Collaboration for Change: Entrepreneurial Paths in DPC, Locums, and Direct Contracting

In this episode of the My DPC Story Podcast, Dr. Maryal Concepcion hosts Dr. Holly Shen and Dr. Aaron Morganstein to discuss physician entrepreneurship and the power of collaboration in Direct Primary Care (DPC), locum tenens, and direct contracting. The trio introduces the upcoming Rise Up Physician Summit—a virtual event designed to empower physicians with tools and education to take control of their medical careers, improve financial independence, and explore non-traditional clinical paths. Listeners will hear real stories about leaving traditional employment, gaining professional and personal autonomy, building supportive physician communities, and balancing clinical work with passion projects. The episode covers actionable advice for both new and experienced doctors considering DPC, locums, or direct contracting, while highlighting the crucial role of mentorship and peer support in navigating alternative career models in medicine. Register for the summit at flexmedstaff.com/RiseUp to access transformative content and connect with a community reimagining modern medical practice. Early Bird Registration ends 9/15/25.

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Transcript

Maryal Concepcion MD: 0:55

Direct Primary care is an innovative alternative path to insurance-driven healthcare. Typically, a patient pays their doctor a low monthly membership and in return builds a lasting relationship with their doctor and has their doctor available at their fingertips. Welcome to the my DPC story podcast, where each week. You will hear the ever so relatable stories shared by physicians who have chosen to practice medicine in their individual communities through the direct primary care model. I'm your host, Marielle conception family physician, DPC, owner, and former fee for Service. Doctor, I hope you enjoy today's episode and come away feeling inspired about the future of patient care direct Primary care. I'm so excited. I know I said this at the beginning of Dr. Day's episode, but I am so excited because today's topic is really. Hitting at the fact that physician entrepreneurship is why people listen to my DPC story. Why Peoples Choose DPC. Because physician entrepreneurship represents so much, it represents the reclamation of our ability as physicians to really work for and with our patients and not for and with the insurance companies and the DPC case. But we are going to extend the mindset of DPC to also talking about how does one expand their physician entrepreneurship skills and knowledge into the locum tenant space, as well as direct contracting. And so you've been hearing on the podcast ways to do side gigs from Dr. Naomi La Lawrence Reed who. This is a, jumping to the end of the episode is going to be one of our presenters at the summit that we're going to be talking about Rise up. But also you just heard from Dr. PDay who referenced Dr. Shen, who you'll hear today, and Dr. Morganstein who you'll hear today as well. And we are really going to be talking about the importance of physician entrepreneurship to really take our profession into our own hands no matter what specialty, surgical or non-surgical, and the ability to take that profession and combine it with how we craft the rest of our lives, so I am so excited. Thank you so much, Dr. Shen and Dr. Morganstein for joining me today.

Aaron Morganstein MD: 3:12

Hey, great to see you.

Maryal Concepcion MD: 3:14

So. Rise up. This is a, a new summit. And for the, the audience it's DPC summit season in the summer and the three of us have been collaborating with the rest of the team at Flexed staff about how we can empower DPC physicians as well as our other physician colleagues in locums, in direct contracting, and also people who are like, I don't know what there is out there, but I know that there's gotta be something different. And we've created the summit called Rise Up. What is the importance of collaborating together as physicians in different spaces? Yet we're all con, we're all coming together around physician entrepreneurship.

Holly Shen MD: 3:51

Well, I can start with that. So I, I never envisioned even a desire to be a physician entrepreneur. That was never something that was a part of my life plan for myself as a physician. I always considered myself to be a part of a group or a part of a practice, or a part of, the traditional practice of medicine and how it has been and how we kind of worked thought of in residency and taught that things ran. But actually living it was a whole different story. And thinking about actually becoming a physician entrepreneur was. Incredibly daunting and overwhelming. That was something that I could not see myself doing and probably held myself back from making these steps a really long time ago. I probably would've taken these sooner had I had the collaboration. And, and truthfully the collaboration that I found certainly across specialties as I was making my way into becoming a a one woman, O-B-G-Y-N, critical access, physician, entrepreneur, was, I found Erin. I found Erin because Erin was already trying to collaborate with other physicians across specialties to provide education in how to be successful in this space. And I basically wanted to drag his experience, expertise and his, like, nauseating ability to just provide the wonderful education that we actually could never figure out how Aaron could do this. How he could just always have all this energy and power to pull people together and teach and with, just. The best of intentions, and I pulled him into my space. I pulled him into my group that I had created for my specialty to work this way, because we needed to take every little bit of knowledge that he had experienced over, I'm, correct me if I'm wrong, Aaron, but like a decade of working this way. You did a long time ago. You did it a while ago. You pulled away a while ago, and you have learned these lessons along the way, and you've been compiling every little tidbit and then sharing with us. So we were able to take that and share it across our specialty. So as much as it wasn't so much, across the specialty, I actually took it from across the ties and shared it into my specialty and my group.

Aaron Morganstein MD: 6:01

I think that the concerning thing I see in medicine is the number of physicians that are leaving medicine. And the way that I look at it and the way that I can help keep physicians in medicine is by advocating for physicians to create non-traditional clinical careers. So in my opinion, there's three ways to do that. There is the DPC model, which you're an expert at. There is the direct contracting where you go direct to a facility, a healthcare facility, and you negotiate a contract and you get paid directly through them. And the third model is the traditional locums model where you go through a middleman or an agency with. The rise of physicians leaving medicine. I think we have to do everything we can to keep physicians in medicine, and I think that the way that you empower physicians to stay in clinical medicine is through education. And I think that not only is flex med staff.com, the number one priority being education. I think this upcoming summit, the Rise Up Physician Summit is the event to start to empower physicians through education, to be that independent physician that, that entrepreneur that you want to be to create your own clinical career. And we provide you those tools. And I think collaborating with experts from the locums industry, the direct contracting and the DPC is gonna be a tremendous event going forward.

Maryal Concepcion MD: 7:31

Amen. And I will say that for those of you who are like me and are like, okay, just give me where to sign up flexed staff.com/r I-S-E-U-P for flexed staff.com/riseup. That's where you go to register. And I will say absolutely that I a hundred percent love what you guys are saying and what you guys are highlighting, which is so important for all physicians and soon to be physicians to know, because this is where physicians are teaching physicians. This is where physicians are taking back the narrative. And this is where physicians not only are providing education like you guys are saying, but also the mentorship through just like Holly, showed like you were doing this, Erin before. Holly started this and it, it's literally the power of seeing that this is possible is just so game changing when we're so done with the regular way of being an employed indentured servant. So amen to that. Flex Med staff.com/riseup. Early bird tickets are still on sale, so just make sure that you go, today it's only$199 and it is an entirely virtual summit. But with that, I wanna jump into a little bit of your guys' backstories Holly mentioned the community that you had created but you also, went out and, and found Erin like you described. Dr. Aliza Day also mentioned that you were her mentor and you continue to be, but what was going on that you decided to choose this path? And then Erin, same question for you, because surgical specialties, this is something that a lot of physicians and residents are saying. Like, I, I can't do anything but be an employed physician because I am a surgical specialist if you're a physician out there listening and you're like, but I love hospital medicine. I don't know how to do hospital medicine unless I take a contract with the hospital. The content that is going to be ridiculously beautiful in this rise up summit is going to prove that you do not have to do an employed role. So, Ali, I'll, I'll turn it back to you. And then Erin, if you can answer also like what brought you into this movement because the passion definitely people hear that it's already there,

Holly Shen MD: 9:44

So first I'll just clarify that. By the way, Aaron has been working with Flex Med staff for several years before I joined to, I just, this became such a passion for both of us together, and he had such a fantastic foundation already laid for Flex Med staff. So I was stepping into something that was already it was already such a beautiful framed positive light what we were just taking to expand and especially into my space. But for me personally, I woke up one day, I literally woke up one day. I, I can tell you it was. A day in May. I can't tell you exactly which day it was. Several years ago I woke up and I knew I couldn't do another day. In the situation of work that I was in, I had tried the private practice route with the promises of, become a partner. All you have to do is put your head down, be productive, you'll be offered a partnership role. And then, quickly learned of the lack of transparency and the private equity takeovers and the unrealistic expectations with no balance. So. For me, the first step outta that was, okay, if I, if I can't do private practice, I think I'll probably go into an employed role. I'll just show up and be a doctor. Just show up and be a doctor. I just gotta go to work and do my job and then come home because somebody else runs all the other stuff. So in in coming into that model, I found there wasn't very much different. The same unrealistic expectations, the same broken promises, the same poor boundaries, the same poor work life balance. Everything was translating into exactly the experience that I had had prior. So, when I had that wake up. Day in May, I really didn't know exactly what else was out there, but I knew something else better be I needed something else out there. So Erin and I are kind of alike in the way that we kind of just took the jump now and figure things out later approach that does not work well for everyone. Some people really need to understand and plan each step, and that is something that I am so happy to be a part of. Being able to build those tools and those stepping stones for people who need that and can't just jump and, figure things out later. So when I jumped it was really an unseen path before me. I did a little dabbling of, of working independently in this way, in that way. But, in making a lot of mistakes and trying to work independently as a locums physician as, and I didn't even know what independent contracting was back then. That's when I came across Aaron and Hi and Corin. Corin Ra is his, as is another one of our Flex Med staff partners. They were making some amazing videos teaching other physicians with literally nothing but education in mind. How to be independent, how to, how to learn the game, how to understand how to work as a locums physician through the agencies, but also understand the backside of agency knowhow, what the recruiters were doing, how to be ahead, how to make sure you got what you needed. Literally, the how to for how to work with a locums agency was first what I was learning from them. And then the direct contracting came in, which I had never even postulated in my mind. So. That made me actually, it made me angry. It made me angry at the industry and I said, no. Well, if I don't need them, I can do this on my own. Let me learn how to do this on my own. And through the tools that Flexed staff was already putting out, what, two to three years ago, I was able to take those tools, build on them in my own experiences. Become a successful independent physician contractor. Now, I don't utilize locums agencies because they anger me, but I, but if I did, I understand how to work from the backside. I understand the rules and what their, how to protect myself and advocate for myself in those roles. So for me, it was literally just kind of a jump figure stuff out. But along the way, coming across a fantastic collaborative community of physicians that were already starting to band together. Now, what I did with that was I said, well, where's OB in this? Because OB has a huge need for locums coverage for independent contractor coverage. There are such a shortage of us, and with rural and critical access, literally falling apart as we speak, physicians need to be able to put, and this is my favorite statement, boots on the ground. So boots on the ground, ob boots on the ground where patients need care is something that not only benefits the patients, obviously hugely, and the hospital systems hugely, but it benefits us as physicians to be able to take control of the way that we work and work on our own terms. So we get back a huge degree of satisfaction. We get back. Working on our own terms, our flexibility hopefully some financial flexibility as well and making things work better for ourselves. We also get back a huge amount of satisfaction for caring for patients that otherwise may not have had that care. So it is incredibly just fulfilling to step back into medicine without the corporate part, without the employer part, without the 10,000 emails of requirements from your corporation and just provide care for patients. So I took that and built a group. We are now almost at. At 1600, 1600 OB GYN physicians who are female actually.'cause this is the OB Locums Women Physicians Group. So these are female docs who are either currently working or interested in working as an independent contractor, physician, or as a locums physician. And we are literally funneling the expertise that we're pulling together from flexed staff into the OB Locums Women's Physicians Group every day and every day we get thank hugs. We are leaps and bounds ahead of advocating for ourselves and for making things better for both ourselves and our patients.

Aaron Morganstein MD: 15:38

can't articulate it sometimes as well as how they can, but I want to point this out. I think that if we're going to. Change our careers, improve our lives, and to help other physicians. I think we need to pass the education we learn forward. Okay. And what you're gonna see at the upcoming physician, the Rise Up Physician Summit, you're gonna see speakers that have been helped by other physicians in the past, and they're excited about helping others like you in the future. So as far as my life, I graduated residency and one week later I started a locums gig before I started my full-time opportunity. I learned a lot about the agencies through that, and it started to make me think, could I become a surgical list or a part-time surgeon? I went and did my traditional two year employment gig. It was a good opportunity. I really enjoyed the people I worked for, but I knew it wasn't for me. And so for me, I had to learn. How to potentially go out there on my own and become a surgeon on a part-time basis. Now, I say the word part-time, but I also do about two weeks on, two weeks off. And what I think Holly kind of touched on is that not everyone's like us in the sense that I believe in the motto, quit today, plan for your future tomorrow. And so that's exactly what I did. I quit my job because I knew it wasn't for me. I knew there was no way I could mentally, physically stay in medicine if I continued on the trajectory I was on. So I quit and the next day I started making phone calls. I started making phone calls, locums agencies. I started making phone calls as surgical, as programs that are out there. And I started to call hospitals directly and I started to learn more on my own. And I wanted to share that information with other people because Holly knows this well. And those who have attended other flexed staff events know I would not be in medicine now if it wasn't for the life that I was able to create for myself. For me. The traditional employment model was not for me because it was becoming routine, hectic and crazy, and they were only expecting to do more. Work more, see more patients, cover more call, work more weekends. And for me, that wasn't gonna work'cause it wasn't gonna make me happy. Even if they paid me better, it was not gonna make me happy. I hate using the word burnout or the word, the words moral injury. I really do. Because one of the reasons why I think I personally was not gonna enjoy the employment, the traditional employment model, was that I was gonna get bored and mentally insane treating all these patients and dealing with all these issues. And so for me. Rather than getting bored in this industry, I'm able to create a clinical lifestyle that allows me to stay in medicine, but also gives me the time off to enjoy family, friends, and also do many of my side hustles, which I know that this podcast has interviewed other experts in the side hustle arenas.

Maryal Concepcion MD: 18:40

I'm sure that some of you in the audience are also losing your minds too, because think of the possibilities when you are empowered to go wherever the heck you want with your career. Erin was like, oh dang, I wish you would've told me you're coming to Maine for your family reunion.'cause I would've met up with you and we could have gone boating on my new boat. Holly does interior design'cause she can, on the side of her side gig. So like, when you think about everything that you're hearing already, how do you answer, how can I do ob but I am family medicine and I wanna do DPC, but I don't know how to do ob. You could literally do OB through a locums gig or through direct contracting while you run your DPC. Dr. Corrine Rao, who you guys mentioned, she is a hospitalist. She does internal medicine and ballroom dancing, and then she also has a DPC now. So guys, like literally, this is where collaborating together and expanding your educational knowledge beyond what we even hear at the DPC summit is so empowering to our futures. And also that when we do these things, then we are the mentors for the next generation. So literally, this is how the excitement level is and how the endless possibilities are in coming together to create this rise up summit. It's amazing,

Holly Shen MD: 19:53

in understanding what you get from. Reshaping the way that you work in medicine, you, you really don't even imagine. You can't even imagine the level of just open doors that come with this. If you think about how you work in a traditionally employed contract, most of us weren't allowed to do side gig consulting. Maybe you have a passion for it, like I did quality and safety. I was doing quality safety, corporate high reliability. I would, I had spent years perfecting an entire knowledge set in this. However, I was not allowed to consult in it outside of my own corporation, which, it was kind of really, really maddening to me. I also love to do legal reviews and peer reviews and external reviews. Those were things that I was not allowed to do and if I was allowed to do it, I had to basically turn over a like percentage of any money that I made and had to be approved for it to be done. Absolutely ridiculous. Controlling what a physician can do with their medical license, absolutely ludicrous. Happens in no other type of work. No other type of profession do we allow this so. I didn't realize once I left, I kind of had a plan for, okay, actually I'm gonna delve into my quality and safety role. I wanted time to be full-time quality and safety, and then just do clinical shifts on the side. That's kind of what I thought I was gonna end up doing in my, wake up and jump out and figure something out face. And I did. I did do some of that, but I decided in the process, I actually fell back in love with clinical medicine and hospital OB care on my own terms. So I realized when I wasn't being forced to cover call, when I was being, when I was covering call at an hourly rate that I had decided was fair and rewarding for me, and I was making decisions solely based on nothing but the best interest of the patient. No time. I don't have clinic in the morning, I'm not, all these things, I'm not being forced to do this by a corporation. I fell back in love with my clinical work and I actually shifted back away from my quality and safety plan back into clinical ob floor medicine and focused myself in a place I'd never thought I'd be, which is critical access, and I fell in love with it. So, new passion, you find new passions when you have this flexibility open up. The other is you find ways to sneak back in which you really thought you loved. So now I do a really decent amount of legal consulting and quality and safety work on my own terms as I decide, and I fill it in. So sometimes if I take a month off because I want a month off of clinical work, I do legal work and I do that in that timeframe, you can literally. Mold and construct the way that you use your medical degree to work, whether it's clinical or nonclinical. Once you have that flexibility and freedom, we're not allowed to do that otherwise. So you don't even allow your mind to go there. So that's one thing that people need to realize. The doors just open up into an entire new world of ways to use your experience in medicine and really the options and opportunities are endless.

Aaron Morganstein MD: 24:12

for those physicians that might be considering attending this event for educational purposes, for DPC or about locums or direct contracting, I think that I hear, and I know that you guys hear this as well, I'm thinking about doing this. It's on my two year plan. Well, you know what? Just stop hesitating about it and get the material now. Learn it and, and dive right in. You don't have to wait two years until you are officially burned out. Maybe we just start, you know that process now. I want people to recognize that if you're employed by a private practice or some private equity group or a hospital-based system you don't like, I want you to be reminded that there's plenty of healthcare facilities throughout this country, and you may think poorly upon the facility that you're at or the healthcare system you're stuck within, but there are plenty of decent ones out there and there's patient populations that would love to have you treat them. And so I think some of this is that there are gonna be people that wanna work locally, but I think that if you truly want to be a direct contractor doing locums type work, or you wanna look work through agencies, there's a ton of hospitals out there looking for your professional services. And for those physicians that are concerned about having time off, you'll be able to achieve time off. You won't just have a three day weekend. You'll have an arrangement where you might have two weeks off. Not just two weeks off once a year. You might have that three, six times a year. The other thing I wanna stress to these folks, and I hear this commonly, and I feel like the two women here on this podcast can probably speak more freely about this, is that I commonly hear from physicians, well I can't do that. I got a husband, I got a wife, I got kids. Well, you know what? You can still create your lifestyle that you're looking for your, the career you're looking for in medicine, even if you have those, those entities to worry about. And I'll tell you this. I thought about going into this many years ago, and I remember meeting an orthopedic surgeon and that orthopedic surgeon had two, two teenage boys, and had a beautiful house, I can't remember, maybe in Virginia, okay? He was flying to Massachusetts to take 15 days straight of work. Straight call, And I said to him, I go, don't you miss your family and your wife? He said to me, he goes, actually, they see me more now than they ever saw me before. So I think that if you work with us, you take home that education we provide to you, there are ways, there are avenues out there to create a lifestyle in medicine that really allows you to stay in medicine while also taking advantage of all these other things, spending more time with your family, having more time off. And you know what the great thing is, guys, is that some of us who are flying to other areas of the country, we're helping doctors in those communities take more time off and we're lessening their burnout by taking extra days a call or taking on extra patient pop population or maybe doing elective surgeries for them. We're helping them out and we're helping out their families as well.

Holly Shen MD: 27:15

I could do a whole podcast with Marielle on the ways that my family has changed positively since I left for this lifestyle in medicine. It could literally do a whole separate podcast on that.

Maryal Concepcion MD: 27:26

I love that. And that's not could we'll do it. That's not in this episode. It will, it will be forthcoming. It will be forthcoming. So let's talk about how the collaboration is manifesting when it comes to content. It's going to be four amazing days in October. And one thing that I really, really want to highlight and that I love is that. Something that like speaks so much to my heart is that when you register, you also get access to the content if you can't make it live on the actual days. However, we are also going to be talking about why it's so important if you can't attend to attend Lifetime.

Aaron Morganstein MD: 28:01

Each day is designated to a a specific entity, okay? So one day is for DPC, and we have about seven hours of terrific content coming at you from multiple different speakers who are experts in the DPC arena. In addition, on a second day, we're gonna have experts. That are experts in the locums agencies. Working with locums agencies is a full day. Once again, another seven hours of content. Okay? And this is pure education. And if you log in with us live, you're gonna be able to join the chat box where you're gonna have experts all over, all throughout the country answering your questions throughout the lectures. Okay? The third day, another seven hours of lectures, and this is gonna be about direct contracting. So this is gonna be educational content for those that are trying to go direct. So these are people that are trying to connect directly with hospitals, get paid directly, negotiate directly with hospitals, and trying to cut out the traditional middleman. So an entity you may, might be able to be your own boss and live the, or live out a life that's more flexible and really, truly have that autonomy. Now the fourth day I'm really excited about, it's not totally set in stone, but it's gonna be a full day. Somewhere between four to five hours of just q and a sessions. And we're gonna have experts, that are gonna be answering questions about DPC working through locums agencies or going direct. And so basically what I'm saying here is you're gonna have three days full of educational content. You can join our chat box live and answer your questions throughout. And then on that fourth day, October 26th, that Sunday, it's gonna be totally live q and a. And we'll have experts logging in throughout the country, experts in DPC, locums and direct contracting, answering all your specific questions you have about entering these arenas. One of the reasons why we're collaborating is because we think that there's DPC doctors that may be trying to get into DBC and may not have the income. So this is a great opportunity.

Holly Shen MD: 29:59

The RiseUP Summit actually is going to be a compilation of topics that are incredibly valuable to people who are either early in the game or thinking about going into this. Line of work, or have been doing it a bit, but haven't quite gotten to where they wanna be. And we have taken the topics that we hear about every day. So on our pages, on our social media groups when someone approaches me in person at my site, because it happens like every day tell me how to do this. How do I do this? What would I do if I was this? How do I do this? So, some of the things that you can look forward to on the Locums through agencies days, one of the most important topics is understanding the locums game in general. So we're gonna hit that from payment structures, from from being able to set expectations and boundaries with locums agencies, from understanding what a confirmation letter means. What a PSA or professional services agreement means. All the things, all the buzzwords that come up in working with locum star agencies, we're going to cover in one way, shape, or form. And a lot of it overlaps. So you get a lot of just recurring and solidifying information for you, education for you to take away. So you're gonna understand how to get started or how to more effectively work with locums agencies and to advocate for yourself. Because as much as we would love to say agencies are advocating for us, it's us that are advocating for us, and that's most important. Direct contracting is one of my passions because I feel like it's the thing that has worked best for me working independently. I love to learn how to take out the middleman because I don't like sharing my paycheck. I'm working, I'm taking the risk. I want the, the, the financial benefits. So we're going to have you understand the differences between if you're working as a W2 or 10 99 and working directly with, which could'cause it's possible as a direct contractor. How you prepare to work as a direct contractor, how you negotiate conversations with, with hospitals and facilities, if you're trying to find opportunities how to deal with stark law and fair market value and how that applies to when we're direct contracting. Because again, that's a rule that doesn't apply when you're working via agencies. There are so many nuances and when you're working with a, an agency versus, versus working directly, it is just a whole different ball game. It is night and day and you have to understand the nuances to be able to do it both effectively and, and legally as well, which is really important. You know why some of us choose not to use agencies anymore and only work direct? And one of mine that I'll be presenting is, kind of how to be a one person physician business, how to run yourself as a one person physician business. All these are super important. Now, when we get to the, the fourth day, I think this is where people take away some of the most.'cause we're laying the foundation, we're giving you tools. It's literally a, a getting started guide for locums are, or independent contract work. We've done all the work for you because we've learned, we've aired, we've, we've made this compilation of education for you. But day four is gonna be one of the coolest days because You'll get to plug questions into the chat box. We'll be able to pull those questions and we'll be able to address them from our personal experiences. And everybody's got a little bit of a different spin on some of these approaches. So there's so much to learn from these experts, whether they're in the chat box or whether they're on the pan panel sitting in front of you. You're gonna be able to take and learn from the wins and also from our mistakes, so you avoid them. So it's literally not only a how to but a how not to, and it is just the absolute end all and be all the Bible for how to work as an independent physician.

Maryal Concepcion MD: 34:02

And I think that, especially when you're talking about the how not to that is some of the most priceless information that you can have when you are a person, especially like the three of us. Like just quit and then think later what, what you're gonna do to solve the, that job doesn't exist anymore. How can I create a new one situation? And I'd wanna point out here, especially because this is my DPT story, a lot of you are coming on this podcast to listen about direct primary care. So the direct primary care focus day is not going to disappoint at all. I'm so excited. We're gonna have representation from all over the country. Urban rural. I'm so excited for our speakers because we're really looking at the topics that direct primary care physicians are really wanting to know more about. And yes, that includes, how to start A DPC, but it also includes how to market and grow your DPC, how to collaborate with other physicians, how to maintain your, your skills. Like I was mentioning, if you wanna do OB and c-sections and deliveries as a family medicine doctor, colonoscopies, amen. You can do that. But this is a way to start putting the pieces together to build that dream career. Dr. Stephanie Phillips, who has been on the podcast before serving the poorest regional Georgia with her DPC model, is going to be talking about rural medicine in DPC. And so there's so many examples of how A DPC physician can not only just, get empowered with the DPC space, but then follow that up and be empowered with the more collaborative space of. How could I expand my DPC? By doing things like locums or doing things like direct contracting and where especially I think the number one thing that I hear as to how this collaboration can really help is if you are stressed financially. If you are maybe not the person who's like, I can't just quit and then figure it out because I'm the primary care breadwinner or whatever, or I'm the primary breadwinner. Whatever your situation is, if your finances are not where you would like them to be, but you want your finances to be robust and and dictated by you and dictated by the, the jobs you decide you take, whether it be locums that is literally within your geographic area or across the country, the, I, I love that story that Erin shared about the orthopedic surgeon actually spending more time with their family. But the finances, when you free yourself of the worry of, I am not good enough to, to be hired by I don't know how to, all of these fears that we've been mentioning, when you're able to financially have the, the ability to you when you're able to have the ability to craft your financial future, and then that opens the doors to whatever you wanna do. I, I, I love all of these examples of people who are doing locums and direct contracting and DPC, like, we don't have to limit to just one of these avenues.

Holly Shen MD: 36:49

I'm glad you brought up the financial perspective because I, I am and was that person who was the breadwinner. I'm, I'm blessed to have a, a spouse who is able to be at home with our children and be responsible for our children. But that also means that there's no other significant income coming in. And I am the one, and per my prior work experiences, I was always stuck in that salary box. You, you make this much salary and that's, you're a W2 employee and that's, that's essentially what you have to work with. But what I found when I left was that I had absolute freedom in my financial. Abilities. I could take, I could work as many hours or as few hours as I wanted, but if I needed to make more money to go on a nice vacation or to pay a medical bill or to whatever, I could literally pick up extra shifts. I now in this current role, and, and I truthfully, I work, I probably work 10, anywhere between 10 and 15 days a month of, of work. And that's 24 hour shifts. They're not in-house, but they, they're working. So in that time, I now make, I would say I make almost three times as much as I made as an employed physician with way more time off, complete flex flexibility and control, and the ability to pick up more or less whenever I want. So now I have the ability to work more and make more if I want to, and feel rewarded in that way or take that time back, but. Take it as an ability to be able to if you're the breadwinner and you feel kind of crunched and crushed, is the ability to expand. I now have a fantastic retirement plan I never did before. I was not able to invest. I am now able to take time and actually travel and afford the trips, which is great, but it actually puts it in your hands and lets you be in charge of your own professional financial destiny instead of living in a salary box.

Aaron Morganstein MD: 38:36

I think that there's a lot of, a lot of a lot physicians can gain by sharing stories, and I'm a huge advocate of that, and I think that's what your podcast does well, is share stories and experiences. I want folks to know that if they're attending the. The Rise Up Physician Summit or purchasing it so that they can watch the recordings later. I want them to know that these lectures okay, are 30 minutes long. And each day is literally like its own Masterclass it's like a master course in DBCA Master's course in working through agencies. It's a mastery course in direct contracting. And the reason why we have our lectures or our speakers only speaking for 30 minutes at a time is because we want to make it a very impactful 30 minutes for you. They're gonna go through the material fast, it's gonna be dense and to be gonna be extremely high yield for these folks. And so I just want them to know that we've designed the curriculum so literally they can get as much material as possible all throughout each day.

Holly Shen MD: 39:34

Another benefit of having these recordings and being able to kind of listen to them in your own time, if you do need to purchase and listen later, that's, that's great. Lots of people listen in their cars. Or when they're traveling or whenever they have free time, it's fantastic. But not only will you hear the information and be able to hear it again and again when you need to, you can refer back to it. But another thing is you're going to hear different spins on the same information. You're gonna hear each physician or each presenter's different take on why they chose, an an LLC or an S corp, or why they, how they approached a facility when wanting a direct contract. So understanding the basic knowledge and hearing it repetitively to be able to kind of let it sink in and let it, kind of become a real option for you is one thing. But hearing success stories, hearing these, and these are all our speakers, are physicians who have, talk the talk and walk the walk. They are not people who are just teaching, they are people who have been there, done that and been successful. So when you hear more and more success stories and more spins on how to be able to approach the same topic or the same, hang up or roadblock that you have, you're gonna find something that will work for you. You're gonna find somebody's approach that sounds like, okay, I could actually do that. So that repetition and having these recordings for later is an invaluable tool.

Aaron Morganstein MD: 40:52

I guarantee you will learn something new. And this is why I know this because we've hosted several events at Flex Med staff and I'm always learning new things from people like Holly and other physicians that speak. It's tremendous for me and empowering to me when I continue to learn new things at each one of our events. So I want folks to know out there that if you're a beginner level, you're interested in the idea of DPC or locums or direct contracting, or you've been at for several years, there's something at this event for you.

Holly Shen MD: 41:22

And also don't forget, and this is, this is an important thing. This is a very nebulous topic. This is a new and evolving way that physicians work. There is not one way to be, it is not black and white. The market changes, the approaches change, the needs change. Every day, every week, every year. So at Flex Med staff, we always have a finger on the pulse. Our physician leads always have a finger on the pulse to be able to say what is changing in the market? How do we need to change our strategies, our approach to be able to better advocate for ourselves and for our physician community. So just understand this is an ever evolving and adapting field. It's not. Once you learn it, you know it, it is that you need to understand how fluid and changing the topics that we're gonna talk about are. And when we present, generally annually, sometimes a little bit more frequently than that, especially beginner topics, we've incorporated what is new since the last time we have spoken, what has changed? What have we learned? We've come across this. We are always with an ear to the ground, to what is changing in independent physician work.

Maryal Concepcion MD: 42:30

Where you're gonna go is flexed staff.com/riseup and early bird tickets are on sale through September 15th. The tickets are$199 the dates are October 23rd to 26th. If you are not available to attend live, just as we've mentioned here you will have access to the recordings afterwards and as long as you sign up before the event goes live, before rise up starts you're able to access the content for six months after the summit goes live. So, thank you guys so much for joining us today and proving that medicine is truly stronger when we, as physicians take back control together and rise up. Thank you for listening to another episode of my DBC story. If you enjoyed it, please leave a five star review on your favorite podcast platform. It helps others find the show, have a question about direct primary care. Leave me a voicemail. You might hear it answered in a future episode. Follow us on socials at the handle at my D DPC story and join DPC didactics our monthly deep dive into your questions and challenges. Links are@mydpcstory.com for exclusive content you won't hear anywhere else. Join our Patreon. Find the link in the show notes or search for my DPC story on patreon.com for DPC news on the daily. Check out DPC news.com. Until next week, this is Marielle conception.