors, especially primary care doctors, had their own practice. They called it just hanging your shingle, right? You graduate, you hang your shingle, and the community knew you and knew how to reach you. But what happened when I started training when I was in med school, they started training us to say, you cannot open private practices. Private practice is dead, corporations have bought it up, it's a monopoly now. All private practices have been bought out, and now everyone is everything is owned by insurance companies. The hospitals, the specialist offices, and you know, all primary care private practices are now corporized. You know, the corporate medicine has taken over that. So I was trained to know that, like, look, when you're done with this, you sign a contract, you get a job, you work, you don't open private practice, that doesn't exist. So that's really what happened, is it just, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

Ate it up.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Ate it up and then figured out, okay, now how do we actually make money out of this? Oh, we make money out of people being sick, we make money out of people getting surgeries, being have being on dialysis, having heart attacks, needing procedures. Like, okay, if that's how we make money, then that's where we're gonna put our focus. And I'm even seeing. And let's shift them out of the prevention because we don't make money from that.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

You know, I'm even seeing now, but they're they don't even want to have that first interaction any longer. It's now just call me for telehealth, and then I'm gonna prescribe you to these three different things so I can hit these people in that quota. Like I'm sure you mentioned, it's a lot faster through telehealth than it is through going in person.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah, telehealth insurance-based practices, most of them have canceled telehealth. A lot of telehealth was approved because of COVID. And they couldn't collect co-pays if people couldn't come inside and everything was shut down. But in the last few months, things have not been approved insurance-based. Basically, legislation has transitioned towards canceling that because they make more money if you come in, get a physical exam, collecting how to do that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

A little bit ago, so now it's a little shifted a little bit back.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

It's trying to shift back, but you know, there's a lot of tension there because people are now used to getting telehealth services.

Transparent Pricing Without Insurance

SPEAKER_06 6:12

Yeah. This is very frustrating when you see that it's all insurance. I remember we had Andrew Cartwright on. Remember, we were talking about how difficult the insurance makes it so confusing for you to frustrate the system on purpose.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Absolutely. And there's only a few of them, right? And the thing about it is there's no transparency, so they don't have to tell you the true price of anything. People think medicine and primary care is expensive. It's so affordable. Uh, and direct primary care practices were able to get the wholesale rates of things and negotiate directly with the labs and the imaging to get the prices without the insurance inflation. So when you find out, oh, x-rays are only$25 and I can walk in the same day and get that, it's just a whole new light that we're shedding on people to be like, if you just don't use insurance for your 90% of healthcare primary care, you're gonna save so much money and you're gonna have a direct relationship and get things done quickly. So it's really nice to just be able to provide healthcare the way it should be.

SPEAKER_04 7:08

Yeah, is there any pressure like from the insurance companies on this model? Because I think you are starting to see this become more and more prevalent. And I'm sure they're not liking the fact that they're gonna take it out of that equation out at all.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

What's very interesting, uh it's like this David and Goliath type of analogy, right? Because if you're so small, they ignore you and they think it'll go away. But now that this movement has been going on 20 years and it's really building, especially in the last year, especially with the subsidy changes and all of the things, legislation-wise, it's really exploded. Uh TikTok, it was it's really been trending. Uh, Mark Cuban has been huge in pushing this movement and exposing this. Yeah. So now that so many loud voices are talking about it and praising it and experiencing it, now they're starting to pay attention. But what's interesting is anytime something is working well, they're trying to again find a cheap way to do it. So you'll see like Amazon is like, oh, we'll add a telehealth for$6 to your prime membership. And so there's these other companies that are trying to like find a knockoff way to do it. But what we see is that it's just a strong movement, it's just simple. And you can't be simple, transparent, high quality. It's really hard. And so they're gonna have to get with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Membership Costs And What You Get

SPEAKER_06 8:22

It's very true. What would a membership run? Like, what is that? What is that average that they would do with you know with this style?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, that's the thing, is that when this originally like so that's why we kind of try to differentiate direct primary care versus concierge.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Concierge 20 plus years ago, when it first came out, it was also a membership, but these this was developed for like the most affluent, right? If you'd see the Kardashians making a phone call to their doctor on the show, it was to their concierge doctor, right? And that was 5,000 plus a month, right? So it was made for the elite. And so when people hear the word concierge, they will often think that's expensive, that's for them, I can't afford that, right? And so the direct primary care movement was born out of that. Like, let's make this affordable for everyday people, for working class people, also for, you know, executives, entrepreneurs, you know, different types of people. Uh, we partner directly with businesses that offer us as the benefits. So we care for a lot of, you know, working professionals, teachers, nurses. We care for a lot of flight attendants, pilots, you know, people that travel, just so because of that, it transitioned towards more affordable care. And so most direct primary care memberships will range between$100 to$200. And then, you know, our telehealth, for example, is$100. So you'll see it between$100 up to$200 for direct primary care.

SPEAKER_06 9:40

It's amazing how like the medical systems like almost like the jewelry industry, right? We have the jewelry industry, they charge like a thousand times the amount. And it's so funny, like you just mentioned it's very inexpensive, but they don't want you to see it.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Right.

SPEAKER_06 9:52

So it's awesome. So they can work directly with you as being the physician.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 9:57

And you're not dealing with all this red tape.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Exactly. Cell phone number, text, email, phone, video. Yeah. Simple healthcare.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

And you have to pay for like a specialized services. So in the event that I do need like an x-ray, then I would just pay the x-ray costs. This would give me my primary physician like items.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah, that's a good question. So, what most people don't think of is that primary care is 90% of your health care needs, because in the insurance-based model, if you only have five minutes, and doctors are fired if they spend more than eight minutes with patients in that model. So if you uh have to see people in five minutes, you only have enough time to give them a pill, a referral, or send them to the hospital. Like those are the three options the smartest doctor has time for in five minutes, right? But now if you take that away, I have unlimited time to work in my full scope of training, right? So family medicine physicians learn dermatology by working with dermatologists. They learn orthopedics by working with orthopedic surgeons, et cetera, right? So now if I don't have a time crunch and I'm able to work in my full scope, do procedures in-house, et cetera, there's less referrals, right? So I don't have to refer out as often because I'm able to do everything I'm trained to do, which is 90% of healthcare. The 10% that falls outside of the primary care office, that's when if you have insurance, you can use it. But we have discounted wholesale rates on those. So that's when I was mentioning like x-rays are actually only$25. If my women want mammograms and their cash pay, we tell them to get it during breast cancer month because that's when it's$99. So I know how to do that. And then also labs, we go directly to the labs, get the wholesale rate without insurance markups. So a whole comprehensive annual lab work is$58 for a full panel, which it'll be$300 plus dollars if you use insurance. So it's just so interesting for people. And when my members join, about 60% of my practice has insurance. And when they first join, they're used to using their insurance. So they're like, no, I'll use my insurance for my labs or I'll use my insurance for my MRI. And I'm like, okay, that MRI is$300. But if you want to do it through insurance, no problem. And then they'll get like denied, wait months, and then they'll get an$800 bill. And they're like, wait, didn't you say it was$300? And I was like, Yeah, cash. Three months ago, you could have gotten it cash same day, you know. So they learn next time, like, no, give me those wholesale rates.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

So you can do this in supplemental to your insurance. Like, you don't have to cancel your insurance. You can do both.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Nope. Most people will customize. Yes, absolutely. Most of our members have insurance. At least we recommend to have some sort of catastrophic care plan, but there are smarter ways than a PPO HMO plan. Usually, if you are partnered with a direct primary care practice, there are what people would consider like a bronze plan, high deductible health plans paired with the HSA. There are something called health shares. So there are these other catastrophic care options that are lower cost than like the traditional PPO HMO. So you have lower cost but increased quality. That's awesome. Yeah. So I help our members explore that and customize it.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

Yeah, and you help with that practice, or is that something like usually do on their own? Like they have to figure out how to navigate the how you can do it.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Back in the day, we would say, like, we would look at PPO and HMO plans, like an all-inclusive resort. You guys travel? You have you been to all-inclusive resort, right? And so there's there's really great all-inclusive resorts, but then there's like terrible all-inclusive resorts where you get there and you're like, the food is terrible. Where's all the help? Like the beds are gross. And so what we have now are these PPO HMO plans, which are like a really bad all-inclusive resort. We've been given this product and said, just buy this product and it has all you need in it. But what we don't know is when you buy that product, it has less doctors, less hospitals, all this red tape, denials, you're paying more for the less. And so now what we're seeing is like the smartest way to approach healthcare is actually to customize it. So you have some trips where you go to the all-inclusive resort, but you have other trips where you're like, nope, let me get my own airfare. Nope, I'm gonna get my own train. Nope, let me get, let me pick my hotel. And that's really the smarter way to approach healthcare these days is let me get the best primary care, that's 90% of my health care, and then let me get the best catastrophic coverage that's gonna be the lowest cost with the highest coverage for what I actually need. Yeah. That's amazing. You don't even think like that.

SPEAKER_06 14:12

Yeah, you have no idea. This is really, and I'm not just saying because you're here, this is really awesome because people need to hear this, right? Because they're getting screwed. They're getting screwed left and right.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

Yeah.

Starting A Practice Postpartum

SPEAKER_06 14:20

And it's good to know that these other options out there, and and we got to look at this a different way because health is literally wealth, as we all know for sure. So being a business owner, right? So, what's the scariest part of open and inspired primary care? Like, was there just a point where you were just like, damn, I can't believe I'm opening up my own practice?

SPEAKER_00 14:38

That's a good question. Because when I opened my practice, most people thought I was crazy because I opened straight from residency, right? I was eight weeks postpartum with my second baby. So I had just had a baby and I had a toddler. So I had a two-year-old and an eight-week old. Oh, geez. And straight from training, and now I'm opening a business. So people looked at me like, Are you insane? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:59

I don't know how you did it.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

But at the same time, when I was trying to think of what it should be called and like praying about what we should call it, people just kept saying, like, wow, that's so inspirational. What an inspiration, you know. And so that kept coming, and I was like, Oh, inspire. Okay, it would we're going with inspire. So I don't think like most people, like once God shows me something, I believe I can do it. And so that's just how I am. Um so I didn't, I wasn't scared, I didn't know what I was doing, but I had during my residency training because I learned about this in residency, I used my residency as like an MBA by night. So I was studying business, I was reading business books, I was listening to business podcasts, I was interviewing and flying to successful practices and asking them what they did, what they learned. So I felt like I had really learned a lot in those three years where I felt confident, like, well, I'm doing the best I can with all the information that I've accumulated.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yeah. And I had a strategy. I knew I wanted to open debt-free. So I had like a part-time job at our local urgent care while the practice grew, and then I took away urgent care shifts until the practice, you know, grew on its own. And so I just I did the best I could with the knowledge I had, and thank God it worked out.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

What was like the biggest challenge that you ran into when you're going through? Because obviously you're learning as you go, you could prep for all of these things, but I'm sure there's hurdles that come up, and you're like, wow, this is not growing as fast as I would like.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Or yeah, I would say the patience, right? The patience around that. Because if I was a physician who everything has pros and cons. If I was a physician that was already working in the community for a decade, I would have this amount of patients that already knew me, that when I switched over, a chunk of them would join, right? But I had been gone for over a decade of training. Although I was from Vegas, I was gone for 10 years for my medical school and residency training and my postbaccalaureate training. So I was coming back as a brand new person, although it was my hometown. So it was just the starting from zero. The urgent care part-time just helped that out to not stress as much. But then once it got to that tipping point of like the practice was just busy enough, but not busy enough for me to quit, where it was just this discomfort of like, oh, when do I quit? And then it got to the point where they kind of called me and it was like, hey, I noticed you working on your practice. And and so to have integrity of, you know, yeah, I had to quit before I felt ready to quit and then go all in and just have faith that, okay, this we're all in.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

That was probably the hardest part in the early days was like going all in.

SPEAKER_06 17:26

Yeah, that's tough. It's tough to make that shit. No safety net. Yeah, no safety net. Yeah. And your your husband's a partner in this too, right? With helping you build this and everything. My husband's our COO.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

So I say no safety net, but Carlos is still my safety net, right? Because he is he's still our W-2 position, you know. And although he does the operation side, in the early days, there wasn't an operation side. It was me and automations. So it wasn't until we started hiring our team, our second provider, expanded to our second suite that we really had an operation side of the business and payroll side of the business. So his role has grown as our company has grown, but in the early days, didn't have that. Yeah, we didn't we didn't need the operation side yet.

GLP-1 Weight Loss And Stigma

SPEAKER_06 18:06

That's awesome. I I salute it because it's hard, hard to be able to do that, man. But talk a little bit about because you're a weight loss specialist too, right? Yeah. And that's a big part, especially we're in January. Everybody's talking about weight loss and running to so what people hear about obesity in medicine and think weight only would be it would be basically you know something that's a challenge for folks. But what's the perspective for you about just weight loss in general? Maybe one of those.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

I love that question. Well, I have to say where my passion for obesity treatment and healthy weight, healthy nutrition comes from. One, I came from a mother and grandmother who really emphasized healthy lifestyles. We were always walking, doing Taibo, like they drinking smoothies. So that was my upbringing. And they would, I hate to say this, I hope my dad's not listening, but my dad's side of the family, the women were very obese. And so I kind of grew up being, you know, chastised. Like, you don't want to look like them, like, you know, that'll cause some problems. Yeah, and so, but they tried to encourage it in a healthy way. And so then I shift to medical school, and every chronic disease we would go through, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, the number one risk factor on the next slide would be obesity. And so I kept saying, Man, if everything we're studying is linked to obesity, cancer, everything, if it's all linked to obesity, why don't we just fix that? Right? And so that's when I really got passionate about it. But then I had babies, and my second baby, uh, blew me up. 60 pounds. Yeah. And so when I opened the practice, I was 60 pounds heavier than what's healthy for my frame. And my way of training or trying to get to a healthy weight after babies was training for half marathons. So after my first baby, I trained for a half marathon. After my second baby, I trained for a half marathon, tried to eat healthy, intermittent fasting, you know, plant-based, all the things, you know, and the 60 pounds would just not come off. And I was like, what is going on? And that was in the around the time where GLP1s started really becoming popular as far as people seeing results. And so I took a course, I took a certification course to become certified in it. We launched our medical weight loss program and we started seeing these incredible before and afters, 100 pounds, but not just the weight, people's sleep apnea being reversed, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes being reversed. I was like, okay. So I told my husband, I was like, I really, and he had gained with me because, you know, when you're pregnant, you both gain. And so I was like, we should get on our program, you know. And he was like, I don't know, you know, because it was early in the GLP one journey. And he's like, well, what about side effects? And what about this? And so I was like, No, I took the course, we're good. So, you know, I talked him into it and we both lost 60 pounds. And now that was what, over three years ago. Four years, my baby just turned four. So that was four years ago, and we've, you know, been able to maintain, and so we are products of our weight loss program.

SPEAKER_06 20:52

Did you change up your whole diet? Because they always say the eat the diet, that's what kicks everybody's buttons.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Nutritionally, I've always had a really outside of pregnancy, I've always had a really good nutrition. So that was what was so frustrating about it. And I think that's where the stigma, I also think that's where a lot of the community join my program and feel the connection because there isn't this judgment. Like, girl, I've been there, I've tried to eat healthy, I've tried to work out, and some people that's enough. And some people genetically, metabolically, especially when you get over age after 40, man. After 40, start kicking your butt. Exactly. And so that's just not the story for everybody. Eat healthy and move more isn't always gonna be enough.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

And so I think people knowing my story, they connect with that and they feel safe to actually come and join and say, man, I'm struggling too, even with a healthy lifestyle. Now, those who don't have a healthy nutrition, we do wellness plans, we help them transition their nutrition healthier. But many people that come see me, they have tried eating healthy and they have tried exercising and it's still not coming off. And they're suffering with chronic diseases because of it.

SPEAKER_06 21:52

Man, yeah, that's the part that's kicking everybody's butt because you don't know what those chronic diseases are about.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, I have horrible acid reflux. I was on medication. When I was 60 pounds heavier, I had horrible back pain. So I was like starting to feel it. And I was like, oh, this does not feel good. Like it doesn't feel healthy on my frame, you know, outside of like wanting to look, you know, good.

SPEAKER_06 22:12

Yeah, for sure. That's power up. And it's good. Your honesty is everything too, man. And it's amazing that you and your husband did that together. Yes. Yeah, that's that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

I always tell the husband and wives when they join. I always tell the wives the men almost always lose weight faster. So don't get mad about it. He lost 60 pounds in like weeks, it felt like.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

You know, so it took me longer, but you know, he'd still eat his burgers and he was still dropping 10 pounds. But like, so yeah. I need that.

Las Vegas As A Medical Desert

SPEAKER_06 22:38

Yeah, I need that. But we both got there eventually, yes. That's awesome. I was gonna ask you just about like the number one habit that's destroying health in Vegas, just in general, because we're in Vegas and you see that we got drinking, we got so many things that that we that are that we have access to. But what would you say is one of the number one things you see that's destroying maybe the the health side of us?

SPEAKER_00 22:58

That's really interesting. Of course, you have silos, like of course, if you're on drugs, that's the thing. If you're heavy drinking, if you have unhealthy gambling, but in general, just in oh yes, I'm biased, but the lack of primary care in our city is truly is is detrimental to the health of our city, the access to primary care. Because primary care, again, is 90% of health care under one roof. And if you don't have that, then people are left scrambling. One, avoiding most of our city, we avoid health care. We're like, if it's not that horrible, I'm just gonna deal with it. I looked on Chat GPT, I looked on TikTok, you know, that'll be enough. Or we're just using our urgent cares are thriving, right? Our urgent cares are thriving because people can't get in with the continuity with primary care. So they're like, uh, if I'm sick, I just go to quit care, you know, I just go to urgent care.

SPEAKER_06 23:47

Because you're worried about how they're gonna pay you.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yeah, or even worse, they they go to the emergency room for something they should have seen. A primary care doctor for, right? And so it's like, what are you doing? Going there for blood pressure, like you know, and so that really is a huge piece. We actually are in a medical desert. Many people don't know that. Not only a desert, but a medical desert. So most cities, our size, the primary care population, I should say the detriment, like how many are missing, is about 8% in most countries, in most cities. But ours is 12%, so almost double what the national average is when it comes to the lack of primary care. Yeah, so the when you look at the ratio of primary care physicians or providers to the population size, much higher, almost double of a detriment compared to other cities. So that's a big thing. And then in insurance-based practices, it's hard for Nevada, it's not competitive compared to other cities when it comes to compensation. So historically, and this is a transient city, most people aren't from Vegas. And so most of our good doctors get recruited out, they get pulled to other cities, or they just aren't tied here anyway because they're not from here, so they move out. So that's another thing I try to tell people like this is my hometown, you know, this is you know, you're catching me young, and this is we're we're gonna build quality health care for the city.

SPEAKER_06 25:06

I love that we're doing that because you know, we always hear about the education being bad and medical system being bad, right? And people like you, this is what this is why we wanted people like you to come on to be able to share that we're making an impact and it's getting better for Vegas. It is our future is way better over the next probably five, ten, twenty years. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

And now we have medical schools and residency programs here. When I was in training, there was none of that. I had to go away because there was no medical school or residency program in Las Vegas. So even just having those now training up people in the city is gonna help.

SPEAKER_04 25:37

That makes perfect sense. You know, for me, I say I am one of those people. I just go to urgent care. Like, I don't think I go to the doctor care process. So it's honestly, but I never realized that's probably the reason why. Like the city I grew up in, you had this hub of people that you can go to that you know of, that people referred you to. Yeah. But here, uh you really don't have that. Like I've never really thought about it like that. It's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

You both reflect the population of Vegas, literally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:58

Because you're both from the Midwest. Yeah. Being from Chicago, you're from Detroit, and you you have this mindset, you know, and it's it's kind of messed up.

SPEAKER_04 26:04

And you look for people, they're not covered by your insurance, or they're far away, and you have to do all these different things. Just the hurdles they have to jump through to find somebody is very, very hard to navigate. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

And that's when I talk about that all-inclusive island when you get there and you're like, Where's all the help? Because they don't tell you that you're paying for this benefit, but most people don't take it anymore because they don't pay. So they stop accepting it. And it's like, wait, what?

Writing Kids Books For Confidence

SPEAKER_06 26:27

Yeah, that's unreal. I do want to talk a little bit about you being an author, right? So you've got books outright now. Also, what was important for you to create You Can Call Me Queen and King? I was reading about that. Can you share a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Oh, yeah, that was sweet. That was so interesting. Yeah, I I try to solve problems, right? And so when I had Ava, my oldest, of course, I wanted to read her books, inspiring messages. I wanted what, but I was looking for something very specific that I couldn't find. I kept ordering books from Amazon, and I wanted diversity in the characters. I wanted an empowering message. You know, a lot of the princess books were like the prince saving the girl, or they lacked diversity, or they just didn't have the message where I was like, I'm gonna read this to her, and she's gonna know she can be anything. She's gonna see herself reflected. And so I kept complaining. I kept buying these books, and my husband was like, Why don't you just write one? And and I I grew up writing poetry, and so writing a rhyming book, it just kind of came to me. Okay, and it was really for Ava. And so I dedicated it to her and I self-published it, and it was really just my gift to her. But then other people were like, Let me see the book, you know? And so then I shared it on my social media, and people asked if they could buy it. So I started selling them, sending signed copies, and then I was a part of one of the largest hospitals in Southern California, and one of my attending physicians showed the head of the pediatric department, and she was like, We're gonna buy books for the whole pediatric, yeah, for the whole pediatrics department. And so I'd see these kids, they would all get to leave with my book after their doctor's appointment. And I was just like, Oh my god. And so then I started having all these boy moms ask me, Can you write a boy version?

SPEAKER_06 28:01

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

And at that time I was pregnant with my second baby and I had just found out it was a girl. Sorry, Julia. Yes, okay, I'll be right back. But I was devastated initially. She's wonderful, but I was devastated initially, and I was like, I don't have any boys, I'm not writing a boy book. And then Carlos was like, Well, just write it for me, you know? And so I did. I wrote a You Can Call Me King and I dedicated it to him. And he's his I made a little cartoon character version of him on the cover, but yeah, they just kind of came along out of that need. But initially it was about Ava and trying to just find a book that could just motivate her, that I could read to her over and over and that would just inspire her. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 28:38

What would you say? What would that message be to wish every girl of color that they could hear of that? Because you don't hear a lot of that, right? Like we also have CJ Watson on that's written multiple books too, you know, just about the impact of boys and being able to see, you know, who they could live up to. What would you say, just for somebody listening?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

The thing I would write in the cover when I would sign it is that you can do and be anything. And that's really what it was about. Like whatever you put your mind to, when you asked me, like, well, when you opened your practice, like, were you scared? It's like, well, I had already made up my mind. Yeah. And I believed that I could do and be anything. And so it really starts in the mind. I feel like so many of us don't accomplish what we're called to accomplish because we don't start with believing we can do it. Of course, there's so many other things we have to do after that, but that's the first thing that really cripples people a lot of people, is like just not even believing it's possible for them. Yeah. So I just wanted to get it in her head that she could do and be anything early before the world told her different.

SPEAKER_06 29:33

Yep. I love that. That's what we talk to our kids about all the time, man. Honestly, that foundation. I think it's up until what, three years old, right? Just setting that right foundation of no, that's BS. Like this is what you could do, and this is what you can strive for. So that's powerful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

I said if we were gonna have one thing as confident children. Yeah, yeah.

Protecting Energy And Career Advice

SPEAKER_06 29:50

Yep. And happy. Yeah, yeah, and happy. You know, family faith and just balance. That's a big thing for me for sure, just with this busy lifestyle that we're dealing with. Being a doctor, being an entrepreneur, wife, mom, you guys have a nonprofit. How do you protect your energy?

SPEAKER_00 30:04

That's such a good question. I haven't been, I've done a lot of energy. I wanted to ask your husband this too.

SPEAKER_06 30:08

Yeah, if your husband was sharp, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah, we would have different answers because we we operate very differently. Carlos is naturally much more chill. He sits back and he says no and he's overwhelmed. I am the go, right? I will overbook, I will have a checklist every day that is to the floor. And I had to really untrain myself in that way. I had to learn how to relax, how to pause, how to say no, how to just rest. Resting is not my thing. Like, going is my thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

And Carlos is the opposite. He's like, please don't task me like that. Like, you know, like I I will get to it in my and I'm looking at him like, when? You know.

SPEAKER_05 30:48

Y'all sound like y'all at our house. Sound like y'all at our house. That's real.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

And I think I needed that. God knew I needed that balance. If I had another me, we would just be driving each other crazy. We'd both be like energizer bunny. So I I have learned, I've been intentional about learning how to pause, how to pace, um, how to stop.

SPEAKER_06 31:06

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

But I had to learn. I gotta learn that.

SPEAKER_06 31:09

Yeah, I gotta learn that so bad. Just about just business and life advice, just transitioning a little bit. What advice would you give somebody that maybe they're thinking about, you know, being a physician like yourself or just being a business owner in general, what would you share with them, you know, as listener, maybe a nugget that that maybe could help them, maybe, you know, not even being scared, too. You know what I mean? What would you share?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yeah, two different, definitely two different TED talks on the being a doctor and being an entrepreneur, right? But similar things that overlap. So when it comes to being a doctor, it's really like don't quit. Because it, if I knew it was gonna be as hard as it was, and everyone's different. My journey was very difficult. I am very open about, I wasn't a great standardized test taker, and that is a huge part of becoming a doctor, is just one standardized test after another. And so my journey was very hard because that was my number one struggle. I could connect with people, I could walk into a room, they'd tell me their whole life story within seconds. I would listen, I loved people, but you put a question, like sit me in a cold room for four hours, yeah, and I have to check A, B, C, or D. I'm like, my brain doesn't like it. Yeah, I'm like, well, it could be A, it could be B. But if you really think about it, like I my body, soul, it just didn't work that way, right? I was relational. So for people who are like me in that way, I would just say, don't quit. Like, whatever you have to do when it comes to like I had to get tutors, I had to stay after. I would be in all of my professors' after hours being like, walk me through this organic chemistry thing. You know, it just, I just was there. And regardless if they wanted me there or not, I was there. That's because my mind was like, I just need to get this MD. You know? So for doctors, I'd be like, don't quit, reach out to mentors, connect with people that, you know, maybe your struggle isn't test taking. Maybe you've lost a parent or something during your training. You know, everyone has a different struggle, but connect with others and find support and don't shy away from therapy, right? So, you know, lots of different ways to skin that cat, but don't quit. And then for entrepreneurs, it's very interesting. I have found it to be very helpful to surround myself by people who have who are further in their journey than me, right? I would surround myself by women who were successful in business, by women of color who were killing it in marketing, killing it in sales, killing it on social media, just these different areas that I wasn't trained to do, right? I was trained to be in the library with books for 14 years. Like that's what I was trained to do. So I get out and I'm like, oh, I have to market, I have to be on camera, I have to do podcasts, I have to speak to stage, you know, I have to sell. And that feels weird at first initially, although I don't sell now. Now I understand I just solve problems, you know, to those I'm called to serve. But they were just new skill sets. And so surrounding myself with people who were already amazing in that, not trying to figure it out or invent the will, reinvent the wheel, that's the number one thing. I'm a sponge, and that's the thing I knew how to learn. I'm a professional learner, right? And so it's like a lot of doctors will be like, I don't want to do social media. I'm not of this, I'm not of that. And I'm like, You're a learner.

SPEAKER_06 34:10

You have to adapt. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

That's all you have to do is get into a room and be a sponge. Learn, observe. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 34:16

And it's too much information information in our fingertips. I mean, YouTube just everything is out there. Absolutely. So it's free.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

I tell people I went to YouTube University. That's why. I was like, I mean, that's how I learned how to write books. I was like, how do people write these children's books? Oh, there's a YouTube video for that.

Favorite Vegas Sushi Picks

SPEAKER_06 34:31

No, no excuses I got from you. That's awesome. Transition a little bit about food. We we love the Vegas food here. I'm always asking everybody about what's your favorite? We met at a restaurant too, by the way. Yes. But what's your favorite restaurant in Vegas? Especially being a local.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

I would say in general, I love sushi. Like that's what me and my husband love to do. We were heartbroken because one of our favorite sushi spots just are like randomly closed. That's what Vegas is good for, is you'll just go somewhere that you think is like popular, always packed, and then they're just closed.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

It never makes sense, right? One of the hardest businesses. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

So a lot of our favorite sushi restaurants are now closed, and so I feel like we're like sushi orphans. We're like going restaurant to restaurant trying to find our new favorite sushi spot. But that's really what we love. And we love seafood.

SPEAKER_06 35:14

Okay. Yeah. What would you give us for a sushi gym that you that you guys go to maybe on a regular now?

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Right now, we regularly go to Chinatown. It's called Sushi Nico.

SPEAKER_06 35:23

Ah, okay. Yeah, so we go there a lot. Sushi Niko's good. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

That's our most common one. Because it's just kind of central in Vegas, easy to hop to.

SPEAKER_06 35:31

Yep. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

And I feel I'm always up for recommendations.

SPEAKER_06 35:34

We can give you Kase. We just had James Trader on. Kase is great. Yeah, it's an omakase experience, but it's doesn't kill your pockets. Okay. And then we also went together at uh Kame. Kame.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

I haven't been to either of those, so I gotta write those down.

Helping Small Businesses Offer Healthcare

SPEAKER_06 35:47

Amazing. Kame is amazing. Okay. Kame's amazing. Kase is amazing. I like the word amazing when I'm trying to get some sushi. It's amazing. Shout out to them and their team. They're great. Anything that we forgot to want to leave us out on, man, that maybe that uh you're trying to accomplish in 2026.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Wow. You you guys have touched on a lot and you asked some really great questions. For me, our business, Inspire Primary Care, we really started off being for individuals, busy professionals, individuals looking for better health care, higher quality care, a relationship with their doctor. It's interesting because we naturally started attracting lots of business owners, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

And because a lot of them didn't have traditional insurance plans.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

And then they started saying, well, can I offer this as the healthcare benefit to my team of five, to my executive assistant? What about well now my practices, their business has grown, my team of 20, right? And so over the last two years, the corporate side of our business has really grown. And now we're blessed to serve and partner with many of the small and medium-sized businesses throughout the valley. And so that's a part that I feel like a lot of people don't know as much about because through our socials, we're able to really connect to that one-on-one. But if there are business owners that are listening, we would love to see if we're a good fit as a corporate partner because we've really been able to lower the cost of healthcare for businesses while increasing the quality of care. And usually on PLs, healthcare, if they are offering benefits, are the second highest after payroll on the PL. And most Las Vegas businesses just aren't offering healthcare at all because they're just like, I just can't afford it. And so many businesses don't offer that they're like, well, we won't either. And so there's a better way, and we're excited to be a part of that solution too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:24

That's huge. Yeah, because our overhead is no punk on the healthcare side. So that's great that you guys offered. I didn't even think think of that. I was thinking individual, but corporate side makes a lot of sense.

Where To Follow And Closing

SPEAKER_00 37:33

So it's been amazing.

SPEAKER_06 37:35

Well, definitely check them out, uh, check them out at Inspire. What's the social handles people can check out?

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Oh, yeah. So we're at Inspire primary care. No I in front of Inspire. And then my page is Dr. JadeMD.

SPEAKER_06 37:47

Pay attention to what she's doing. And you're very funny, by the way, man. You guys got a great way of being able to teach and mess around, man. So it's great, yeah. So applaud what you guys are doing and definitely check out Inspire. Check us out, thebegarcircle.com, subscribe with us. Appreciate your time, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. That was great. Yeah, I learned that was awesome.