Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins

E64: Where The Undiagnosed Find Answers: AtoneMD's Mission

• Nick George • Season 1 • Episode 64

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What happens when a physician becomes the patient? Dr. Judy Toney's journey offers a powerful glimpse into functional medicine's transformative potential. After leaving traditional family practice in 2015, frustrated by the constraints of insurance requirements, Dr. Toney established AtoneMD (formerly Ageless Health and Aesthetics) to create a new kind of healthcare experience.

Dr. Toney's practice has evolved significantly since its inception. Originally balancing aesthetic treatments with bioidentical hormone therapy, she now devotes approximately 75% of her practice to comprehensive functional medicine—addressing gut health, adrenal function, immune conditions, and more. What drives her is a fundamental belief that medicine should identify root causes rather than merely mask symptoms with medications.

The most compelling aspect of Dr. Toney's story is her current personal battle with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), which has her "literally treating on myself right now everything that I've been treating everyone else for for years." This firsthand experience has deepened her empathy and understanding, allowing her to connect with patients on a profound level. "I can say 'me too,'" she explains, highlighting how her own health journey has strengthened her commitment to patient-centered care.

Unlike many medical practices that prioritize volume and efficiency, AtoneMD offers unhurried appointments in a comfortable setting where patients truly feel heard. "We're not going to throw meds at you," Dr. Toney promises. Instead, she creates space for patients to relax, share their stories, and actively participate in their healing journeys. This approach has attracted countless individuals who have exhausted conventional medical options without finding relief or answers.

Ready to experience a different approach to healthcare? Visit www.atonemd.com or call 720-789-3931 to learn how Dr. Toney's functional medicine practice might help you find answers where others have failed.

Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Nick George.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a functional medicine company that also has holistic products? One might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, dr Judy Toney, with AtoneMD. Dr Toney, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

Great, how are you?

Speaker 2:

Awesome. We're excited to learn all about you and your practice. Tell us about your company.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. So yeah, AtoneMD used to be Ageless Health and Aesthetics. It was born in 2015 when I left traditional family practice because I literally could not take the burden of insurance anymore. So my philosophy on medicine has always been you have to do the inside, and then it's really nice to do the outside too, because it just feels like a match. So when I first created the company, I made it a 50-50 of doing aesthetic treatments like lasers and Botox and fillers and then doing I primarily specialized in bioidentical hormone therapy when I very first started out.

Speaker 3:

As the company grew and matured a little bit, I started realizing that functional medicine to me and True Health Inside was a lot more than just balancing your hormones. So I really branched out into more looking at the gut and your adrenal glands and immune conditions and a bunch of different sort of functional medicine things that I started to incorporate in. So now the way my practice looks is it's about 25% aesthetics. I'm an artist. I love to do that stuff still, but I do a lot more of the internal kind of medical, functional medicine things on a daily basis.

Speaker 2:

Did you know you were going to do this your whole life? Or how did you get into the business?

Speaker 3:

Good question. So I always knew that I wanted to be a doctor. My dad was a doctor, he was an eye surgeon, so I always loved medicine. I really took a circuitous path to get here. I started college with my pre-med and at the time I was raised in the Southeast. I moved out to the West and saw the mountains and the rocks and the trails and I was like I am not doing school right now, I can't do it. So I actually took off three years and went and traveled and climbed and biked and hiked and got that all out of my system and then went to med school.

Speaker 3:

When I finished med school I actually my passion at the time was urgent care. I actually thought I wanted to be an ER doctor Until I really started working with a lot of different ages. I went into family medicine pretty much classically at Boulder Community Hospital, which is where I first worked. Still love Boulder Community Hospital, by the way. They're great. But, as I said, insurance just started to suck the life out of me. So I started knowing that I wanted to open my own practice and I myself had been doing a lot of functional medicine stuff without really knowing it was functional medicine and that was just kind of a natural transition for me when I decided to, at my husband's dismay, jump out of being an employed physician into owning my own business in 2015.

Speaker 2:

What are some myths or misconceptions in your specific niche of the industry?

Speaker 3:

Good question. So I think a big misconception that's born recently is that doctors don't care anymore and that everything is insurance driven and we're out for the money and we just want to prescribe medications. That's not what functional medicine is about at all. Functional medicine is rooted in finding causes for whatever is ailing you or whatever makes you feel just not 100% are good. And so functional medicine and functional medicine docs and I would encompass naturopaths and holistic doctors of any kind we really like to sit down, we like to get to know people, we get to know the whole person spiritual, emotional, social history, family, everything and we really dive deep with that patient in the hopes of getting that patient fixed, not just throwing a medication at someone, not just, you know, making a buck and moving on to the next person. So I think in my opinion, that's probably the biggest myth that people have about at least medicine right now.

Speaker 2:

Who are your target customers and do they know that you're their target customers and how are you attracting them now?

Speaker 3:

So by target customers. That changes all the time, to be honest with you, and unbeknownst and completely unplanned by me. After COVID hit, I really transitioned over into a lot more for lack of a better term, maybe fringe medicine. I started working with some groups who were treating COVID in more natural and alternative ways, and I started working a lot more with cancer patients and alternative therapies. I started treating a lot of autoimmune disorders which were coming as a result of COVID, and so my target customers really is just about anyone of any age that has.

Speaker 3:

The people I see the most are the people that have been through the whole medical system and have gotten no answers, have gotten no better, may have gotten worse, are thrown on medications and are just frustrated. That's who my target customers are. I have grown grassroots since day one. I have never found a solid way to advertise and market except for my customers. I get referrals all the time and our business has always grown primarily through referrals. So I have a website. It's pretty decent, it gives a lot of information, but we don't market a whole lot. I really do just get friends and neighbors and family and contacts and work associates that come to see me from my existing clients.

Speaker 2:

We know that marketing is the heart of every business. I did some research. You have all five-star reviews, at least where I found your website and not on your website. It was like from Google or something. But have you ever thought about doing your own podcast with some of your success stories?

Speaker 3:

Funny you say that I've done little individual podcasts. Here and there I have friends who do podcasts. I've always pondered it and thought about it. I would not be averse to it at all. I love to talk. I have planned to do that many times with my own internal clients. I think for me it's just been an organization and a timing thing that's gotten in the way of me doing that. But yeah, I mean I have so much that I would love to talk about and share and just information that, whether people come to see me or not, it would help them. Just little tips for life, little life hacks, I guess.

Speaker 2:

Outside of work. What do you do for fun? You already said some of that when you were talking about the hiking and biking, but yeah, I am, so I'm still like I'm an outdoor avid fan.

Speaker 3:

I love being outside. I have gotten back into rock climbing with my son. He's a teenager now, so we have been climbing together a lot. Uh doing that. I have been a runner almost my whole life. I used to run ultras and marathons and timing wise. Now it's a. It's a good three to five, but always trail running. Outside I go rollerblading and biking and I just kayaking, stand up, paddleboarding, like anything. I'm kind of ADD, so I just I have to keep myself involved in a lot of different things, but if it's outside I'm happy. I'm rocking with that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Dr Judy, if you don't mind, we're going to switch gears and let me ask you a question about a hardship or a life challenge that you overcame and how it made you stronger. What comes to mind?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean that's a great question and I think my best answer to that is I'm still I'm still dealing with it. You know, everyone in general with the field that they choose has had some sort of experience that's either driven them into that field or really cemented the value of that field for them. And with myself right now I am going through a condition called SERS, which is chronic inflammatory response syndrome, and that happens when your immune system it's just overloaded with a bunch of things coming at you from different angles and it just completely miswires and starts misfiring and it affects everything in your life, from your mood to your sleep, to your brain capacity to, you know, your blood pressure and everything. And I'm literally treating on myself right now everything that I've been treating everyone else for for years. And it's fantastic treating on myself right now everything that I've been treating everyone else for for years and it's fantastic.

Speaker 3:

I mean it's like the movie the Doctor that we were made to watch in med school with William Hurt, and it's a fantastic movie. It's it's about walking in the shoes yourself, and so that would be for me, you know, the biggest thing that has really broken me and is rebuilding me and giving me a lot more insight and compassion for everyone that I'm working with, and it's kind of nice because I can say me too. You know, and I recommend something for someone, or you know, we're going through a. Oh God, this sucks. I'm like I know, me too. It's awful. You have to take this medication four times a day and you have to wake up at three o'clock in the morning and take this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I understand, I get it. So there's probably a lot more people than they've than even know that they're they have that condition and it's gone on undiagnosed for a long time. Um, I'm I have knowledge of of that, so I really appreciate what you do, dr Judy. Tony, please tell our listeners one thing they should absolutely remember about Atone MD, wow, okay.

Speaker 3:

So one thing I would say this is a place where you're going to get listened to. We are going to schedule you so that you have time to come in, be comfortable, relax, get a cup of coffee or water, listen to some nice music. We don't have cinder block walls. We're we're a comfortable space and we really just like people to come and put their feet up, feel comfortable and then come in ready to get better. We're not going to throw meds at you. We're not going to. You know, I accept insurance as a secondary. We help people to build insurance, but it's just going to be. It's going to be your time, not a 10 minute time that is sanctioned by an insurance company.

Speaker 2:

What are all the ways that a tone MD can be found online? How can listeners learn more about AtoneMD, and the old-fashioned way too, with a phone number?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely so. The phone number is 720-789-3931. That's online as well. We can easiest be found at wwwatonemdcom. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, so that's where it is, and I think that will take you to our website as well. Check it out. We talk a lot about the things that we do and things that we specialize in, so I think that would be my recommendation.

Speaker 2:

Well, Dr Judy, we really appreciate you being on the show and we wish you and your practice the very best moving forward thank you, nick.

Speaker 3:

I appreciate that.

Speaker 1:

I will always do my best thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpfortcollinscom. That's gnportCollinscom, or call 970-438-0825.