Episode 125: More on How The Berman Method Came to Be

Ever wondered why some people detest a product you absolutely love? Or why some businesses seem to flourish while others flounder despite similar offerings? You're not alone. Join us as we dissect business models into three categories - those who love your product, those who despise it, and those who need more information – and deep-dive into the art of cultivating trust and providing the right information to that uncertain third. We also tackle the controversial issue of doctors pushing profitable options instead of presenting all available ones – a vital topic given the ever-increasing importance of exploring natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals. 

Let's take a walk down memory lane in our second chapter as we share Jake Koppelman’s inspiring journey to functional medicine. From losing an alarming 30 pounds in his first semester of PA school due to a mysterious illness and the subsequent hospitalization that led him to a life-changing medication, Jake’s experience is nothing short of transformative. He and his wife took a bold leap of faith by relocating to Naples and opening a practice with no insurance. Their aim? To provide the best care possible. Tune in as we share our own struggles and triumphs in this journey of overcoming challenges and building a thriving business. It’s sure to be a riveting, eye-opening episode.

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Email us - 
drberman@bermanpt.com 
jenni@bermanwellness.com 

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https://www.bermanpt.com/
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Berman Method Podcast, featuring Dr Jake Berman and physician assistant Jenny Berman. We are here to treat problems and not symptoms. Disclaimer this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and not to treat anyone or to give medical advice. If you are interested in any information that we are giving and would like to use this for yourself, we recommend that you contact your primary care physician or reach out to us and ask us questions about yourself specifically. Enjoy.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Bum-ba-da-dum-bum-bum-bum-bum, the Berman Method Podcast, where no single intro is ever the same.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Jenny Berman, physician assistant.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Dr Jake Berman. We are the founders of Berman Health and Wellness, Berman Physical Therapy, Berman Golf Marley, Realty, what else?

Speaker 1: 1:04

Is that it?

Speaker 2: 1:05

I think that's it for now, I think there's probably a couple more in there, but anyways, we are here to talk about how we're David against Goliath, going against the corporate medical system. We want to give you more answers to the questions that you probably don't even know that you have right now. Think about it this way. I've heard this multiple times Populations are generally split in thirds a third, a third, a third and it doesn't really matter what the subject matter is. You could go the most explicit way and say politics. So in politics, you're going to have a third on the right, a third on the left and a third in the middle. Okay, right, and the reason why this is relevant is because it's the same exact thing with business. Same exact thing.

Speaker 2: 1:56

In business, a third of the people are going to love your product, a third of the people are going to hate your product, but there's going to be a third that are just not sure. They just need more information. And we're really talking to the third, the middle third. This podcast is all about the middle third, and that's why we got started in this thing. This is what really got me excited to expand our business, especially when you joined the team and you're like, oh shit, now we really are the power couple. Let's take on the world and spread the knowledge, because it's given us a platform to talk to the middle. Third, because a third of the people are going to love us. It's really nothing we can do that a third of the population isn't going to just absolutely love us.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Right.

Speaker 2: 2:47

And then there will be this other third of the population. They're never going to do business with us In your world. Those are the people that are going to love the South Beach Diet or the what's another one.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Intermittent fasting.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Intermittent fasting. No, I don't need you, Jenny. I'm an intermittent fast or I'm a South Beach Dieter. So, there's always going to be a third. That doesn't need us or want us, or even consider us in my world. No, I'm not going to do physical therapy, I need surgery.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Right. I need to have a knee replacement.

Speaker 2: 3:18

It's not my fault. I need to have the rotary cup repaired.

Speaker 2: 3:23

So, a third are going to love us, a third are going to not love us and never do business with us. But it's that middle third where they went to the orthopedic surgeon and they were told they needed back surgery. But they're just not 100% sure that that's the right answer. They went to the GI doctor and they told them that they have to be on this medication. But they're like man, I really hate taking a pharmaceutical Because, think about it, every single pharmaceutical is chemically engineered in a lab. It's not natural. There's nothing natural about a pharmaceutical. Think about it. By definition, it was synthesized in a lab with chemistry. It's not growing on a plant somewhere. It's not marijuana, that's growing out in the wild. We were in Kansas, went on a guys trip this year, hunting trip and walking through the woods. Marijuana is just growing wildly out there. There's just plants of marijuana everywhere in the woods in Kansas. It's just everywhere. But that's not what a pharmaceutical is. No, right, right.

Speaker 1: 4:39

So we're really talking to the middle third yes, to gain more trust. That's what we are trying to do with that middle third is not to convince them that we are the best thing for them, but just to talk to them and build trust and to give them the more information that they're looking for.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Make them question it. You're absolutely right. We're not trying to say we're the best thing for you. Not trying to say that at all. What I am trying to say is there are other options. There are other options. Our business coach said it this way that people with the best lives have the most options, or the best options. When you think that the only option you have is to take this pill for the rest of your life, right, it's not that great of a life.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Right right.

Speaker 2: 5:27

If you think your only option is to have this back surgery, it might not be that great of a life.

Speaker 1: 5:33

With that, you have to find your other options, though You're not always going to be presented with all the options from one individual. So one doctor is not going to tell you here's your three options. They're going to tell you this is what you need to do and, especially if you're, for instance, at the orthopedic surgeon, they're going to tell you you have to have this surgery versus giving you the options of an out-of-network physical therapist, an in-network physical therapist, or the surgery or this brace Same thing with a GI doctor is most of the time. They're seeing you in 10 minutes. So if you go there for your Crohn's disease, the easiest thing for them to do is here's an immunosuppressant, see you back in three months. It keeps you in their system because you have to come back to get the refill on your medication every three months or six months.

Speaker 1: 6:21

They're getting the kickback from the pharmaceutical that they recommended to you, but they're not giving you the options of let's talk about gut health. Let's talk about what you're actually eating. Let's talk about the supplements that you're taking. They don't have the time to talk to you about that, and probably not the knowledge either, with gut health. So when you're looking for these options or why shouldn't I say looking for you should be looking for other options. So when you see someone and they've diagnosed you with X and are giving you Y, ask, question them, research yourself to find these other options and really understand if you're doing the best thing for you.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Specifically, Exactly so. Let's talk about how we got here, but let's try not to go too far in the weeds. It's always hard when we talk about this how we got here, about your story with your sickness back in PA school, and that's ultimately what led us down this road. Because I don't want to go too far in the weeds, because it's the first chapter of my first book. It's in your book, it's we've talked about it on the podcast multiple times, but I think it's very relevant to what we're trying to communicate right now, especially before Christmas, especially right before people start to get really excited and motivated for New Year's resolutions and getting their life back in shape starting in January. So I think it's really relevant to talk about how do we get here, because had you not gotten sick, I would not be here right now. As far as the treatment philosophy, we wouldn't have this podcast.

Speaker 2: 7:55

I'm very confident that it wouldn't be this way because prior to your sickness, I was very much a symptom treater, meaning that if your shoulder hurt, I would poke around on your shoulder until I found a painful spot and then I'd do some massage, some soft tissue work, some Whatever, to try to calm down that pain, ask you to move it again. You're like, oh, my shoulder doesn't hurt anymore. And I'd be like, okay, great, fixed, that was just the symptom. Though why did your shoulder hurt in the first place? And we, you know, posture, whatever, doesn't really matter. So with you when you got sick your first semester of PA school Super long story short within the first six months of PA school, you had lost 30 pounds, right, yeah, probably faster than that, yeah three month, the first semester.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 8:48

Yeah, it's in your first semester of PA school. You lost 30 pounds Not intentionally, correct. You got sick every time you would eat. It was a mad dash for the bathroom and you couldn't keep any food. In Long story short, it ended up with a three-day stay in the hospital, where they ran every test Imaginable and simply said you're dehydrated, go home.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 9:13

They gave you some medications. At that time I was treating one of my patients that I was treating. It was a GI doctor, not affiliated with your Hospital, that you went to and I say, can you give her a look? And he looked at you and he said okay, try this medication. You started taking this. You had to take this pill five minutes before you ate at every meal. And yeah, you could. You started keeping food again. You didn't have to run to the bathroom after eating anything and we're like okay, this seems to be working. And this is what changed everything. When I asked him, I said okay, this seems to be working. How long is she gonna have to be on this medication? And that's when he said the dreadful words.

Speaker 2: 9:58

Forever, well, jake, you know it could be forever. And that's where I just lost it, not explicitly, but internally. I just lost it because at that time you were 22 or 23 years old and had been a phenomenal athlete your whole life level nine gymnast, retired gymnast. And now you're telling me that this really healthy 22 year old woman is gonna have to be on a pharmaceutical for the rest of her life.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Right, not to mention I was taking like 22 pills a day, also For the rest of my life.

Speaker 1: 10:35

So yes but you know, even and that's what started us on this journey of treating problems and not symptoms, and that's what got me into the functional medicine world and really trying to figure out let's find a real answer for me. But also, I don't want anyone else to go through what I went through, so let me help that one more person and that's. You know I Podcasted several weeks ago with Dr Carolyn Cedarquist, so if you didn't listen to that podcast, of course, go back and listen to that one as well, but she was the one. I ended up working with her. She helped me on my journey a lot, but I also worked. I was one of her employees and that's where I really got into the functional medicine world of helping other individuals. But if it weren't for Jake, I was never myself an Entrepreneur. You always wanted to be an entrepreneur. When we got married, you told me I'm gonna open up my own practice.

Speaker 2: 11:30

Right before we got married, actually, that was actually the deal breaker, because we were dating long distance. I Was in Destin and you're in Gainesville and you got accepted to PA school in Jacksonville and at that time we had already been dating long distance for a year. And I said there's no way I'm dating long distance for another two and a half years For you to graduate PA school. And I said the only way I will quit my job over here and move to Jacksonville is if you can see yourself in Naples, because I'm going to open up my practice in Naples. And long story short, you agreed to my ultimatum, so I put in my notice and moved in with your parents in Jacksonville. And here we are today right, right.

Speaker 1: 12:14

So as soon as I graduated PA school, we moved down to Naples and you open your own business. You said that's what you were going to do and you did it. And that was a very challenging first year, I would say. Between moving down to Naples Just getting married, moving down to Naples graduating boards, you open your own practice. It was real slow getting started, so that was it was brutal. That was a challenging first year, but we didn't give up.

Speaker 2: 12:48

Didn't give up and why.

Speaker 1: 12:50

Why didn't we give up?

Speaker 2: 12:52

The reason why I didn't give up was because there's no other option. I just could not Even stomach the thought of working for somebody else. Not because I think that I'm right, as much as I just knew that I would be able to Help so many more people if I could do it exactly the way that I thought it should be done.

Speaker 2: 13:17

Right because both of my last bosses that I worked for. They're very good bosses. The very good manual therapists ran very good organizations. I give them both a ton of credit and appreciate everything that they did for me. However, it just wasn't done the way that I am doing it today and I it's funny because you can ask both of them to this day I Suggested things to both of them while I was working for them. Why don't we do it this way? Why don't we do it that way? And they always had some type of rationale. We can't do it that way because of XYZ, and they were both in network clinics, they both took insurance and I didn't realize it at the time. But I'm like this is why we can't do exactly what the patient needs us to do. It's because we won't get paid for it and you have to get paid for your service or you're not running a business right.

Speaker 2: 14:13

And that was very challenging for me to understand. But once I understood that I was like okay, f insurance, if that's the the limiting factor, if that's got the shackles, let's get rid of insurance and not deal with it at all.

Speaker 1: 14:27

And when you opened your practice down here, you started right off the bat without insurance, and that wasn't even a Normal thing at that point. I mean over eight years ago it was, there were very few concierge physicians in town in Naples, maybe one or two.

Speaker 2: 14:45

It was definitely less than five concierge physicians and Very few cash physical therapists, even in the country right I give was a brand new thing. Everybody's like what. You don't take insurance like F? No, I don't.

Speaker 1: 14:59

Right. Right, because you wanted to actually be able to treat the patient and not just do what you had to do to get Reimbursed by the insurance companies. So, yeah, it was a very challenging first year. You were completely at a network, slowly getting started. I was in Pediatric orthopedics at the time, still going through my own health issues At the time as well, and that was prior to me meeting dr Cedarquist, and then I met her and then, like I've already stated, I wanted nothing to do with being an entrepreneur. Initially I was totally happy being a PA, just wanted to Help patients and I was still are a PA.

Speaker 1: 15:38

You were totally happy being an employee employee PA, yes, but then, once you know, with work, between working with dr Cedarquist and going through my own health issues, I finally realized that I want to Prevent someone from going through what I went through, as far as being bounced around from doctor to doctor, being on 22 Pills that I was gonna have to take for the rest of my life and with you, have already kind of gone through the initial phases of being an entrepreneur. You kept encouraging me that we can do this. We can do it. I can do it on my own, we can do this together. We can grow a different type of business between the physical therapy and, initially, the wellness, and now the golf has joined. But we've done it with having coaches Right, and that's what it always comes down to.

Speaker 1: 16:29

Being sick, when you're want to be successful at something, you hire a coach or a guy to help you figure out the ropes for your personal journey and how to be successful for yourself and we've talked about this several times too is even people you know Tiger Woods, michael Jordan they have coaches.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Same thing in business we have business coaches to help us on this journey. We invest in something to have the I want to say reimbursement, but it's not really reimbursement, but to have the success. We invest in someone else to help guide us and to help keep us accountable, so that we can be successful now on our end from a business aspect. But also, you know, I'm doing a fellowship through the anti aging medical practice. I'm doing a fellowship to continue to gain knowledge and research so that I can teach my staff and so that we can continue to help one more person. So I'd say, overall, where we've come from in the past eight years, I, if I had to describe the all in one word, which has been a pretty predictable word for me throughout my whole life and my opinion is perseverance.

Speaker 2: 17:47

That is a good one for you, that one fits you very well, and my one word is not one word at all other than there's no other option. That's the way I look at this thing. There's no other option. So business is fun because we're essentially you and I are essentially getting paid to solve problems. So a lot of entrepreneur, a lot of business owners, health care business owners burnout and ultimately shut it down because they don't like dealing with problems.

Speaker 2: 18:21

That's what business is you signed up for this? It's just problem after problem after problem, and the best problem solvers will ultimately have the best businesses. And that's all we're trying to do, because the more problems we can solve from the business perspective, the more lives we will change. And this has never been about you or me having the biggest flamboyant life we possibly can. Other than it's about the patient, it's about the client, meaning that, because we've experienced so much of this stuff, you and I, the stuff that we've gone through Together and the things that we didn't need to go through, I mean the how long were you going to the IVF doctor?

Speaker 1: 19:10

How many years four years we went through four years and how many thousands of dollars.

Speaker 2: 19:16

How many shed tears and ultimately, for no diagnosis right. Four years, thousands of dollars, shed tears all the time, all these false hopes to be diagnosed Unknown unexplained unexplained secondary unexplained infertility.

Speaker 1: 19:36

I mean, it's like what the hell?

Speaker 2: 19:38

yeah, and you can just extrapolate that exact exact experience with every single diagnosis across the board. Somebody is going through that. So, because you and I are doing this thing, we're getting this platform to where we can reach more people. We've got people from all over the country reaching out to us now, and then even internationally, we've got people from other countries reaching out to us now because our messages resonating with them and they got caught in the same exact thing and they're like oh wait, there is another way. So that's what this thing is all about is being able to reach more people and say F you corporate medical system, f you insurance, f you pharmaceuticals.

Speaker 2: 20:24

Correct good, yes, anything else, merry Christmas, merry Christmas yes, this weekend yeah, man, I can't believe it we get to the end of the day. Oh yeah, we did get through 20 minutes of this and Christmas finally came up.

Speaker 1: 20:44

It should come up. It's the season I'm surprised.

Speaker 2: 20:48

I thought it would come up in the first 20 seconds.

Speaker 1: 20:50

I know that's true. I should have said it. I should have said Happy Christmas week.

Speaker 2: 20:55

Yeah, merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah.

Speaker 1: 20:58

Happy holidays.

Speaker 2: 21:00

Oh my gosh, no politically correct crap here. Merry Christmas.

Speaker 1: 21:05

Happy Hanukkah.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Happy Hanukkah. Get your happy holidays out of here.

Speaker 1: 21:09

That's rude. Happy holidays y'all. Goodness gracious, All right.

Speaker 2: 21:17

Anything else.

Speaker 1: 21:19

No, we're looking forward to hearing everybody's Christmas stories. That's it.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Okay.

Speaker 1: 21:26

Chopping out.

Speaker 2: 21:26

Have a great one.

Speaker 1: 21:28

Thank you for subscribing on your social media and podcast platforms to the Berman Method Dr Jake Berman with Berman Physical Therapy and Jenny Berman, physician Assistant, with Berman Health and Wellness. You can find more information on our website wwwbermanptcom for physical therapy, bermanptcom forward slash wellness for the health and wellness. You can also find us on social media, facebook, instagram and on your podcast platforms. If you're new to Berman, please consider to follow us, like us, subscribe to us and if you would like any further information, definitely visit our website and reach out to us. You may also find our free reports on the websites as well, where you can download this free information for yourself.