The DPC NP
The DPC NP Podcast is a biweekly audio program that offers valuable insights and firsthand experiences pertaining to the management of a Direct Primary Care clinic owned by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Esteemed guests will articulate and elucidate their individual journeys in navigating the complexities inherent in establishing and operating a Direct Primary Care practice.
Feel free to email me with any questions you might have about DPC!
aprice@faithfamilymedical.com
The DPC NP
The DPC Momentum Model: Creating Financial Stability in Direct Primary Care with Brian Fretwell, PA-C
Transforming a medical practice from a startup to a thriving, scalable business requires far more than clinical excellence. In this revealing conversation with physician assistant Brian Fretwell, we uncover the missing piece that prevents many direct primary care practices from reaching their full potential: a comprehensive operating system.
Brian shares the journey that led him to create the DPC Momentum Model after hitting his own plateau and experiencing burnout despite escaping the traditional fee-for-service system. His framework addresses the fundamental mindset shift required to evolve from provider to CEO—moving from compliance to leadership, perfectionism to progress, and from delivering care to building systems that deliver care.
At the heart of Brian's model is the Clarity Compass, a powerful tool that serves as your strategic foundation and decision-making filter. This document connects your purpose, values, and vision to concrete 90-day milestones that drive consistent execution. We explore how the momentum framework creates focus through impact metrics, mission alignment meetings, and an opportunity board that transforms problems into growth catalysts.
Perhaps most fascinating is Brian's perspective on scaling with additional providers. Rather than the typical "just do what I do" approach that creates bottlenecks, his model establishes clear guardrails based on core values while allowing flexibility for individual strengths. The result? A culture that naturally attracts aligned team members and patients while building internal leadership pathways.
For those feeling overwhelmed or plateaued in their DPC journey, Brian offers surprisingly simple yet profound advice: invest in yourself through daily reading and thinking time, then leverage your existing network by simply asking for what you want. With his guidance, you can transform your practice from surviving to truly thriving.
Ready to stop flying blind and build a practice with true momentum? Listen now and discover how to create the clarity, accountability, and financial sustainability your DPC deserves.
Thank you for joining us today!
Be sure to follow and share, and leave a review!
If you have questions, comments or want to be part of our community, follow us on Facebook at The DPC NP!
Welcome to season two of the DPCNP podcast. I'm Amanda Price and I'm thrilled to be back, bringing you even more insights, strategies and success stories from nurse practitioners and physician assistants leading the way in direct primary care. This season, we'll dive deeper into real-world experiences, innovative practice models and the latest updates in the DPC movement. Whether you're just exploring DPC or already running your own practice, this podcast is here to support and inspire you. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast Today. I'm thrilled to have Brian Fretwell, physician assistant, join us again. He is an experienced clinician, owns Direct Primary Care Associates and they are located in three locations Athens and Cleveland, tennessee, and another clinic in Dalton, georgia. He is a business strategist and is helping direct primary care owners shift from providers to CEOs. Brian is a creator of the DPC Momentum Model, a system designed to help practices not just launch but truly scale and thrive. We'll be diving into how his framework brings clarity, accountability and financial success to DPC owners, along with practical steps for building a mission-driven and profitable practice. If you're in the DPC space or considering it, you don't want to miss this conversation. Brian, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you again, amanda, so much for having me, and I'll tell you I just I really get, you know, a bit of flutters in my stomach just hearing you talk about, you know, the things that I say we've been able to create, because it's certainly not me. I have you talk about the things that I say we've been able to create because it's certainly not me. I have some fantastic folks that I work with that help make this possible. But it's amazing to hear that to be said in words. Being a creative like I am, I love to create things, I love to help people, and that's fun to hear. So thank you for that introduction. I do appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yes, you are quite the entrepreneur that is always thinking forward and thinking of all the things that maybe the rest of us haven't thought of yet. So I'm excited to get into this unique podcast, where I normally just talk about how somebody got their clinic started and all the different things. So this is going to take a little bit of a different shift, and so I hope that at the end of this podcast, people are really going to gain some insight and good perspective. So let's start with the first question.
Speaker 2:What inspired you to create the DPC Momentum Model and how is it different from simply starting a direct primary care practice?
Speaker 3:You know that's a phenomenal question. It really came out of my own personal frustration for myself. I got to a certain point because you know a lot of us. You know we figure out how we're going to leave that fee for service model, but getting into and it's easy to get into and there's lots of resources out there and you know you were talking about how a lot of your podcasts, talking about that startup phase, and I listened I have listened to all of your podcasts and Ms Agosta, who you had last, I absolutely love her. She's going to be such a rock star. I've got to meet her a couple of times.
Speaker 3:But you know just that mindset and that startup phase and everybody's so excited and I was too I was right there.
Speaker 3:And then you hit this wall where you hit that maximum amount of people or maximum amount of ability to do work your ability to do work and I started getting some confusion.
Speaker 3:You know that plateau that I'm talking about and then it starts to breed a little bit of burnout. So I needed something that was that could help me be operationally sound yet financially sustainable as well. So, after facing that burnout that I was feeling and again, not the same burnout that I was having in that fee for service, not what drove me towards the direct primary care model, like most of us, but I needed, like a full operating system, something that was built, that was uniquely built for us, for DPCs, and I looked for it out there. I looked, I talked to people, I asked the questions of other providers, you know, just reached out, but there was really nothing out there that could guide us through every stage. And so I created this framework based on these models that are out there for other service providers who are professionals, and I took all the good stuff, I left out all the bad stuff and I put it around this guide through mindset, model, money, marketing and momentum, and so that's kind of where I came up with DPC Momentum.
Speaker 2:Wow. So you talk about shifting from provider to CEO, but what mindset changes does that really require for clinicians?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, it's huge. We're trained to follow protocols and avoid mistakes, but running a business actually requires decision-making and risk-taking and innovation, and I'm not saying that clinicians don't have that, but it's not what's trained into us. I like to give the visual of when you walk into your patient exam room and your patient is sitting on the exam table. When you're walking in there and you close that door. When you close that door, boom, it's like a switch and you're on and there's nothing that they're going to be able to throw at you. There's nothing that they're going to be able to give you that you can't handle. And that same thing doesn't happen when we're business owners. We begin to think of oh, my goodness, what risk am I taking? Is this risk worth it? And I talk every day. I probably talk to two to three new startups every day and I hear the same thing and that's. Am I doing the right thing? Is this right for me? And I'm not saying that, they're saying that verbally, but because they're convinced, like, this is the way, this is the path, this is what I want. But they do begin to question themselves.
Speaker 3:So there is some risk taking. So you have to go from really from compliance to leadership. But also you have to have an ownership mentality. You're no longer just delivering care, but you're building a system that delivers care, and so that means you have to begin to think in terms of growth, sustainability and team leadership. And even if you're a team of one because we all start off as a team of one you have to know how to guide yourself and set the course for your office, so as you grow and as you bring on people, you're not having to reverse engineer and try to think of okay, well, what do I need to offload to this next person? What are their SOPs? What do I expect out of them? And then also, you got to let go of perfectionism. You know most clinicians wait till everything is ready, but the truth is, the CEOs launch test and then they iterate. And what I always say all the time is progress beats perfection. Every day, sometimes you got to jump and build your wings on the way down.
Speaker 2:You're talking about nurse practitioners not being perfectionists. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll tell you, that's where a lot of my time and energy and again, I mentor and coach quite a few people across the country, and this is everything from doctors to PAs to nurse practitioners, and how you spend your time and that perfectionism actually keeps you away from actually getting work done, and so I'll tell you, a lot of my time is spent in trying to help with that mindset shift.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, let's talk about clarity. How does the Clarity Compass help DPC owners define their vision, their values and long-term strategy?
Speaker 3:You know the Clarity Compass I gave out at DPC Launchpad. It's also on our DPC Startup on the school community. You can get that free inside of there under the introduction in that class under in my school, the DPC startup school program. The interesting thing about the Clarity Compass is it is like your antidote to overwhelm To me, and I really do carry it around in my briefcase with me as a written form and I have it on my computer as well, and everything that we do at Direct Primary Care Associates and my DDPCRX is based around my Clarity Compass.
Speaker 3:The Clarity Compass is your strategic foundation. It's your tool. It aligns all of your decision making. It gives you clear vision, clear values and it becomes an easy way to say yes to the right things and an easy way to say no to the distractions. But also it's a leadership tool. It's a leadership tool for yourself because you're writing down these are the things that I believe in. This is my purpose, this is my why. This is my 10-year goal, this is my one-year goal. This is who I am and this is my strategic marketing. These are my 90-day goals. These are the things that are going to inhibit me from getting to my 90-day goals. But if I get to my 90-day goals, quarter after quarter, I will reach my yearly goals, which in turn will reach my 10-year goals. But it all starts with clarity, and when you start with clarity, then execution becomes way more intentional. And that's really what the Clarity Compass is about it's your foundational tool that sets you on a path to be intentional. Therefore, you get execution.
Speaker 2:Did you email that to us at the DPC Launchpad or did you hand it out?
Speaker 3:It was given out and I gave it to you guys to disperse. So I think, yes, it did go out in an email that you guys sent out.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll have to look at that it did go out in an email that you guys sent out. Okay, I'll have to look at that. Okay, it's a fantastic tool and to me, this is the most important thing that I can give to anybody else out there. I mean, the program that I have is 12 months long and we meet once a week and the feedback that I get from everybody is slow down. It's too much Like you're giving too much information, just like I probably am right now.
Speaker 3:But this is the one foundational core that, if you learn nothing else, learn this. And when you're first filling it out and you're sitting there in your office and you've got, you know you haven't even started up yet, or you've got, you know, two or three patients or 10 patients or 20 patients, and I don't care if you've got 5,000 patients. As you're filling that out, you say to yourself why does this matter? Now, just fill it out and hold onto it and look at it at least once a week. It will. It will give you that foundational tool that you need and to me, it's the most important thing that I did in my practice and it's what, in my opinion, propelled me to even today to sit here and talk to you about this particular thing.
Speaker 2:Well, I know a lot of practices launch but then they struggle to scale. So what are the biggest pitfalls that you see and how does your model prevent them?
Speaker 3:So and this happened to me the answer to that question is they have no operating system. A lot of DPCs launch with a great mission but you really don't have a structured way to run your business. They rely on hustle instead of the system, and when that happens, you get that glass ceiling, you plateau it and it leads to burnout. And yes, you can absolutely get burnout in DPC Also, as you begin to scale up, there becomes an over-dependence on the founder, on you. You become the bottleneck for everything. And it's funny because I made a round of my offices this morning before I came in and that's what I do on Fridays. So I go and visit my people and I try my best to stay out of my offices because I muddy the waters. I know that when I show up, I cap their growth, but what I really want to do is give them tools to keep them growing. They keep them from burnout, and that's just me. But coming back to where, when it was just me, I was having the same problem with me. I was standing in my way.
Speaker 3:Also, this gives you a lot of folks have lack of data-driven decision-making. There's key metrics that you will put in your clarity compass that allow you to track the metrics that you think is the most important for your practice to grow, and it's hard to know what's working or where to improve if you don't even know what those are, if you're just winging it. So our model addresses all that. We teach how to build scalable workflows. We implement the ownership framework and that's in there too so responsibilities are clearly defined. We also use tools like the Opportunity Board and impact metrics. Those are things to make growth measurable and manageable, because scaling isn't really just about doing more. It's really about doing the right things with the right systems in place.
Speaker 2:Can you walk us through what a successful 90-day milestone marker looks like and how it? Keeps the team focused and accountable.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. On the back of that clarity compass, the front is the front side and you can see core values and your mission statement, all that stuff. But when you flip it over on the backside, that's your 90 day mile markers. Your 90 day milestone markers are your 90 day goals, they're your quarterly goals, okay, and those point right back into your one year. So you document your one year, you flip it over and you say, okay, what do I have to do in the next 90 days that's going to help me achieve? So milestone markers they create focus and instead of being pulled in a dozen different directions and reacting, you actually get to commit to three to five clear priorities every 90 days. That gets you closer to your one-year goal.
Speaker 3:And each milestone has an owner.
Speaker 3:And you might be the owner of everything, but you're giving yourself a measurable outcome and a date that it is due by.
Speaker 3:And what this does is it creates transparency and accountability, so you don't have any more vague goals or hey, we'll get to it eventually type of energy, or you forget it, and then you're like, well, oh goodness, I forgot to do that. So, for example, one quarter of milestone might be launch an employer outreach campaign, and it has to be owned by somebody. So you assign it to yourself or somebody within your team and then you have a goal of at least three contracts signed in those 90 days, and those employers can be an employer of one or two, all the way up to a thousand or more. What it also does is it connects daily work with a big picture growth, and what I mean by that is you're no longer just a task doer, you're actually going to own the work that it builds and it builds the business. It also gives us a built-in reset every quarter. So every quarter we review, we learn and we refocus. So momentum is always moving forward.
Speaker 2:So what are some of the key impact metrics you coach DPC owners to track, and why do they matter so much?
Speaker 3:Another part of our operational process is impact metrics and there are versions of KPIs. You know key point indicators, but it's focused on what truly moves the business forward. So we track six main areas new patients this month, and what that does is measures, growth and marketing effectiveness. Retention rate are people staying and this reflects your value and the patient experience? This one, to me, is one of the key things that we measure, because what DPC owners either already know or you're going to learn is that it's a thousand times more cost effective to keep a patient than it is to go find a new one. So revenue growth is another one. Are you becoming financially sustainable and scalable? And also that revenue growth lets you know when it's time and when you can afford to begin to add new people to your team. Employer contract sign that's important for us because it shows progress in our business. To business strategy and recurring revenue. Operational efficiency metrics like wait times, no show rates and appointment access are key because that lets us know how to predict scheduling, team leadership and metrics. We measure our employee engagement, training hours. Luckily we don't have a turnover issue, but measuring that is important because, as you guys could probably already tell, I love to train, and so I have internal training mechanisms for our people, not just, hey, go do some CEs, cmes and everything's going to be good. We train on this regularly, and why this matters is these metrics really give you real-time feedback, because I like to spot problems before they become a problem and when you have your finger on the pulse, you can feel when that pulse is getting weak and thready. It allows you to adjust your strategy and keeps us from flying blind, and that's what happened when I first started. I was flying blind. I was doing what I thought was the right thing to do. I really took everything that I felt like my former employer did everything wrong and, by God, I'm going to make it right this time. So impact metrics are our versions of KPIs and we focus on this because it's what moves our business forward. We track six main areas and this is what I encourage other DPCs to track New patients this month. Obviously it measures growth and marketing effectiveness, our retention rate, our people staying. This reflects our value and the patient experience and we measure those things. And the reason why the retention rate is so important to us and, matter of fact, number two, other than new patients this month is because we know that it's much more cost effective to keep the patients that you have than it is to go out and find new ones. Revenue growth Are you becoming financially stable and scalable? Employer contract sign we track this one because it shows us progress in our business-to-business strategy and the recurring revenue that we have Now. That might seem foreign to a new startup right now or a solo practitioner, but it is ridiculously important to start these things now.
Speaker 3:Operational efficiency metrics we measure our no-show rates, our appointment access, the time we respond to messages and we use spruce, how long it takes for people to get an answer to their questions. Our team and leadership metrics we measure employee engagement, like how much do our folks like working for me? You know, for our whole administrative team. We don't have turnover, thank God. And training hours we put a lot of time, effort and energy into our training hours because it's so important for people to be bought into the culture that it is that we have, and that's the other side of DPC momentum. I'm talking about the business operating system, but it's also a human operating system and our culture is so vitally important, and so we train on culture.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great, and this isn't one of the questions I was planning on asking you, but I am curious to know your opinion on it. What would you consider a good, healthy patient growth each month in a DPC practice?
Speaker 3:That is really very dependent on your ability to scale and I love that question so much. I'm so glad that you asked it because that's what this system is all about, because I've heard and I've heard from other people that you've had on your podcast, and I hear it from people like, oh my gosh, I can only take this many patients a month. You would be surprised. When you have a good operating system that's on board, that you have scalable operational systems in place, that you know exactly how many people that you can bring on. I know that we can bring on 500 patients at one time with one provider and one nurse, and make that work over a 90-day period. So it's all in your operating system and how it is that you have your onboarding process, your patient outreach process. We have a 30, 60, 90-day within any time any new person or company comes on with us. We have a process that's in place that allows us to scale at that pace.
Speaker 2:How long do you feel is a healthy time frame? If someone were to want 500 patients, what is the time frame of which you think that they should obtain 500 patients?
Speaker 3:I think that is directly proportional to how number one aggressive the person is with their ability to build, know, like and trust. And the other part about that is is that person's ability to accept an amount of risk, because it takes a lot of risk to get out there and to be aggressive. So how long? I think at a slow pace. Three years. I think that's a slow pace. I can tell you, with the system that we teach with DPC, momentum, I believe 300 patients is really obtainable in a year. I'll tell you, in the Momentum cohort that we have right now I have across the board and within this particular, each group that I put together is specifically designed to mentor each other as well. So I get somebody who hasn't started up yet, a new startup, somebody who's typically less than six months, another person who is out there maybe has been doing it for a year or so and is struggling that less than 100 mark. And then I have a mid-range person who's somewhere around three or 400 and hitting that glass ceiling and you do between 100 to 300 patients. You really start to bang your head against the wall. And then I have typically an enterprise person who has multiple clinics in multiple states. Is my goal. I typically don't get people who are in multiple states, but I've got one in this particular cohort that I'm running right now, one person, and I hope she doesn't mind me talking about her. I won't give her name because I didn't get her permission, but she had just started up and I actually had to talk her into getting into this course Cause she was like I can't afford it, I don't have and I'm like if you don't get a return on your investment within 90 days, I'll give it to you for free. Okay, she was working towards my first patient. What do I do? You know, I don't even have the first patient and I was like you've told somebody about this. You know, you've told somebody about you. Call them, call them today. She called them, they signed up. Now, that's not the biggest one. This was before she. She was with us two months into the system. She just closed an employer group of 90, two months and she's just at a start. She was worried about being able to afford the program. The program it's not just the, it's really not just the operating system, but it's also the accountability to the, accountability and the growth and on the other side of that. So she's the startup.
Speaker 3:On the other side of that, the enterprise folks that we have is having a hard time hiring people, trying to find the right people, because they're getting brand new you know brand new PAs and nurse practitioners fresh out of school that wanted $200,000 a year and they're like I don't even understand where these people are coming from and I'm like you're not hiring by your core values. This is why that clarity compass I helped them build their Indeed or whatever. I forget what platform they were using. I'm sorry, but I helped them build a hiring profile that is around their core values, and that is people first. Money is a distant third or fourth. They had two people within a week, quality people that they were offering jobs to. So these are the things, like the intangibles, that matter.
Speaker 3:Obviously, I can't guarantee anything and to get back to your question is how long does it take? What should we expect? If you have a direction, if you have a flag on the hill and a roadmap on how to get there, you're going to get there twice as fast as trying to tread new ground and trying to figure it out yourself, and this is why I put that free group on school. I know I've got some advertisement for DPC Momentum, but I really want to get people up and going, and I want to. My vision for myself is to change the way people access and afford healthcare, and that people is everywhere in your hometown, where you're at. If I can help influence other people and change that, I'm living on my mission, and that's to make. My mission is to make healthcare simple, you know, and if I can help other people do that, that's what I want to do.
Speaker 2:So your model emphasizes the mission alignment meeting. How does that meeting structure create better execution and alignment?
Speaker 3:So this is the one other form that I also put into my school community and the DPC startup, and it's right there with the clarity compass, because I think these two forms are the most important for giving that execution and alignment. So most things that you do are status updates and the mission alignment meeting is a weekly execution rhythm and you can do it bi-weekly too, but it's an execution rhythm that drives results and it's structured around three key elements and that's the impact metrics we were just talking about. Are we off track or are we on track? Your milestone markers, which we talked about too, those are your 90 day goals and are they progressing? And then opportunity board Opportunity board is what are the roadblocks?
Speaker 3:What's keeping me from reaching my 90-day goals? And what it does is it creates a culture of ownership, even for yourself, and it gives clarity for yourself or your team, and everybody knows that if you're responsible for what you're doing and you get to see how your work ties into the mission. So it's short, it's focused and it's actionable. It's not fluff, it's traction, and what it does is it keeps your vision and the execution connected. So fluff, it's traction, and what it does is it keeps your vision and the execution connected. So you're not just working hard, you're actually working on the right things.
Speaker 2:So you include an opportunity board in the operating system. What kinds of roadblocks show up on that board and how do you help solve those?
Speaker 3:The opportunity board is your problem solving hub. It's where you track those roadblocks because they could come up again and you have data to go back and look at. It also tracks friction points and also areas that need improvement long before they ever derail your progress, long before those problems become cancerous and eat away at you. Good examples would be like onboarding your patient. Onboarding is really clunky. Like you can only take two, three or 10 patients a month, so it gives alignment to that. Your phone response times are inconsistent, team roles are unclear, marketing isn't converting patients, billing workflows are causing delays and again, if you're a solo entrepreneur and you're sitting in your office, you're like well, yeah, these things really don't apply to me, they all apply to you. You're going to run into problems.
Speaker 3:These are just some examples, but we don't just list those problems. We actually treat them as opportunities and that's why we call it the opportunity board, because each item gets reviewed during the mission alignment meetings and we prioritize based on the impact of what those opportunities are. And then, as always, we assign ownership and due date by meaning we're going to get these problems fixed and we're going to have it fixed by a certain time, and we use a structured troubleshooting to solve that root so that it's not just a symptom. What this does is it builds culture Again. The culture is vastly important to what it is that we all do. So instead of waiting for burnout or patient complaints, we surface those issues and we fix them as fast as we can.
Speaker 2:Since you brought up culture. What is the culture momentum framework and how does that strengthen the team?
Speaker 3:The culture momentum framework is your list of ideals that you put down as your core values, and it is what your company is built around. And this is the pliability of this system is it's actually built around you and what you believe in plugging those into a system that everybody can buy into, so that culture momentum is 100% about living out what your dream, your passion, ultimately your vision and your mission is. And it puts it in such a way that it does two things. Number one it attracts people to you that want to work with you to achieve that mission, because anytime somebody can work for something that's higher or adds value to other people, and especially your community and your patients people like to be a part of that. That's one. Number two it's going to attract patients to you Because when you're living a purpose-filled life and a purpose-filled mission and you exude that your company exudes that, all your marketing exudes that you're building that know, like and trust, patients are going to come to you. You are going to have magnetism built around that particular issue.
Speaker 3:I see what we're lacking. There is such great advice within this community. There's great advice from everybody. Josh Umber gives great advice across the message boards. Penny, you, monica. I mean, you guys are huge influencers within this realm.
Speaker 3:Y'all give absolutely fantastic advice, but the thing that I see that's lacking is this operating system, this thing that gives us scalability. It's fantastic to know okay, do I need a CLIA certificate or not? Right, do I need a lawyer to look this paperwork over? Do I do an LLC or a PLLC? And I put all of that stuff, all of the regular stuff, is in that free framework, and so you know, and I love telling people about those things, but those are one item things, those are things that come up one time.
Speaker 3:You get past them, then what? It's not ongoing, it's not scalable, it's not an idea, it's not a culture that you have within yourself that you can exude out to your business, that you can exude out to your community to attract people back in. And so I love to read, I love to learn, I love self-help and I am a Christ follower, you know 100%. And, ironically, I have a business coach that's a part of our DPC momentum and he's in nearly every one of our meetings and he gives that perspective and he's a John C Maxwell coach, if you've ever heard of John Maxwell. So it's all about culture. It's all about adding value to other people's lives, and you hear me say that. You've heard me say that, and every time, anytime anybody hears me speak, I'm going to talk about value ads. You have to add value to the people around you, and if we can do that for each other, we're all winning, and so that's my goal.
Speaker 2:So, within DPC Momentum, Do you recommend that the business owner and I'm just actually asking this really for myself, but I know that it would apply to many nurse practitioners that I've already talked to and met with but you own your DPC practice and you are trying to grow a second provider that you have placed in your office, or even a third provider.
Speaker 2:Is the DPC Momentum course more geared towards that owner to learn how to grow that other nurse practitioner's practice. Or does that new nurse practitioner need to be the DPC Momentum participant? I guess if you will, in order to learn how to grow her practice. And a segue to that is I did not hire my nurse practitioner with the understanding that she had to go out and market all of her patients.
Speaker 2:I am actually doing that on her behalf and I'm quite exhausted because I have my full panel. I have a completely full panel and on top of that I am trying to build her panel, so it is slow going. She's been with me now about seven or eight months. She has 90 patients. I think that's less than I was hoping she would have by this time. So I can hear the benefit of DPC Momentum, but I guess I need to know which one of us is going to benefit the most from that.
Speaker 3:Thank you, oh God, what a wonderful question. So, within DPC Momentum and so I'm talking I'm really trying to talk to the individual listeners right now but the truth is, is DPC Momentum? When you join DPC Momentum, it's your whole practice. Everybody gets to come, everybody's invited, for that one cost. So if you're one or you're many, and all of you new CEOs out there because that's exactly what you are I want to train you, I want to give you this information and we go through workbooks and I have key things that you write down through the entire thing and that becomes your SOP. That becomes how you think, how you hire, and so when you hire somebody else on, you could turn that around to them and, front facing, say these are the things that are important to this practice. Do you agree with them? Is this something that you can live with? And that's a yes or no on the front end. So you have full clarity on what's expected. But let's say, you have people who are in your practice already. So it's for every team member, including new clinicians, and it has clearly defined responsibilities and decision-making authorities and expectations and it's built into this program. Okay, and that's in that ownership framework and that's a part of the DPC momentum is that ownership framework that we talked about before.
Speaker 3:So what this prevents is just do what I do, and that is a trap, because now that's exactly where you're stuck at right now. My friend is just do what I do. And they're like well, okay, we'll go do what you do and nobody can do what you do. Anybody listening, you're unique. Nobody's going to do it the same way you do it. All right. So, but if you have framework and I call it guardrails, because we're all on the same road, we're all heading in the same direction I just have guardrails. You got to practice this way and this way, as long as you stay between those guardrails and you're not bumping up against those guardrails, and those guardrails are your clarity compass. All right, that's your vision, that's your mission, that's your core values and your purpose, your why and when you're hiring. Hey, you agree that this is how we are going to do this, this is what we believe, and you're bumping up against this thing right now and so let's talk about it. So that's another way.
Speaker 3:It also builds internal leadership pathways. So your providers aren't just seeing patients, they're developing into mentors and team leads and future partners, regular culture check-ins. They help with the identity gaps and growth and it helps align those action plans, the milestone markers that are assigned to your new providers or your providers who are already there. It gives them specific initiatives like leading patient engagement and piloting campaigns and new service lines. Heather Sharp, who is our newest hire, and again I integrate what they want into what we're doing. Like, hey, this is our newest hire. And again I integrate what they want into what we're doing. Like, hey, this is what we believe. Again, these are the guardrails, make it better. Like, what are your ideas? And she's like I love patient education based around eating.
Speaker 3:Eating is food, is medicine we take every day. So she's doing cooking classes and we've got videos going up about her teaching our patients how to integrate good eating and holistic eating into their diets every day and that's medicine that they take. And so, again, just initiatives and I hope that answers your question, but everybody's invited into that and we actually want everybody within your practice to come. The CEO is the most important person because they're the ones who set the pace. The CEOs you right now, amanda, and all those listening you've got to know the way, you've got to show the way and you've got to go the way, all right. It's not enough to talk about it, you got to do it too, okay, so that's good, you answered that perfectly.
Speaker 2:So if a listener is still sitting on the fence about starting or optimizing their DPC, what is the first step that they need to take today?
Speaker 3:Invest in themselves? That's an easy question. The biggest thing that I see in all the message boards and all the questions that pop up is you're not investing in yourself. I'm sorry. I have a very strong opinion about that. When you begin to invest in yourself and that's all that I've done If you look at my library and the books that I read and the margin time that I take every day margin time is that time you take away for yourself just to think All right, how many people out there listening right now raise your hand, even if you're by yourself, did you take 10, 15, five minutes, two hours, to think today?
Speaker 3:I'm no Warren Buffett, but I stole that one from Warren Buffett. You said earlier that I'm smart. I'm not smart. I just rip smart people off. I do what smart people do. You know what Warren Buffett does the first part of his day? He reads, he drinks a Coke and he thinks. John C Maxwell again. Somebody. That book, everybody. Go read it. It's the most important book you'll read besides the Bible. But what John C Maxwell does every day, the first two hours of his day, he reads and he thinks. So that's what I do every day. I wake up at five o'clock in the morning and I read something. I read my Bible. Then I read something that's self help and is great advice, because some of us are waking up and we're reading our Bible and then going straight to TikTok.
Speaker 3:Yep, or worried about? Oh my gosh, right, we worry. So let me give the listeners one last thing before we go. If that's okay with you, amanda, I want to give them something that they can take home, something that's useful. Number one be kind to yourself. No-transcript, best advice that I can ever give you.
Speaker 3:Look at your phone right now and see how many contacts that you have. I have about 3000 contacts in my phone. Go to your Facebook. See how many followers that you have, how many friends that you have. I think I'm somewhere around 2,000, something like that. I'm now up to 5,000 patients.
Speaker 3:Go on Instagram, whatever other social medias that you have. Go to your email list. All right, that's your internal marketing system right now. You don't have to get on social media and spend a bunch of money. You don't need billboards, you don't need radio, you don't need TV. You have it right now, all right. Ask those people, because the biggest thing that we don't do is ask our friends and everybody who's on that list is somebody you've talked to in the past. Hit those lists, guys, and ask them to become your patients, and if they don't want to become their patient, ask them if they know somebody that you can help. Don't ask for a referral, say you know what it is that I do. Can you introduce me to somebody that you think would need my services and if you do that, if you do that you should get 10% of those people. 10% should be your goal. So if I've got over 5,000 contacts, I can have 500 patients in a month. Think about that.
Speaker 2:That sounds so easy.
Speaker 3:But okay. So now let's go back to what I just said. Give yourself grace. It sounds so easy, but why do we talk ourselves out of it? Oh, I don't like this person. They don't think about you as much as you think about yourself. I love you. I love everybody. I'm praying for everybody's success. You'll hear me say that a lot, too. You're always at no, you're already at no, and you need 90% of those doors slammed in your face to get to the 10% that need your services, and you'd be surprised that some of the people who are detractors of you become your biggest raving fans and your best patients. But they don't know unless you ask them, and they may not even know you do what you, what it is that you do, and you heard me say this at the conference. So ask and tell people what it is that you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in order for people to join DPC Momentum, what do they need to do? Is there a website? Is there an application process? What do they need to do?
Speaker 3:I take it in manageable parts and so I'm looking for the next cohort and it is a process. I want to get people who really need it and I want to get the right mix of people. So I would ask you to email me, brian at mydpcrxcom, or you can go to our free school website and you can find that on the message boards, or you can text me anytime you want, 423-650-2987. And my phone is always on. You can ask just about anybody out there. I will typically respond within 24 hours or so.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Brian. You have been so helpful and I'm looking forward to the success of all these nurse practitioner and physician assistant DPC clinics because of you?
Speaker 3:Well, I hope so. It's because of all of us. It takes a village, and it's not just me, it's us, it's absolutely us. So, guys, last thing you'll hear me say it a lot, I said it before, but believe me, I really am praying for every single one of your successes.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Brian.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Amanda, have a good day. Thank you so much for joining us today on the DPCNP. We hope you found our conversation insightful and informational. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider subscribing to our podcast so that you do not miss an update, and don't forget to leave us a review. Your feedback means the world to us and it helps others discover our show. We love hearing from our listeners. Feel free to connect on our social media, share your thoughts, your suggestions and even topic ideas for future episodes. As we wrap up today, we are so grateful that you chose to spend a part of your life with us. Until next time, take care. This is Amanda Price signing off. See you on the next episode, thank you.