Facilitated

33| Inside Functional Medicine At Our Clinic: What It's Really Like to Be a Patient

• The Facility Denver • Episode 33

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We share how our functional medicine clinic bridges the gap between rushed primary care and siloed specialty care, focusing on human stories, data, and doable steps. The process restores hope with a clear plan, thoughtful labs, and real collaboration across disciplines.

• why we built a bridge between wellness and specialists
• how we define scope and when we refer out
• the chemotherapy integration story and terrain support
• why we skip free discovery calls
• our philosophy on systems, habits, and prioritization
• the intake process and first visit focus
• labs, deep-dive review, and targeted testing
• follow-up cadence and special fertility track
• our yin-yang team dynamic and clinic culture
• patient partnership, accountability, and sustainable change


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

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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. 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, we need to diagnose the biology and 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. Yeah, hopefully we've got it figured out.

Mitchell:

There's a chilly cook-off going on out in the hall, sounds like a zoo out there.

Kate:

Some days kiln is more of a zoo. Okay, so today's episode, one that we have uh wanted to make for a while. We get asked all the time what it's actually like to work with us. So we figured why not just talk through it.

Mitchell:

Yeah. Whether you've been referred by a friend, maybe you followed us online for a while, you've probably wondered what it is we actually do. So let's talk about it. The origin story, you know, we built this clinic because we saw a massive gap in medicine, really. There's this huge divide between this wellness world and the specialist world. And I felt like we felt like there was really nobody bridging those two gaps or that gap. Primary care has become mostly symptom management. You know, these visits they're super rushed. You might get 10 minutes if you're lucky. There's not ever enough time to understand why something's happening. And people feel that, you know, they know they're not getting what they need. I felt like 10 years ago, I had to sit and convince somebody that their lifestyle, their sleep, their gut health, their hormones. I felt like I had to convince them that all of that actually mattered. But now people actually know that. You know, they feel this disconnect firsthand when they're going to these primary care visits. I feel like we built a facility to fill that gap. I want to help these people connect their dots between their symptoms, their systems, and their problems as they come in sitting in front of us. I feel like a big part of that is understanding where our scope ends. And I think a lot of times people in our field, they want to pretend that they can help every single thing. But I'll be honest with you, I refer out to specialists all the time. Do we need to go see a cardiologist, a neurologist, an orthopedist, a hematologist? You know, I'm constantly bringing in these other clinicians so that they can dig deeper when we need more data. And it's really about me being brutally honest with myself and understanding where my our strengths. Strengths. Yeah, and where our strengths end and when we really need to bring in another expert.

Kate:

I think it's other experts, but also uh going above us and going below us in a way where we can pull in health coaches when we want more of the accountability piece too, because we're so transparent in that. We don't want to be the ones doing the weekly check-ins and the accountability. Come see us for the information and the action step, the plan, but the implementation of the plan is really on the patient.

Mitchell:

Kind of foreshadowing what you know, starting to partner with.

Kate:

I know. Sorry, kind of an aside I had to jump in.

Mitchell:

Yeah, but that's actually uh yeah, we I'm not here to day-to-day coach, but there's a need for that for a lot of people. So we are uh starting to work with somebody who can help you with that.

Kate:

But again, that's just being honest about our abilities and also our desires to create what we want to do.

Mitchell:

Yeah, and I I actually want to tell a personal story. Okay. Is that okay? Um a while back, I actually flew out. Uh I'm gonna keep it vague, flew out with a loved one to go to an appointment with a specialist. They were about to undergo chemotherapy, and I wanted to help present an inner an integrative plan to their care team, looking at nutrition, targeted supplements, recovery support, terrain, uh modulating herbs and things like that. All of it designed essentially to work with the chemo instead of against it. I remember in the weeks leading up to that, I mean, I dove deep into the research on this specific type of cancer. I was studying the exact chemo protocol they were going to do, the drug mechanisms, contraindications, I mean, literally everything, making sure that anything I suggested would be supportive to this chemotherapy plan. I mean, I remember I was even prepping on the airplane, I was so nervous, reviewing notes and looking at studies and just kind of tightening this plan. And by the time we walked into that appointment, I had printed multiple copies of this detailed, it was literally hour by hour protocol outlining exactly what to do before, during, and after each of these weekly infusions, right? Because you go in, you get this chemotherapy infusion, then you've got seven days for it to work, for the body to kind of go through the oxidative stress and then to recover. And I felt like there was a window there where we could really optimize terrain to help healing between sessions, but also help make sure that the chemotherapy was as effective as possible. I can't tell you how special it was walking down that hallway beside this person to go meet with their specialist. It was literally one of those moments I'll never forget. I felt like this person has support, has cohesiveness, and also really has a plan going in because going into cancer therapy is incredibly scary and new, and you want to trust what your doctors are saying, but deep inside you might know, like, is this it? Is this all I should be doing? And I don't know, I can't tell you how special it was to be right alongside him, literally walking down the hall, like the strength on his shoulder to help present this. Um, I did all this prep work. The specialist looked at the plan, he said, I don't have any problems with any of these related to chemo. Just make sure you cross-reference to other medications this person is on. I was like, Of course, I've already done all that, and we hit the ground running. He did not object to the plan at all. They went through chemo, they actually got healthier during chemo, objectively healthier.

Kate:

And just to state the obvious, that doesn't happen.

Mitchell:

Yeah, and that that experience reminded me exactly why I do what I do. You know, integrative medicine is not anti-medicine, in my opinion. It's complete medicine, it's connection, communication, it's it's putting together this collaboration on the behalf of this individual, regardless of what they're going through medically.

Kate:

Yeah, and that's really the heart of what we try to bring into every visit, even when the stakes aren't that high. You know, hopefully every patient's not going through a chemotherapy experience. But we show up, we care enough to learn, and we just make sure no one feels alone.

Mitchell:

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, 100%. Be there with them on their health journey. I want to talk a little bit about why we skip, generally skip discovery calls or what do you want to call them?

Kate:

Free consultations. We just we don't do that.

Mitchell:

And I I feel like that surprises people sometimes that we don't usually want to do that stuff, and literally, it's not because we don't want to connect. Trust me, connecting is the best part of what we do. I don't prefer those calls because they almost always turn into a half visit. Right? They start telling me their story, I'm starting to connect dots, asking questions. I mean, at this point, keep in mind we don't have any labs in front of us. I don't have your history, I don't have your intake forms. I feel like it's confusing for them and it's really largely unproductive.

Kate:

Right. That first conversation is so much more effective when it's we already have the super comprehensive intake that covers everything. We know about your digestion, your diet, your stress, your decade by decade health history, what's worked, what hasn't, what your top three complaints are right now. That's what gives us the traction. And I find it so hard on the phone to hold myself back from asking every single one of those questions, knowing it's on the intake form.

Mitchell:

Exactly, exactly, right? We're not here trying to screen you like some clinics, which is a fancy sales tactic. I trust that if you're here, you've already done your homework, or more likely, is that somebody that you trust has told you to come talk to us. I think skip that call really means we can just dive in and start getting the real work done sooner, right? It's gonna save you time, it's gonna save us time. And then that first hour together is actually about you not on the logistics of how this looks.

Kate:

Right. Logistics is a great word because there are times when a call makes sense. Speaking through the logistics, there are special cases where we need to talk through how does this work, when X, Y, Z, those special circumstances. I appreciate the logistics call. It's the free consultation get into symptoms call that we're it just doesn't work that way.

Mitchell:

Yeah, these 10-minute calls turn into a 45-minute visit where we don't even have any data, right? I'm not here to sell you something, I'm really here to try to partner with you once you're ready to move forward. Yeah. Should we talk a little bit about our philosophy?

Kate:

Yeah, we love talking about our philosophy.

Mitchell:

Yeah, that was my next note that I wanted to. Did you see this? I'm learning to stay organized, right? I drafted up like next we're gonna talk about philosophy. I'm proud of myself. Good job. See if I stray a little bit. I think our philosophy is pretty simple, really. We don't treat conditions, we treat humans. I believe that every person who works with us has their own story, their own patterns, their own body physiology, and I think my job is to help connect those dots for them.

Kate:

Yeah, this is one reason we have our intake form built the way it is. It is not a generic intake form. It is super detailed. We're talking decade by decade. We're talking eating patterns, digestion, poop consistency, poop color questions that you might feel are completely unrelated to any other doctor appointment you've ever been to. It's probably on our intake form. We ask what's worked, what hasn't, who you've seen, what you've already tried. It helps for us to understand the full journey and not just symptoms, current symptoms.

Mitchell:

It's funny because we ask all these questions, and then when someone starts talking about their poop, they'll be like, Well, this is TMI. It's like, no, uh, I wanted you to share this, right? And the look I get when I say, What does your fart smell like? Like, I'm curious. It's not a yeah, there's actually some good information we could get from that. Um, at I mean, at the heart of our philosophy is something I say all the time. How many times have you heard me say everything is connected, everybody's different, and everything matters. But now I've come around to this idea that not everything is important right now, and this was a huge shift for me. I used to try to fix everything all at once uh because in our world everything truly does matter. But I've found finally, thank you, Kate, that if we focus on too many things at the start, you're gonna get burned out. Now I really try to focus on what's most impactful right now, the low-hanging fruit, if you will, that'll help us make the biggest dent. I think once we get traction there, everything else starts to move. My new phrase. Oh my gosh, here it comes. You know what I'm gonna say. We need to establish a habit before we can optimize a habit. If we can make a few key changes, this entire web of your biology starts to shift. You look at pain, I always say, in a lot of ways, pain is the brain's request for change. Your body whispers before it talks to you. And uh I think if you ignore it long enough, it starts yelling, and that's unfortunately where we meet most of the people. This body's been yelling at you for years. Keep in mind, in the absence of trauma, your body almost always breaks down on the inside before it starts to break down on the outside. Uh, I believe that by the time you feel the problem, it's probably been happening quietly for quite a long time.

Kate:

That's why we use labs, data, deep history, see all of those breakdowns before they become diagnoses, labels.

Mitchell:

And then I'm just curious, like when I'm doing all that, what are you doing?

Kate:

You're talking up a storm, I'm taking notes so people can stay focused on the conversation. We want it to be a human-to-human connection, whether it's through a video portal or right in front of us, but I'm taking notes, keeping everything organized, building the plan from visit to visit.

Mitchell:

Let's talk a little bit about what it uh feels like to work with us.

Kate:

Feels like. Let's get in touch with our emotions.

Mitchell:

How many times do we hear that people feel hopeful again?

Kate:

It's the best compliment.

Mitchell:

I know. We'll be 10 minutes into that first visit, and someone will stop and say something like, This is already the most thorough appointment I've ever had. Or we hear this a lot. Why has anybody else asked me these questions? Number one, I don't know. And honestly, this is kind of heartbreaking to me. Maybe it should be a compliment. I believe it shouldn't be that rare for someone to feel listened to, but isn't that kind of where healthcare is right now? What do you get? You get like seven seconds typically in a primary care visit before you get interrupted, or 12 seconds, it's really short. Um, I think people are thanking us for doing what should be the bare minimum. I'm I'm just being curious, I'm asking better questions, I'm taking you seriously. Um, and I think that's why this work matters so much to us. People don't just need answers, they need to actually legitimately feel seen.

Kate:

Right. And every time we hear it, it really just reminds us of our why.

Mitchell:

Exactly, exactly. And you've if you've been to someone who ran a few labs, I made a post about this. They told you everything looks normal and sent you home still feeling awful. Maybe they told you you oh you're a mom now or you're just getting older. Fire that person. That is a form of gaslighting. If you know something's wrong, and if your provider's not taking it seriously, find somebody who will. I I really believe that that's what we're here for.

Kate:

I agree. All right, let's get out of the feelings.

Mitchell:

Okay, fine. Living in my feelings.

Kate:

Get back to the the process, the logistics. Here's how it actually works. Step one, super simple. Book an appointment. There's no gatekeeping, like you said, there's no sales calls. We make it really easy to go from here's what we do, here's how to do it. Click the link, book it. You automatically get sent our comprehensive intake form.

Mitchell:

And yes, we read it.

Kate:

Yeah, we read it.

Mitchell:

We talk about it, we think about you. I always say this, you are considered before I've ever met you. I have spent time might be sitting on the couch watching Love is Blind or something, and I'm reading through your intake, I'm looking at your past labs. I really feel like the way we've set this up with the customization of this form is I get a pretty good picture before I even meet. I'm understanding your big three complaints, your goals, um, all of that before this initial 60-minute visit. And then in that visit, that's where we're gonna start to connect your history, your symptoms, your choices, stressors, and then I always say, let's find some low-hanging fruit there. Typically, we'll give a few simple foundational steps right away, but they'll typically make a pretty big impact, right? Chewing your food. If you're not chewing your food, chew your food, dang it. Um, get rid of the blue light. It's different for everyone, but the the simple basics I call the pre-season. We've met you, we haven't run labs yet. Let's get some easy little things to start to, like I said, build a habit so that when we meet for your labs, we can start to optimize it. Um so after all of that, that's when I'll actually order the labs. Once that comes back, maybe takes a week or two. That's when we'll schedule this 90-minute follow-up, and then that's really the deep dive, right? We'll go over each marker. I'm actually learning to skip over some things.

Kate:

Yes.

Mitchell:

Yeah, because what happens, what used to happen.

Kate:

So overwhelming. I don't I'm interested in health, and I still don't need to hear about a hundred markers, exactly what every single thing means. Yeah, I will give you the access to read about that for the people who do want to know about every single marker, but we've really tried to make that 90-minute visit more of like the big picture.

Mitchell:

Yeah, and it's a deep dive, but sometimes, you know, for years I would think I was doing the patient a service and explain every single thing, including normal markers, because I thought this is your data, I want you to know it. But we all leave feeling so tired, and like, what did the person get from that, right? But my goal is to connect start to connect these systems together, these 12 systems in your body, and then we'll have a conversation about if I believe that we need to do additional testing. We might run a mold test, we might do a gut zoomer, we might have you test your house for mold, we might do a nasal microbiome test. I don't know, right? But after we get this huge blood panel back, we start to connect a bunch of dots, and then what I always hear is holy crap, nobody's ever even explained this to me before, and people get pretty excited.

Kate:

Mm-hmm. After that, follow-ups. This is the hardest question for me to answer on a discovery call when I don't know anything about your history because it's different for every person. But the one thing I can say is that they happen when they need to happen. It's usually more often at the start, so it might be every four to six weeks. Our goal is always to taper those and expand the distance between appointments as things stabilize because we don't want you to depend on us. We want you to learn, educate yourself, be empowered with your own health.

Mitchell:

And it's a fun relationship we end up getting with most people where we won't see them for six or nine or twelve months, and then we'll get an email. Hey, I got this going on, and let's jump right back in. Like, I really appreciate the relationships that we build with these individuals who are really, you know, taking their choices and their health seriously. Um, we also have some special tracks, right? A lot of uh one of our new the last couple years passions is working with couples that are navigating fertility, right? For those people, we'll typically have them each fill out their own intake and then do a combined 90-minute visit together. Um, so this bypasses the new client process. Um, we'll look at each person's biology and shared lifestyle, and then labs are individual, but this plan is totally a team effort.

Kate:

The other common question and or alternate track is when someone comes in with a lot of lab data, we meet them where they are. If it is comprehensive enough, we don't need to redo everything, we'll use what's useful, refine from there.

Mitchell:

Right. We're not we're not trying to start from zero with these people, right? We're just trying to help them connect dots and get moving. Yep.

Kate:

Alright, what's your next bullet point?

Mitchell:

I wrote our team dynamic. All right. Okay, because people do often ask like how we work together. I truly it's a yin and yang. Or a yin and yang. Yan, yin and yang. Um, I think in data numbers and patterns, you know, I I can remember a lab value from a few months ago, but and this just recently happened what I'm gonna say. But I will forget that I already told you to do LH test strips to track your menstrual cycles.

Kate:

Yep. You got the details. I'm the big picture brain. I remember what's going on in your life, your stressors, the details that kind of tie it all together. You see the systems, you see I see the person living in the system.

Mitchell:

I like that. Yeah, that's actually really well said. Yeah, it's kind of funny how our brains are so different but collaborative. Um, I think it's a really I think we balance each other well. You know, I'm really diving into the biochem, and then you'll be like, okay, but how are they sleeping? Is this realistic? You're a robot, Mitchell. Not everyone's gonna follow each of these little things. So I would say that balance is literally the heart of our brand. There's this clinical understanding balanced with a lot of humanity.

Kate:

Yeah, we've tried to separate ourselves and see patients individually, and we just don't get the same outcomes. I I really think it is part of our magic that we're in the room together with the patient, getting both of those perspectives.

Mitchell:

And obviously, it's hard for us to scale that. Of course, but we don't want to, exactly, and we've had that, you know, and the impact I think is so much greater when we can both be there, and sometimes it's mostly me talking, but it's the organization and the follow-up that's really key. Wow.

Kate:

You might have heard that that nice cheat.

Mitchell:

They were cheering for you. Yeah, that was a good I'm not sure if any of you can hear it, but there's a chili cook-off going on outside and it's loud. Um, I'd say our culture here is pretty energetic and collaborative. Um, I'm not gonna hand you orders and send you away, you know, we'll build this together with you. I'll tell you what we see, and then I'll honestly I'll talk through options. We can kind of decide together which direction to go next. And if you want more clarity, I'm gonna give it to you. But I believe that this is us working together against your problems, it's not us against you, right? It's us with you against your problems. And I always say this I want this for you so badly, but I cannot want it for you more than you want it for yourself. And if you want it for yourself and you're willing to make the change with the support we provide, that's where the real sauce is made.

Kate:

I like it. So if you were referred by a friend, give them a thank you. I think that kind of trust means everything. You can always learn more about what we do, how we do it, through our website and work really hard on that. No pressure. I really again try to outline everything you need to know without a discovery call. A real process that helps you feel better and stay that way.

Mitchell:

Right, and I I hope that today kind of gave you a better picture of what it's like to work with us ready. Really, maybe a little more hope to you know, rem remind yourself you're not broken, you're a work in progress. Um, I believe you're just ready for a new way of working with your body.

Kate:

All right, so we'll see you soon. Hopefully, with your intake form filled out.

Mitchell:

Yeah. Yeah, do that beforehand. Thank you.

Kate:

For more about what we do at the facility, check out our website at www.thefacility denver.com. But you can also follow us on Instagram at the facility Denver for extra tips and behind the scenes fun and updates on new episodes. Thanks for listening now. Go facilitate your own health, and we'll see you next time.