From Patient to Pioneer 7/10- Why Concierge? Fixing a Broken System

Welcome back! Over the last decade, I've realized something frustrating: you can't truly fix chronic health issues in a standard clinic model. Today, I'm opening up about why I’m transitioning to a Private Membership Clinic, and why teaching you to fish is my ultimate goal."

• The Problem with the Current Model: Conventional models, and even some functional medicine clinics, don't allow doctors the time to sit with patients, look at complex labs and genetics, and find the root cause.
• The Value of Skin in the Game: Free massages versus charging $20. When things are free, people no-show, but when they have financial skin in the game, they actually show up, commit, and get better.
• Teaching You to Fish: My desire is to stop just handing out supplements. I want to educate patients on why their bodies react the way they do, so you can navigate your own health.
• Exclusivity for Better Care: Annual Private memberships limits the patient count to 50 people. This ensures your doctor (me) has the time, energy, and private access to act as your true partner and health coach.

"I want to be the coach alongside the doctor for you. So, what do these memberships actually look like? In our next two episodes, we are going to break down the exact tiers so you can see where you fit."

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the learning corner. I'm Dr. Nicole and I will be your host for today. I've been having microphone issues and all that stuff, so hopefully this all stays recorded and goes through, you know, the right channels here. Come on, microphone work. I don't know what's happening. Anyways, on to our episode number seven. Why concierge fixing a broken system? Okay, welcome back. Over the last decade, I have realized something very frustrating and personal to me. It you can't fix chronic health issues in a standard clinic model. So today I'm gonna talk about why I've transitioned and I am transitioning to a private annual membership clinic, and why I'm teaching you to fish, and why that's my goal for you. When we talk about the current health model or the conventional model, you look at algorithms. I did a paper in grad school on this, and I combed through a lot of research. And basically, what I came to find out is conventional medicine was never programmed to have any preventative care plans inside of it. And what I mean by that is conventional medicine is something that if you need treatment, if you need surgery, if you need medication for a short term, you need treatment, you have a disease and you need help urgently, this is where the conventional model shines. And I still to this day think it should shine in that area, and that is another conversation, but that's how it was built. That is how conventional medicine and the model it is built on was built. You have a hundred patients, and let's say one out of a hundred of them every six months is gonna need some type of surgery, one out of a hundred is gonna need um topical creams, one out of a hundred, it's got a rhythm, an algorithm, a statistical amount of patients that will be um on a certain medication, need a certain medication, cost a certain much or a certain amount, that will be the driver in in the conventional model. And that proves each one of us paying X amount is going to be sufficient to have profit for that insurance carrier, to pay the doctors, to pay whoever needs to get paid, and cover everybody on the plan. Unfortunately, they're trying to mix preventative care into the conventional algorithms, and you can see how that's going to be an issue. So when you try to have a square peg and put it in a round hole, it just doesn't work. Preventative medicine has never been able to be on a large scale, and in my opinion, it shouldn't be. People who want to take care of themselves, it is cheaper and more efficient if you do it on your own and you pay cash. Now, I love HSAs or flex spending accounts, FSAs. I love those. The idea of them are great, the function of them are great. That is a good way to utilize your money for prevention. So that's just kind of a little bit about the background of why they're set up certain ways. Um, we have gone into in different podcasts about um all of this. So if you're looking for a deep dive into how to be paid, um, how to how to pay for prevention medicine or like functional medicine using your HSA and getting high deductible insurance instead of just a copay with a premium and why that might benefit you, and some people it doesn't. So you have to look into that. But I did a podcast earlier on that, so please go through my channel and look for that. Um, but basically, when we have this current model, the conventional model and even functional medicine clinics, some of them, don't allow doctors the time to sit with patients. You're a number, right? You look at them and you say, Oh, that's great. Uh next, I don't have the time. But here I have figured out when you spend more time, you really learn the nuances of every person you contact. You might not gather the information unless you have the time together. And the difference of that is going to be finding the diagnosis, finding the treatment, finding how to prevent further issues, finding the lifestyle that fits, and not. So looking at complex labs, looking through your genetics, finding the root cause, micronutrient deficiencies, those things, not only the face-to-face interview style meetings that we have, and just in conversation, observing and learning who you are, but on the back end, as a practitioner, I spent hours and hours and hours connecting dots, ruling things out, spending the time like going over my head, the conversations we had that day, um, the notes that I took because I noticed that even though you say you don't have tremors, you actually do have a light tremor, and it's only in movement. And I notice that with you because I'm sitting with you. Or you might clear your throat throat a lot and say you don't have allergies, but I notice you do have a lot of phlegm. Is it inflammation? Is it allergies? What is that? And so these things that I get to spend time with you and learn about are not just throw it to the wind and ooh, I like spending time. I do like spending time with you, and I think you're important. I go, but these things are the most important ways to get to the bottom, get to the root issues, get to your roots, and go, hmm, you might say that you do drink enough water, but you're not. Or wow, your electrolytes are really off. We need to add them to your water, your salt sweater, you know, all these things. So that's where the current model right now is going to fail a hundred percent of the time. Um, but if there's the other caveat. So the doctor, me, I have a lot of skin in the game. I am invested with every one of my patients. Um, I like to spend an exorbitant amount of time at the beginning and during care to really gather the information needed to get you where you need to be and find the answers for you. You're a puzzle and put puzzle pieces together. I need time. But the issue sometimes then, let's talk about the patient. So, me as a patient back then, a lot of times I'd go, man, I want to feel better. But paying that amount of money to get the treatment, uh, I gotta really think about that. Is it worth it? I know they say that I'm gonna get better, but can I commit to that? Can I pay that amount of money? Will I pay that amount of money? Because think about it this way. Okay, back in the day when I first started doing massage, and I was like, gung-ho, I needed patience. I'm gonna help the world, I'm gonna change everybody, right? And what happens? So I say, free massage, free massage, here you go, free massage, and you know what happened? Those free massages people scheduled and they're like, it's free. I have no skin in the game, I can cancel, I'm not showing up. And guess what? They wouldn't. I had so much no-shows, and they they had no commitment, right? They didn't, they're like, whatever, it's free. There's no value to the practitioner, there's no value to me. So I thought about it and I changed it and I said, hmm, what if I charge$20? Would that change something? So now I charge$20 and said, Hey, if you come in, I will give you a$20 massage. And I started handing out$20 massages. And you know what? Most people showed up, very few canceled. They're like, wow, so I'm gonna pay you$20 and I get a massage. You're a legit business, you're really good. Oh, I'm coming back. And then they would also tip a ton on that. What I'm saying is this when I got into chiropractic, I I tried similar things, like, hey, you know, I'll give you a free blah blah blah if you blah blah blah, pay this, right? And and the hard psyche of it for a patient, when I was a patient, and I still am for other practitioners. Um, the the sticky part is, well, if they don't value their time, I'm not gonna value their time. But there's a fine line because some people charge an arm and a leg for those services, and guess what? Oh, fear of missing out, right? FOMO. I better get in and pay$400 for a massage. It's gonna be the best massage in the whole world. And you get out going, man, they just rub lotion on me. And it was a 50-minute massage, not an hour. What did I just pay for? I don't know. And I gave them an$80 tip. Oof, oh, it's$500. Whereas going to the free one, you don't value it at all. So there's a fine line in tuning where is the value for the patient? Where is the skin in the game for the patient? And that's why for me, if I did an annual membership clinic, I could pour my heart and soul in learning about each patient of mine. I could do the best job in the world, and you, the patient, will value it. You guys will be like, wow, this is a really good deal. I didn't realize I could get a personal doctor for this amount of money. I mean, plans start at$2,000. That's cheap, right? Your HSA pays for it, but it's something to get you excited about learning to advocate on your own. So teaching you to fish is my goal. I want to see people get better and stay better, not get hooked on supplements or drugs, not get hooked on a plan that, like, oh my gosh, you're gonna have to be on here forever. Do I want you to stay with me? Yeah, but my goal is this. What if you came in with three chronic diseases? And each year you left with one less chronic disease. And by the time three years came, you knew how to fish, you knew what your body was doing, you're healthy. All three chronic diseases have slowly gone away or quickly gone away, however, they leave. And then you're like, hey, I just want to stay on your basic tier because if I need you, I want to have one foot in the door, or if I need a massage, I want to have one foot in the door. That's why I created it. I want to teach you how does your body work? What questions do I have to ask myself? What things do I have to do every day for me and my genetics and my specific profiles? And that is the value that I want to give to every patient. So I had to price it to make sure I'm not giving it for free, right? You gotta have skin in the game. And I do price it quite low compared to my colleagues. And compared to what you get, the value of what you get for the price, you can't touch that, what I've found in this area. I don't know in other parts of the world, um, but here in Southwest Florida, it's really hard to even touch that price. And I think, do I double it because I want people to have FOMO? And it's like, I don't know, I'm not sure. So my prices will eventually go up because my time is valuable. Um, but I want to show people here's how you fish, here's how you clean a fish, here's what you do with them, right? Not just, oh, let's jump from supplement to supplement or let you know, whatever that is with um treatment. I want it truly to be prevention. So teaching you to fish is very important. Okay, I only see 50 people as members. So right now, as I go into these memberships, I am seeing the general public. And each one of you, as you sign on, as we get to 50, uh, 50 is my max number. And once that hits, I'm only gonna see you 50 patients in that time period for all services. So I strictly do limits because of exclude exclusivity. I want you to have access to me. I want you to be able to have the doctor who has time and energy and access to give that to you as a partner and a coach. That part is so important. When we look at um the conventional model, you see so many doctors are burned out. When you look at the concierge medical model, and that's MDs, they're still taking five to six hundred patients in some clinics, most of them around two to three hundred. That's still a lot, but they're only giving out their phone number and it's ten grand for the year, six grand to twenty grand somewhere in there. And when you do that, then you have to pay on top of that. And I don't know, I don't know what exactly you get for that, but a lot of people that I've been interviewing, they've said, well, if I could just have a doctor who did everything, and that's why I'm like, Yep. And I I need people to commit because if you don't commit to your own health, how can a practitioner help you? How can I help you if you're not committed? Right? And so that's where the partnership and health coaching come in. I come in and you come in and we talk about everything. Here's how we set it up, here's what's happening, here's how we do that, here's the process, here's what your body does. I am your coach and your partner, and that in itself, doing um, so I like to call it the trio. So we do um biochemical, right? So we do like the genetics and the micro uh nutrient testing, and we look at the skeletal system and the nervous system between chiropractic and chiropractic neurology, and then we look at the muscles, right? So I've been doing soft tissue uh manipulation since I was 19. I mean, I'm not gonna age myself, but I'm old now, right? So you look at soft tissue, you look at structure, and then you look at the biochemistry. Those are the three areas that I am refined in, and that's where I'm like, I have everything needed to help each one of these patients get to their goals, whichever area, it's usually a combination of three. We are three-part beings and get you to that. So I want to be that coach alongside and the doctor for you, and that's why memberships actually work and that's what they look like. So when we go into the next few episodes, I want to keep these short so you can hear my heart in them. If I had a coach and a doctor to do that, I probably would have paid. If I had an education system and it all lined up and I knew exactly what I was getting into, other than three adjustments a week for, you know, for a year, and that's great, and it's like that's really healthy. But there's more. I needed more. I needed a coach, I needed somebody who could speak to me, what my body was doing, why it was doing it, have a plan, and be educated around these areas. You can't just be educated with chiropractic anymore. You have to look why is the biochemistry not keeping that adjustment there? You can't adjust away a metabolic disease or condition. But adjustments will help. You see the difference. So I'm gonna go over um what these memberships actually look like in the next two episodes. I'm gonna break down the tiers so you can see where you fit in. I'm gonna speak to all this so you can actually know what I'm talking about. And I hope that this kind of resonates with you. So it's building up to um the membership and why. Why a private annual membership, why that's the new way, why it's important, who you want to go with. Doesn't have to be me, but I definitely have things set up for patients who have struggles in all of these areas or one of these areas, pinpointing them and getting you back to health. So this is Dr. Nicole. It's been real. I hope that there's no more microphone issues. Maybe the other microphone was just dead and it didn't tell me. But have a great day and whatever you're doing and live life to the fullest. Again, this is Dr. Nicole, and I am signing off.