Facilitated

9| Data-Driven Health: About NEW Direct Order Labs

• The Facility Denver • Episode 9

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We introduce our new Direct Order Labs service that provides comprehensive laboratory testing directly to consumers without requiring a doctor's visit or prescription.

• Advanced lab tests including blood, urine, and stool analysis shipped directly to your home
• Testing options range from Core Plus panel (basic health markers) to specialized assessments for toxins, tick-borne illnesses, and methylation
• Mid-tier panels are the Baseline Biomarker [Female] panel or the Baseline Biomarker [Male] panel and include a 15-20 minute video consultation with Dr. Mitchell reviewing the results
• Prices designed to be affordable while providing more comprehensive information than traditional medical testing
• Self-directed process with detailed information on each test's purpose and markers
• Option to schedule additional consultations if you need help understanding or implementing changes

EXPLORE DIRECT ORDER LABS HERE! 


Want to take the next step with functional medicine? Learn more about our new patient process and lab testing at www.thefacilitydenver.com

For more insights, tips, and behind-the-scenes content, follow us on Instagram @thefacilitydenver

Stay curious, stay proactive, and we’ll catch you next time!

Mitchell:

Welcome to Facilitated, where we bring you real stories, strategies and science from the world of functional medicine. I'm Dr Mitchell Rasmussen, a functional medicine practitioner.

Kate:

And I'm Kate Daugherty, a certified nutritionist. We are the owners of the Facility, a functional medicine clinic here in Denver, Colorado.

Mitchell:

We help people improve their biology and get out of their own way. We help people improve their biology and get out of their own way. In my view, our work is about getting to know the person with the condition much more than it's about understanding which condition the person has. As I always say, diagnose the biology, not the disease.

Kate:

On this podcast we break down complex health topics, share real patient cases anonymized, of course and explore cutting-edge wellness strategies so you can make informed decisions about your health. Quick heads up before we dive in this podcast is for education and general information only. We're here to share insights, not to diagnose or treat. So if you're dealing with a health issue, chat with a qualified healthcare provider before making any changes. All right, let's get into it. Welcome to the studio.

Mitchell:

Thanks for having me.

Kate:

You're welcome.

Mitchell:

How's it going?

Kate:

Pretty good. It's Thursday at Kiln Holding ourselves to recording.

Mitchell:

Thursday is typically a nice little telehealth day, and lately it's been jumping in here and trying to share some wisdom yes, among other things. What are you drinking wisdom? Yes, among other things.

Kate:

What are you drinking? It's a protein shake made with milk and iced coffee equipped protein, so it's kind of like an iced coffee.

Mitchell:

There's no coffee in it. Though there's no coffee in it today. It's cold.

Kate:

I just didn't have a better cup.

Mitchell:

it's in my yeti and it's A2 milk.

Kate:

It's A2 milk, of course2 milk, of course organic good, you snob just a little little health flex there I kind of feel like we got run over by a train this week yeah, I'm still.

Mitchell:

yeah, people don't realize how much time after visits things take. Yes, for both of us. Yes, my post-visit follow-up. Last night I was doing it like we were texting.

Kate:

Yeah, I was on my computer.

Mitchell:

And I was around 9.30, and I spent about 45 minutes for one patient to lay out treatment plan, dosing schedule and then sending them information. I think people don't realize how much both of us do between visits and I think this is where Shante told us we need to raise our prices. It's not the time during the visit really. That's great the connection and helping the patient or the client really understand what we're thinking about their picture but my goodness, it's the implementation that takes so long.

Kate:

And it's kind of my own fault, but I can only hold so much information in my brain without dumping it, and so, knowing we have a new patient today, I have to get all of the other follow-up done, and so it's like my slate is cleaned so I can take in new information from a new patient and still show up the way I want to and still convey the information in the follow up the way I want to.

Mitchell:

Yeah, I mean, and it's been an especially heavy week just with the people we're working with. Yes, I think people would be fascinated to know because everyone thinks that their picture is so complicated. Complicated and I typically think well, you know, everyone kind of has.

Mitchell:

Most people have similar hang-ups in their biology, but for some something about this week was complicated, yeah, and and I was exposed to a weakness in my understanding about iron physiology. You know we do a lot of iron panels and I saw something new this week on one of them that wasn't really fitting a common picture, and it's always fun, I guess, when we get exposed to those weaknesses, and I was even pretty point-blank with the patient. Look, I have a general understanding of this, but I need to dive in. So that's my new project. Can't wait. Is iron physiology? Wow? And I think if you don't know very much, you probably think iron is pretty simple, right? So you might be listening to this and be like, how does this guy who's been studying the body for almost 20 years not understand iron? I mean, we get the basics right. I think we know enough to help most people. But this is a fun thing about what we do is there's such a level of detail that I'm seeking, and the complexities are constantly shown to me and they literally just invigorate me to keep learning type two fun yeah, I would say I enjoy it during not as much as

Kate:

a roller coaster, but very similar experience okay, so we're we get to talk about our direct order labs, which is so so close to launching.

Mitchell:

We've wanted to do this for a long time. I feel like seeing all these other companies giving access to it was really the kick in the butt we needed, because we knew we had a better set of solutions for people.

Kate:

I was going to say we could do it better.

Mitchell:

Yeah, so we've partnered with a lab that we love, and they're now allowing us to create custom panels direct order to anybody in the country.

Kate:

Yeah, so direct order labs, meaning you as a patient, as a consumer, can navigate to our website, view all kinds of different lab panels. Blood urine poop. Those are three mediums um blood urine poop yeah, no salivary testing, yeah yeah and order them for yourself. Complete the test at home or at a draw center nearby, anywhere all over the country. Get actual data and take action.

Mitchell:

Yeah, why are we offering this?

Kate:

Well, like you said, it's become a big thing in the wellness dare I say biohacking space to get advanced labs. Wellness dare I say biohacking space to get advanced labs. So more detail than what you would get through a primary care physician.

Mitchell:

Part of the reason that I wanted to offer this was not just to answer consumer demand but to allow people even like between visits with their physician or say you are generally healthy and you're just really interested in stress, sleep, lifestyle habits, vices can dictate a lot of what changes in the baseline biology. So now, by offering you direct access to a multitude of information from, like you said, poop, looking at a full, amazing stool panel that's well beyond what you'd get at a traditional, like a stool test at a doctor's office, looking at full hormone assessments and inflammatory markers and genetics and toxin burden, and all these fascinating things, so that if you are on your individual journey, if you will and you just want to get baseline information or dive deep into one specific thing you're working on now, you can do that without having to go to a doctor's office or even talk to us, for that matter.

Kate:

It really cuts out the wait time of you want it, you got it. You will be able to order it, have it shipped directly to your house, complete the test nearby, whether it is. Most of them are at home, Some of them are blood draw tests where you will take it to a draw center nearby and get the information within 10 days. Most of them.

Mitchell:

And what I love about this is you and I have spent the last couple of months creating customized panels that are very similar to our new patient panel, and in fact, I think we're going to offer the comprehensive new patient panel without ever having to see us, where you'll get a full, detailed report and about 100 different markers of information for a really affordable cost. That's kind of what excites me the most is if you're holding back because you don't feel like maybe sharing your story with somebody or you don't think it's necessary to be seen by somebody like us. Now start with the information. If something is alarming or concerning to you, then we can dive in and talk about it. But this is great for you just to start to establish this health inventory. Where am I at and what am I tracking over time to be able to make sure I'm taking the necessary steps to get my health in order with my goals?

Kate:

Yeah, I'm a very much a see it on person paper, see it on person, see it on paper type of person, and so I have been slow in this process because I've been building out this website and I want it to be a website where you can go, you can read about the test, you can know exactly what it's testing, you can know exactly what you're getting, what the goal of each test is, how it works. I'm trying to answer every single question on the page so that it is so hands off for you. You don't have to call anybody, you don't have to email us and ask questions about it. I want it to be so self-directed for you, but also for me. That's the type of person I am is, if I can find the information, then I want to move forward with it.

Mitchell:

And I'm kind of a dreamer where I thought we could just like throw it out there and it would work. But I get why we're trying to do all this legwork in the beginning so that we can make it at a price point for people where it can be affordable enough, but also have us be hands off enough so that we don't need to charge a high dollar for our time. I think that's the biggest thing paying for time and by us making it so streamlined, by all the work you've done on it, it allows the cost to be so affordable for the consumer.

Kate:

We do have a couple different tiers or a couple different options when it comes to blood testing, so we built out a very basic couple different options when it comes to blood testing. So we built out a very basic. We call it basic. Uh, we actually call it the core plus panel.

Mitchell:

Uh, that is the most similar to a annual wellness panel that you'd get at your primary care physician about three times as many markers, of course, but it takes out some of the more expensive nuance markers that are perfect for someone just kind of checking in. And we we really wanted to hit multiple tiers so that you have more of a say in what level of information that you want, not just have one cookie cutter type plan because you might say you might run a more comprehensive panel and then three or six months later you want to check in on the core things that you're working on and that's where the different tiers come into play.

Kate:

Mm-hmm, our mid-tier is what we use for our new patient panel, and we've built it to include a clinical consult or a clinical overview coming directly from you. I'm so excited to see how this goes.

Mitchell:

You said 15 to 20 minutes.

Kate:

I said 15 to 20 minutes and I was like is that going to be the right? It's definitely going to be minimum 15 minutes. Can't promise it'll be capped at 20 minutes, but it is meant for. Mitchell is going to see your lab results, talk you through them in a video and provide key action steps for you to implement on your own. You can always schedule time with us one-on-one if you have more questions, but this one is kind of that middle ground between scheduling 90 minutes to talk with us or getting information, getting some of the explanation why, and then starting to work on your own.

Mitchell:

And then one thing I'll always say while we're offering you the ability to book directly with us is because a patient history is or a client, a consumer history is so valuable in decision making. But again, that might not be appropriate for you, which is why we're not requiring it. With a test like this, we're not requiring you to sit down and talk to us. Let's give you the data you're looking for and then you kind of choose your own adventure.

Kate:

Yeah, so, mitchell, you were really excited to get in the studio and get into the details about the labs that we're offering, and I tried to rein you in a little bit, but I think I'm going to give you a little bit of freedom to talk about what types of labs are available.

Mitchell:

Well. Thank you, mother. I appreciate the space, the space Well. I think some of the more interesting panels are things that we occasionally order on people with, say, chronic odd symptoms.

Mitchell:

You know there's great mimickers of autoimmune diseases and they all most of them have to do with toxin burden. A really smart teacher we had a couple years ago really drilled into our heads the idea that stress deficiencies and toxins are the primary drivers of chronic disease. And we could go on and on about toxins Check our last few podcasts ago. But the total burden on our systems is so relevant to depletion of nutrients and when an organ loses its ability to maintain nutrient status it suffers and we might have all sorts of odd symptoms that are unexplained. And you go to the rheumatologist and they tested me for lupus but I don't have it. But my inflammatory markers are high and you know I have brain fog and all these things.

Mitchell:

And we always say things like Lyme and mold are the great mimickers. You know Lyme disease and tick-borne illnesses in general is a is a massive box of potential chronic drivers of immune dysfunction that might lend themselves to somebody who has migrating joint pain or muscle pain, fatigue, weakness. You know things like numbness and tingling we. You know, my doctor thought I had MS but it turns out. I don't like all these examples where this total burden of toxicity can be a massive funnel of information that is never assessed traditionally. So that's one of the tests I'm most excited about is offering you in one urine collection to look at urine mycotoxins, which are mold toxins essentially. Whether it be from food or buildings that you're living in or any sort of exposure that might hold moisture can have mold, and mycotoxins will drive chronic inflammation.

Mitchell:

In the same panel we can look at heavy metals what is my body excreting? The heavy metal conversation can be really complicated. And do we provoke them with drugs and then test them? Well, one place to start is just get a screen of what you're actively exposed to and we look at urine metals testing. That's what it shows us. And then environmental toxicities. We just found a guy interesting, interested in conceiving, and his he had ddt old school like 1970s it was banned yeah, but it's still in our soil and it

Mitchell:

can still be in places and his was, you know, 12 times the limit of what would be considered normal in his body. And without running this extensive toxicity panel, we never would have saw that. People that are consuming foods with pesticides on them that can show up in the urine. And what I'm talking about is that panel, the total tox burden, where we can assess the metals, the mycotoxins and environmental poisons all at once. That's a great test and I love what you get for that price point.

Kate:

Especially for the people who are on a conception journey, male or female.

Mitchell:

I think that's an awesome panel to look at your exposures and see where you need to put your energy in detoxification before conception, easy, attainable steps that people could take without even talking to us to start to push these detox processes to get their body function a little bit more smoothly. And another we talk about the great mimickers, the tick-borne illnesses. We're now offering a massive tick-borne panel. The problem if you have some of these weird symptoms is your doctor might run a Western blot and an ELISA test. They're called for Lyme.

Mitchell:

The problem is those often show more false negatives than true positives. So if we see a negative there, essentially you are now proceeding forward with a potential tick-borne illness, but it wasn't picked up on a tiny little blood test that needs to be timed at the exact right time after exposure to a tick-borne illness. But it wasn't picked up on a tiny little blood test that needs to be timed at the exact right time after exposure to a tick-borne illness. And then now you're left to suffer without accurate information. So the panel that we're offering now isn't just about Lyme, right, it's about the co-infections that we're so exposed to nowadays, things like Bartonella and Babesia Ehrlichia, and the panel that we built actually also does a bunch of viral infections at the same time.

Mitchell:

So it's a massive panel and we ran it on a lady recently who essentially lost her will to live and we found Parvovirus and Cytomegalovirus and Babesia as well as some hints of Lyme infection all in this one sample and we were really able to help her get on the right trajectory once we started to deal with those individual things. I would say if you do order that panel, you're probably going to get more information than you know what to do with, especially if things start to flag. So I do think that's where it would be most relevant to sit down with us and go into. But again, if you're running that test, you probably have chronic unexplained symptoms and if that opens up a curiosity because things start to flag, then I think sitting down together will really help you march forward and get a much better trajectory sitting down together will really help you march forward and get a much better trajectory.

Kate:

So often running the test, getting a negative result, is powerful and gives people peace of mind, and so sometimes running the test is worth it, just to rule out whether it's Lyme disease, babesia, tick-borne illness, even the heavy metals, lyme disease, babesia, tick-borne illness, even the heavy metals. Again, for this patient population who has a high level of anxiety about their health, to rule things out.

Mitchell:

That's a good point. Yeah, a negative or a clean slate does wonders for an anxious brain. Another really exciting panel that we built is a methylation panel.

Kate:

You love this one.

Mitchell:

Well, okay, a few years ago, gary Brekka I'm sorry he came on the scene offering the solution to everything with his genetic methylation panel and, by the way, when you go to the website to order it, all you see is it's $599. It uncovers all the root of all your issues, and it took me a long time to actually find a sample of what was tested. It was actually when a patient had run it.

Mitchell:

She brought it into her new visit and I realized there's only five genes that are tested on it and no nutrient markers. Six hundred dollars, five genetic snips, no inflammatory markers or actual like b12 or folic acid markers that I knew we could do that better. So that was one of my first missions with this is I will have a better option for people. So the methylation panel that we offer, which is way cheaper than that I don't remember how much it is, Is it like $350 or something? It looks at 12 different genetic snips and three different relevant blood markers homocysteine, serum, B12, and folate.

Mitchell:

So I would say that's the one I'm most excited about is just because I know people are interested in methylation. I think one thing that he's done great with his platform is exposing the world to this idea that chronic hiccups in detoxification do lead to nutrient deficiencies and chronic inflammation. I just knew that there would be a better, more comprehensive assessment of that. So that's why we created the methylation panel so that you can get way more genetic information plus the blood markers to really create a more cohesive understanding of how well you're methylating cohesive understanding of how well you're methylating.

Kate:

We're really excited for a comprehensive hormone panel coming soon where you get a little bit more of the metabolism of hormones, similar to another very popular test using urinary testing for comprehensive hormones.

Mitchell:

And a test which we run all the time. The problem is that company that we use with our patients doesn't give direct access, so that's why we're trying to create a workaround so that you can order it yourself.

Kate:

So coming soon. We're excited for that one as it's being built out, but in the meantime all of our blood panels do have some degree of serum hormone testing on them.

Mitchell:

Yeah, and you'll be able to see that when you break down the list. You know the, the, the core plus panel real clever name, by the way, mitchell. Well, we were going to. We were going to call it bare bones or something, but it's like it's not it's really not that you know we start with a.

Mitchell:

You know some basic sex hormones and some thyroid hormones, but then as you go up in tiers you get more thyroid testing, more stress hormone testing and more sex hormone testing. So you'll be able to see that where we kind of add in, feather in extra hormones, that you can kind of choose where you want to go with that. But yeah, in the future we will eventually have just a urine or a hormone metabolite panel which will go way into detail for conception and things. But I think the blood tests right now are a great option that's stuff, that we run on every patient.

Mitchell:

We never start with a metabolite testing unless someone has a history of breast cancer, ovarian or endometrial cancer typically will start with serum anyway. So you already have access to that.

Kate:

All right enough about all the things we're looking at. I want to double down on how it works. So we're going to have a direct link on our website to our direct order labs site. It will take you to a separate page where you can view all of the panels. Like I said, read about the panels, see sample tests, see the complete marker lists, understand why you would want to order a particular panel and then you will be able to order, check out, pay for it, input your shipping address and you will get a test kit sent to your house. You will have access to a patient portal through Vibrant Wellness that will help you find a draw center, if that's relevant, or have someone come into your house to do a blood draw, or just simply the instructions for an at-home test, if it falls into that category. You also have a shipping label that gets sent with your test kit so you can send it directly back into the lab. Most of them processing time is about 10 to 14 days.

Kate:

When labs are released, you will get them immediately in your patient portal. We understand that there may be a time where there's an urgent result. We will have an eye on that and we will absolutely call if that case comes up, but otherwise you will have immediate access to your labs. You will have a complete guide that will take you through understanding of all of the markers, what it means when they're high, what it means when they're low, and you will always have the option of scheduling a one-on-one visit with us if you want more direction beyond that. I feel like we can't leave out that, from a legal, ethical perspective, getting these direct order labs does not replace a relationship with a health care provider. We want this to be a starting point where you can take it and get more assistance, but the ownership is really on you. It does not represent a doctor-patient relationship when you order these tests through our platform, so I feel like that needs to be said.

Mitchell:

Yeah, there, the world heard it and I mean the intention is pure is to give you direct access to your information. But but you know the world be litigious at times and I just want to make it clear that you are taking this responsibility with this information and I always recommend you know getting advice from someone qualified. If something is odd to you, or even if something isn't odd, Just make sure that you are doing your due diligence to advocate for yourself or your providers, and you could even take this information to your primary care provider and ask them to take a look at it if that feels good to you.

Kate:

It is really cool advanced markers, but it's not any different than the labs that a conventional medical system would use so more markers, but still the same type of standardized lab. The difference is how we use the data, not the data itself. We hope this gave you a clearer picture of why we're so excited to offer direct lab access through Vibrant Wellness and how it fits into our mission of putting real, actionable health data directly into your hands no gatekeeping. If you're feeling curious or ready to take a deeper look under the hood, you can explore the lab options anytime at thefacilitydenvercom. And remember lab data is just the beginning. If you need help interpreting your results, we're here for that too. Thanks for tuning in and for being the kind of person who takes health seriously before it becomes a crisis. Now go facilitate your own health and we'll see you next time.