The Second Annual Summit is Here – 348

In today's episode, John provides an overview of this year's Summit designed to make your clinical practice great or move on to a better alternative.

With a lineup of expert speakers and a comprehensive agenda, the Summit aims to equip attendees with actionable strategies for improving job satisfaction and exploring nonclinical opportunities.

The second annual Nonclinical Career Summit runs this week. It’s not entirely nonclinical in its scope, however. We have several presentations about starting and running a cash-based private practice. It features twelve experts who share inspirational messages and valuable know-how live over three nights.

It's called Clinical Practice: Make It Great or Move On

And beyond building your cash-based practice, our speakers will show you how to create an asset that can be sold later. Other experts will discuss MedSpas, Infusion Lounges, and other cash-only businesses, using Real Estate to diversify your income and assets, and several nonclinical side gigs including Expert Witness and Medical-Legal Prelitigation Consulting, Medical Affairs Regulatory Consulting, and remote SSDI Application Reviewer.

To learn more check it out at nonclinicalcareersummit.com. Remember that there is NO cost to attend the live event. And if you can’t participate in the Summit, you can purchase the All Access Pass videos (only $39 until April 16, 2024, when the price increases to $79).

Our Episode Sponsor

Dr. Debra Blaine is a physician like many of you, and her greatest challenge was fear. The whole concept of leaving clinical medicine was terrifying. But she is so much happier now as a professional writer and a coach. According to Debra, “It’s like someone turned the oxygen back on.”

If fear is part of your struggle, too, she would like to help you push through those emotional barriers to go after the life you really want. Click this link to schedule a free chat.

Or check out her website at allthingswriting.com/resilience-coaching.

Trends in Addressing Physician Burnout

Physicians have faced increasing stress and burnout in recent years due to corporate employment structures in the healthcare industry. There are several basic approaches to preventing these common consequences of clinical practice.

1. Aggressive Contract Negotiation: Physicians are placing a greater emphasis on negotiating employment contracts to safeguard against burnout inherent in corporate settings. While not discussed extensively in the summit, this strategy is crucial for those considering employment.
2. Identifying Root Causes of Dissatisfaction: Physicians are focusing on identifying and addressing the underlying causes of dissatisfaction, whether it's related to the nature of their vocation, organizational policies, or interpersonal dynamics. Analyzing these factors allows for targeted solutions to alleviate stress and improve job satisfaction.

Highlights of the NonClinical Career Summit

The Nonclinical Career Summit starting on April 16th features a lineup of expert speakers covering various aspects of nonclinical career options for physicians. Here's a sneak peek at what attendees can expect:

1. Speaker Sessions Overview: The Summit will host twelve live presentations, spanning topics from evaluating the need to leave clinical medicine to exploring diverse career paths outside traditional practice settings. Each session offers actionable insights and practical advice tailored to physicians and other clinicians seeking alternative career paths.
2. Logistics and Registration Details: The Summit will run over three consecutive evenings, starting on April 16th, with sessions starting at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. Live attendance is free, but registration is required to access the sessions. Attendees can opt for the All Access Pass for $39, providing access to session recordings and bonuses.

Summary

This week's podcast previews the 2nd Annual Nonclinical Summit featuring 12 expert speakers addressing ways to create a clinical practice outside of the corporate style of healthcare and nonclinical career options. Attendees are encouraged to register early to secure their spot and gain access to valuable resources aimed at supporting career transitions and enhancing job satisfaction.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode. 

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

• Reserve Your Free Spot at the 2024 Nonclinical Career Summit
• Purchase Your All Action Pass Videos and Bonuses from the 2024 Summit
• Information about the Nonclinical Career Summit
• Dr. Debra Blaine's Coaching Services

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Episode 348 Transcript

Over the past few years, I've noticed that there is a backlash to the increasing stress and burnout in physicians resulting from employment by large corporations. It seems like the burnout's getting worse and it's related to being employed, losing their autonomy, and really working in that sort of healthcare industrial complex, seeing as many patients as you can in every hour. So in response to that, I think physicians have begun to implement various strategies to prevent or address the burnout, the stress, and the dissatisfaction that's coming.

So these are some of the four trends that I have seen. It's not everything, but I see these as something that's getting more and more common. So first is a bigger emphasis on aggressively negotiating employment contracts.

After all, if you understand that employment leads to dissatisfaction and burnout, and maybe if you've been through it once already, to some extent, you should be able to address the cause of that burnout by building safeguards into your contract. We won't be addressing that in this summit, but it is something I've noticed, and you can take a listen to my interview with Ethan Encana, who's an MBA slash JD, which was posted in February 13th of this year. So if you listen to that, we'll be talking a lot about trying to protect yourself from the things that cause your burnout in your contracts, if you decide to go with the employment route.

Now let's move on to the next one, which is more in keeping with what I want to talk about today. And that is a big thing that physicians are focusing on now, and people are teaching about is finding, identifying, and somehow preventing the root causes of your dissatisfaction and addressing it in new ways. So is it your vocation itself? Is it the practice of medicine? Or is it the organization you're working for and their policies and procedures? Maybe they don't staff properly.

Is it the boss that you report to that's causing your stress and anxiety? Sometimes a fierce conversation can solve the problem. Sometimes moving to a different clinic or hospital will work, but you need to spend the time really analyzing what's, what, what it is about the work that's making things worse. And is it something that you can resolve either in the current situation or at a future one? So that's something we don't talk a lot about on the podcast, although I have had one of our summit speakers, Dyke Drummond, on the podcast to talk about that, but that was several years ago.

Number three is the physicians are implementing new or updated practice models that put more control in the physician's hands. Things such as direct primary care, concierge medicine, and other forms of cash only medical businesses. And this can solve the problem in two ways.

Number one, a lot of times doing that requires you to be in your own practice. So you're starting your own business. So you're not working for someone.

Doesn't mean it's not busy. Doesn't mean it's not challenging, but now you have that autonomy and you're in control. And the other reason is that it's oftentimes the insurance companies, which are driving this whole approach to medicine, where you've got to see as many patients as possible, because they have certain schedules, payment schedules that are difficult to, you know, earn a living on.

And a lot of the drive to see a lot of patients is because of either Medicare and counting it worked RVUs or trying to see so many patients an hour. And that can be overcome by starting your own business and taking cash. And you figure it out in that setting.

Since you don't have to hire two or three people per physician to do the billing, you can cut costs in that way and you can generate income. So it's another thing that I see growing in the past two or three to five years, even. And then the other one is just finding a part-time job.

It's something you can do on the side because you can then either cut your clinical back to part-time also. And then you get to do two different types of jobs. One, a clinical, one, a non-clinical.

You can find, you know, you feel like you're seeing a little more variety of things. You have better hourly compensation sometimes with the non-clinical side, especially those we're going to be teaching at the summit. And again, if it involves starting something like either a practice that just doesn't bill insurance or a med spa or an infusion lounge or a weight loss clinic, you're still at the end of that able to sell it.

And that's a big asset that can really be a big chunk of your retirement and really builds to what I would call it through that process, some career diversity. The other thing that's nice about doing something like one of these side gigs or side jobs is that they can grow to be a little more part of your week as you retire from clinical, let's say, as you get older. The other is it's protecting you so that if your clinical job, which may depend on employment by a hospital or part of a group, that would be protected.

That gives you that leverage, that independence that you otherwise wouldn't have if someone decides to fire you. Okay. So that's why, because of those last three issues that I've been noticing, Tom and I both, that's why we're calling this year's summit clinical practice, make it great or move on.

So there are ways to improve your practice as it is, where it is, or ways to improve it by moving and doing other things. And there are ways to make it better by splitting it with another non-clinical career. And so that's what we're talking about at the summit this year.

And I think it's very apropos. And the tagline is recognize dysfunction, fix it and protect yourself or seek better opportunities. So you can see, as I go through what we're covering during the summit, it kind of brings all of those in and those kinds of terms will probably make better sense to you.

So let's get into the specifics of this year's summit. Last year, we were, just like last year's summit, we're holding it on three consecutive evenings, starting the day after this episode, day or two after this episode is released. I might be releasing it a little early to give people a chance to go through this before the summit actually starts.

And we're doing it that way in the evenings live to enable as many clinicians to attend the free event. So as many people can come for free, making it because we know that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evenings are the best time. If we do it during the day or on a weekend, people usually cannot even come for one or two of the hours of presentations.

But by doing it in evenings and doing it live at night, people can carve out some time and maybe at least watch one or two or three of the sessions each night. Now it starts on April 16th at 7 p.m. Eastern time with four live presentations at the top of each hour. They'll end 50 minutes later, followed by a 10-minute break.

And each presentation includes a live Q&A during the last 10 or 15 minutes. It continues on Wednesday, April 17th and Thursday, April 18th, obviously each night starting again at 7 p.m. Eastern. We're holding it on a typical Zoom meeting platform that most of you are very familiar with.

Questions will be submitted using the chat. It could get a little bit confusing if you got a we're going to use the chat and either myself or Tom Davis will curate the questions. You know, sometimes we get two or three that are very much similar and we'll kind of bunch those together.

But that way we can spend 10 minutes at least getting, you know, answers to really the burning questions that come up during the presentation. I think I mentioned earlier, live attendance is absolutely free, but you have to register in advance to attend. That's the only way we can get you the link to attend.

So you just sign up on the link that I'll give you in a minute. And once you're registered, you can come and attend as many or as few sessions as you like. To save your spot, you're encouraged to register using the link that one of our speakers may have sent you.

You know, you might be watching this, but maybe you're already a student of Dr. Drummond's or Dr. Unachukwu or anybody that's helping us here, which I'll be going through in a minute. And you definitely can use their link and then they get credit. If it's easier or if you don't have any link from anybody else, then you should just go to nonclinicalcareersummit.com and you'll be given an option to sign up for the live free event.

And that's also the same link for purchasing the All Access Pass, because we understand that not everybody can attend all the live sessions. So we're making the recordings available for a very low price. That's just $39.

And given all the work that goes into putting this together, that's pretty darn reasonable. Now it does increase on the day that the summit starts. On Thursday morning, the price goes up to $79.

I'm sorry, not Thursday morning, on Tuesday morning, when the summit is starting later that day. But in the morning, it jumps to $79. That's on April 16th.

So if you want to get that really best price, you should sign up for the All Access Pass by Monday, April 15th. And again, it's $39. So you have to get that registration in by midnight on that date.

And again, it's also available at nonclinicalcareersummit.com or by using any speakers affiliate link if they're sending those out to you. All right, well, let's get into the details about the speakers and the lectures. Basically, like I said, we have four presentations per evening.

They're all live except one is being recorded ahead of time because the speaker is actually not available during the summit. But we didn't want to not include him in this thing. So let's just start with the first one.

And I'm going to say that these are not in the order in which they're being presented, but kind of in the order that they flow in my mind in terms of addressing the main thing we're trying to do for the summit. So for example, Dyke Drummond, Dr. Dyke Drummond, very well known. HappyMD is what he's known for.

He's got a podcast. He's been doing this a long time. He's coached thousands of physicians.

And he's going to be speaking on Tuesday night, the first night. And he's going to be answering this question. Do you really need to leave clinical medicine or is it just the job? And the official title, is it just a shit job or boss you want to escape? So really, it's not necessarily clinical medicine or clinical nursing or other clinical specialties that you're working in.

It's oftentimes other things that lead to the dissatisfaction and the burnout, the anxiety, things like that. So he's going to take that question head on. And how do you determine if this is really you should leave medicine or whether you should stick with it, but resolve the problem in a variety of ways.

And some of the ways he's going to talk about is just how you take control of what you're doing, listing the alternative practice models that might solve the problem. And if it is time to leave, let's put out that ideal job description process. So you can assess when you're going somewhere else, is it likely to be a better situation? So the next speaker I want to talk about is Mike Wu Ming, a very good friend of my podcast and myself, and he's written a book.

And he's going to build on what Dyke is telling us from the standpoint of what his experience has been with owning cash-based medical clinics. Okay, so it's still a practice. It's a medical clinic.

And he just describes sort of the mindset changes you have to go through to make this happen. He'll list the four or five financial levels of a physician, what that means, what it means to be a CEO, not only of your business, but of your life. He'll talk about ways to provide medical services outside the insurance industrial complex, if you want to call it that.

Let's see, he'll compare different types of cash-based medical clinics and where he sees future growth. All right, the third one, again, an expert on business in general, Dr. Una, Dr. Nneka Unachukwu. She goes by Dr. Una.

She has one or two podcasts. She's coaching a lot of physicians, and she's got many courses. And she's an expert and does a lot of speaking about creating a successful business.

In her case, I think is a good mix of people she's worked with who have created healthcare businesses, not necessarily a medical practice. Some have created different medical practices. And so she's going to talk about the business practices you must adopt to be successful, to get into a little bit about the importance of branding and marketing.

And again, she likes to focus, and I think she'll touch on this as well, how to build a practice or a business or both that has value and then eventually sell that business for cash out at the end, which again, I've mentioned earlier, is a great way to help segue into your retirement. And I've got just a hint of this because I'm currently in the process of helping my wife sell her own business, which she's been running for 15 years. And so we're going to just find out what it's worth at this point.

And it wasn't really something that we dwelled on up until the last couple of years. And I guess I'd mentioned now that if you do build a business of any sort, you should really always try to think of the eventual selling of that business because we all eventually go away. And even if it means turning it over to a partner in a medical practice, how does it happen? What's the value? Thinking about those things.

So those are the kinds of things that Dr. Una are going to be talking about. Then to kind of round that out and from another perspective, Joe McMenamin, who just was on my podcast, I think last week, but yeah, and he's going to be talking about corporate entities, meaning, you know, LLCs, corporations, things, how to create a legal situation for your business that makes it safe, protects you financially, keeps the tax concerns in mind. He's also going to touch a little bit on contract negotiations or starting a new business, other things to consider besides just the corporate structure.

And he'll be comparing those different legal entities that can help make your business successful. So the next is we're going to get even right into the nitty gritty of some of these cash-based businesses. See now a med spa, many physicians are familiar with, I wouldn't call that a medical practice.

And I don't think you need a license to run a med spa, although it helps if you're a medical director, if you're doing procedures that obviously are licensed and you have insurance for that. Now practice insurance, but she's going to talk about this. I believe she owned her med spa for 15 years.

She started it from the ground up. She grew it, she marketed it, she branded it and she sold it. And they happened not too long ago.

And she actually was able to segue into staying on as a part-time medical director. And so it really worked out well. She's very happy with how things went.

And again, I don't think she was thinking about the sale of it when she started it, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, but it worked out well for her. So she's going to share some of her experiences with that. Next two guests, our speakers are Jennifer Allen and Kimberly Lowe.

Now they're actually each doing an individual presentation because Jennifer is a physician and Kim is a nurse. They're going to discuss their particular experiences and reasons for going into starting an infusion lounge or an infusion center. And both of them will spend a little bit of time talking about what the heck is an infusion lounge.

And it turns out it can be a lot of different things. And let's see for Jennifer, she's going to be focusing too on the basic services they usually provide and how hers is different and who's sort of best qualified, or let's say has the best background and personality to do something like this. And a little bit about the first three steps, prepare to open your own infusion lounge if you decide to do that.

Now during Kim's session, and Jennifer's I think is on the first day, Kim's is on the third day. Again, she's going to tell you why she thinks it's a great investment and describe how the partnership model, you know, is working for them, for her in particular. She's going to hopefully mention some of the other businesses that nurses might be able to get into in healthcare that, you know, not everything is open to a nurse, you know, medical practice per se isn't.

But even in some places as an NP or an APN, you can do something like that. But she's going to talk about, you know, nurses and kind of side businesses that they might be doing that are similar to what she's doing. And she might end there with three mistakes that you should avoid when starting an infusion lounge.

Well, that brings us up to Paul Hercock. He's been on the podcast twice. He's from the UK.

And he created, well, he has a business that uses medical regulatory consultants or medical affairs, regulatory consultants to help meet the needs of the MDR regulations, medical device regulations in the UK and in the EU. Paul is a physician and he's been working in this field for a long time. And so he started hiring people to do this for him, for his business, which is called Mantra Systems, I believe, Mantra Systems.

And then because he was having difficulty finding people, he created a program to teach people how to become medical regulatory affairs consultants. So that's what he's talking about. And I think it's going to be very interesting.

You'll be working remotely for companies that are mostly in the UK and the EU, but you can work from the United States. In fact, we have a lot of people that contact me that are from the EU. You know, they maybe have traveled, they've immigrated to Europe and then they decided to come to the US and they may have a degree from somewhere in Europe, UK, France, you name it.

And there's no reason why they can't continue to do work back there remotely because things are just so easy to do in that way these days. And in fact, Paul told me that they often look to hire American physicians to do this because they have a lot more experience in dealing with the FDA. The MDR regulations are actually relatively new in Europe and the UK.

So that's going to be an interesting one. Very useful, very practical. Then Dr. Armin Feldman is going to come on.

He's been on the podcast a couple of times and he's going to tell us all about medical legal pre-litigation, pre-trial consulting. And I've discussed this before, but it's an awesome side hustle. Don't have to be licensed to do it, but you definitely have to have a medical background.

And he's going to explain exactly how that works, why there's a growing need for the service and how to get the necessary skills to do it. That brings us to Gretchen Green, who's pretty well known for teaching hundreds of physicians, how to become expert witness consultants. She's run her course nine or 10 times.

And so she's going to give us a quick overview of how to become an expert witness, how to build the business side of that, what to do, what not to do, what it entails. And so this is going to be really interesting and an overview for what she does. And then the last one is Tom Davis, known to many of you, I hope, as my past business partner in Newscript, which we've closed down back a few months ago.

But he's here helping with the summit. And he's been involved with companies that provide social security disability reviewers. And it's something that I didn't quite understand or wasn't well aware of.

I'm definitely aware of an independent medical examiner, but there are also other layers of the process of becoming, let's say, qualified for disability payments from social security. And it's a very niche area, but you can definitely get a remote position as a social security disability application reviewer. And it really piqued my interest.

I want to learn more about that. And so this is something that almost any physician can do. I believe they need to be licensed to start out, but I'm not sure you have to remain licensed.

And there are full-time jobs available as well as some part-time jobs, from what I hear. So I'm really interested in hearing Tom describe exactly what that entails and who's qualified and how we would apply for that. And then finally, did I say finally with Tom? There is one more, and it's kind of the icing on the cake.

And it's a little different, but we thought it would be nice to have Dr. Pranay Parikh talk about real estate and how it can make physicians' lives better. So we're not talking about becoming a full-time real estate investor or manager, but as I spoke about earlier, when you can build different sources of income, different sources of assets over time, then why not do that and add that to your portfolio of income streams? And so we thought, well, it's not a clinical type of thing. It's something many physicians are interested in.

So he is going to be talking about real estate. He spent, I don't know, the last five or 10 years in real estate. He actually has a real estate company that he's partnered with.

He's worked with others that you have heard of on the physician side of things. And there's so many different ways of investing in real estate. We thought, okay, Pranay, come on this summit and talk about how a side hustle in real estate can bring emotional and financial rewards, list the benefits and challenges of investing in real estate and describe, we're going to have him describe the three most popular approaches to investing in real estate.

That wraps it up. That covers the 12 lectures that we're bringing during the summit. I'm really looking forward to learning from all of our speakers.

They'll be sharing their wisdom. You'll be able to follow up with them later if you want to. Some of them are going to probably be promoting the summit with us.

Some of them are going to be providing their own bonuses. So if you are already following some of them or on their email list, watch out for their emails because they will be helping to promote it. So even if you're using the free version, if you register through them, you can get any bonus they might be providing as being part of this.

Our team is really excited to bring you this year's summit. We're doing our very best to bring you actionable advice that will help you to improve your current situation, establish your own practice or healthcare business, or create a lucrative side gig so that you can maintain your autonomy, improve your income and satisfaction and support your transition when you withdraw from clinical practice. So there's a lot of benefits to this year's summit.

Sign up for free right now or purchase your all access pass by going to nonclinicalcareersummit.com. The day that this is being released, the all action pass still only costs $39. And I think it'll be that way for another day or two. But if you're listening to this later, you'll have missed that $39.

So on Tuesday, April 16, the price will jump up to $79. Still a very reasonable price if you need to get the recordings. And then after that, when the summit's done, they'll actually jump up in price again.

But for right now, if you want to get in early, go to nonclinicalcareersummit.com. And to make things easier for you, instead of remembering that link, you can find the show notes and some other links by going to nonclinicalphysicians.com/make-your-clinical-practice-great.

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The post Make Your Clinical Practice Great or Move On appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.

Interview with Dr. Jennifer Allen and Kimberly Lowe – 346

In today's episode, Dr. Jennifer Allen and Kimberly Lowe describe how they grew their Infusion Lounge business together.

Dr. Allen and Kim Lowe were both fed up with conventional approaches to patient care. And they found that they shared a vision for a more upbeat joyful atmosphere. They describe their innovative approach to healthcare delivery, combining facets of direct primary care (DPC) and integrative medicine. Together, they discuss the evolution of their Infusion Center, The Well, highlighting its diverse services, including IV infusions, hormone therapy, and aesthetic procedures.

Our Show Sponsor

We're proud to have the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA Program, offered by the Haslam College of Business, as the sponsor of this podcast.

The UT PEMBA is the longest-running, and most highly respected physician-only MBA in the country. It has over 700 graduates. And, the program only takes one year to complete. 

By joining the UT Physician Executive MBA, you will develop the business and management skills you need to find a career that you love. To find out more, contact Dr. Kate Atchley’s office at (865) 974-6526 or go to nonclinicalphysicians.com/physicianmba.

In only 2 weeks from today, the second annual Nonclinical Career Summit will be starting. It’s not entirely nonclinical in its scope, however. We have several presentations about starting and running a private practice free of insurance companies.

It's called Clinical Practice: Make It Great or Move On

And beyond building your cash-based practice, our speakers will show you how to create an asset that can be sold later. Other experts will discuss MedSpas, Infusion Lounges, and other cash-only businesses, using Real Estate to diversify your income and assets, and several nonclinical side gigs including Expert Witness and Medical-Legal Prelitigation Consulting, Medical Affairs Regulatory Consulting, and remote SSDI Application Reviewer.

To learn more check it out at nonclinicalcareersummit.com. Remember that there is NO cost to attend the live event. And if you can’t attend all or part of the Summit, you can purchase the All Access Pass videos for only $39.

Our Episode Sponsor

Dr. Debra Blaine is a physician like many of you, and her greatest challenge was fear. The whole concept of leaving clinical medicine was terrifying. But she is so much happier now as a professional writer and a coach. According to Debra, “It’s like someone turned the oxygen back on.”

If fear is part of your struggle, too, she would like to help you push through those emotional barriers to go after the life you really want. Click this link to schedule a free chat.

Or check out her website at allthingswriting.com/resilience-coaching.

Dr. Jennifer Allen's Journey to Direct Primary Care

Dr. Jennifer Allen shares her unique career trajectory, from nurse to family physician and eventually transitioning to direct primary care (DPC). She recounts the challenges of traditional healthcare and the liberating experience of offering membership-based primary care outside the constraints of insurance.

In her candid discussion, Dr. Allen highlights the pivotal moments that led her to embrace DPC, emphasizing the benefits of alternative healthcare models for physicians and patients.

The Evolution of The Well: A Nurse-Physician Partnership

Kim and Jennifer discuss the inception and growth of The Well, an integrative health practice offering services like IV infusions, hormone therapy, and aesthetic procedures. They detail the journey from conception to expansion, reflecting on the challenges and rewards of their collaboration.

The duo shares insights into their holistic approach to healthcare delivery, emphasizing personalized care, patient education, and the impact of integrative medicine on their rural community.

Navigating Challenges in an Infusion Lounge

Our guests discuss the challenges they faced in establishing The Well, reflecting on legal considerations, business aspects, and the treatments available through integrative medicine. They share their strategies for fostering growth, emphasizing the importance of flexibility and focusing on patient-centered care.

Summary

Dr. Jennifer Allen and Kim Lowe shed light on their innovative approach to healthcare. For those intrigued by their integrative healthcare services, they direct readers to The Well's website. This platform showcases their range of offerings, including IV infusions, hormone therapy, and aesthetic procedures.

Additionally, for individuals seeking an example of a DPC practice, Dr. Allen points to New Freedom Family Medicine's website. Listeners are encouraged to reach out to 636-629-8444 for inquiries about The Well and 573-271-2927 for New Freedom Family Medicine.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode. 

EXCLUSIVE: Get a daily dose of inspiration, information, news, training opportunities, and amusing stories by CLICKING HERE.

Links for Today's Episode:

• The Well Infusion Lounge Website
• Dr. Allen's Practice Website
• The Well Infusion Lounge Facebook Page
• How to Start and Grow a Profitable Cash Based Medical Practice – 293
• Reserve Your Free Spot at the 2024 Nonclinical Career Summit
• Dr. Debra Blaine's Coaching Services

Download This Episode:

Right Click Here and “Save As” to download this podcast episode to your computer.

Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton

Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Episode 346 Transcript

Why an Infusion Lounge May Be the Best New Thing

Interview with Dr. Jennifer Allen and Kim Lowe

JOHN: Today's guests have not been on the podcast before, but they are both speakers at the upcoming summit that I mentioned at the introduction of this episode today. And I thought it would be helpful to bring them on, introduce them to you and hear about what they're up to, give you a little groundwork for the summit. And especially I'm really happy to have them here because I've been fascinated by healthcare professionals who have found new ways to deliver care or deliver healthcare in new ways that does not involve insurance companies.

So there are different ways of doing that. We're going to learn a bit about that today. So with that, I would like to welcome Dr. Jennifer Allen and Ms. Kimberly Lowe. Welcome to the podcast.

DR. ALLEN: Hi, thanks for having us.

JOHN: This is going to be fun. I'm going to learn a lot because this is one area where I think I've had one guest that talked about DPC about two years ago and other associated sort of cash-based practices. So we're going to learn a lot today.

So the first thing I'll ask you both is to take turns and tell us about each of your backgrounds, your training, and maybe a little bit about your work history, and then we'll get into how you got together.

DR. ALLEN: Okay. Well, I'll go first. So I'm Jennifer Allen.

I'm a family physician board certified. I started as a nurse back in the early nineties. Life sort of intervened.

I was going to wash you with the idea of going to medical school, and I sort of had a midlife crisis at 20 and was like, no, I don't want to do that. So I left school for a year, did a few things. When I was ready to come back, I just, I graduated with my degree and I didn't know what I wanted to do.

So I did medical research. Then I was cooling my heels and was bored and still didn't want to go to medical school at that time. So I became a nurse and that was great.

I was a nurse for about nine years and then I became a nurse practitioner. I did that for nine years. And then an amazing thing happened that would be a topic, I guess, for another time.

I was given a gift to go to medical school. And so a patient of mine really wanted me to be a doctor. And she said, if I would go back, she would pay for it.

So, so I did. And, and then I did my residency at Mercy Family Medicine in St. Louis and went back into hospital-based practice after that. I hated it.

I just, I could, I love my patients, but I couldn't deal with the mess that that is. And so I had learned about direct primary care along the way, which is, membership-based practice. We don't bill any insurance.

Our patients join our practice as members and pay a monthly membership fee and get basically all the primary care I can give them. Kind of like Netflix, you know, you pay your bill, you rent movies and, you know, you don't have to pay at the time of service. So that experience got me out of the system.

There's a lot of healthcare knowledge that we are not exposed to when we are in the box of traditional Western healthcare that is controlled by the powers that be. And so in that knowledge gathering, I, I learned about other things like IV nutrition and hormone therapy and things like that. And then I met Kim and we had some similar ideas.

And so we joined a partnership and that's where the well came from.

KIM LOWE: So mine's not nearly as exciting. I was a nurse. I've been an RN now for, I guess, oh, going on 16 years.

I graduated first with my associate's degree in nursing, went straight into the workforce at the hospital. I started out in labor and delivery, newborn care, had worked at some big hospitals. I worked at smaller hospitals.

I decided to go back and get my bachelor's degree in nursing in 2015. I too, like I said, have the whole experience, the hospital experience. I love my job.

I love my patients, but the bureaucracy of it all is just a little too much. So I ended up going to work for an integrative medical physician down in St. Louis. And it was a fantastic time in my life because I learned so much.

And he also, he wasn't necessarily direct primary care but he had the same fashion of ideas of how we do things here. So we do the IVs and the hormones and also the direct primary care portion of it, where you come in for regular clinical visits. So I learned a lot there and just, you know, it's an hour commute back and forth.

And I got tired of that life. I did, during COVID, work for a very short amount of time just prior to COVID, I should say, starting. I worked for the insurance company as a case manager because I thought that would be a great way to work at home and to help raise my kids and things as they got older.

Not ideal. So the company was great. I mean, they cared for me as an employee, the benefits were great, but it was just very difficult with the position that I was put in, knowing the things that I knew with integrative care and there was a different world out there.

I started seeing Dr. Allen, I think it was actually in COVID, probably 2020, as a patient of hers. And I wanted to get out of the world of doing insurance and case management and all of that stuff. And I came to her with this idea and I said, hey, I have all this unused, untapped potential and skill.

How would you feel about opening up an infusion lounge? Let's do IVs. Let's do some things.

Let's, you know, get this kind of show on the road for this side, which has been great. I mean, we've gotten some major expansion, I think here, and we've just grown together kind of as business partners, like learning new things. I help her out in the clinic sometimes when she needs, she helps over here.

Like we just kind of scratch each other's back. So it works really well for us all, but that's my background. Not as exciting, but it's just a lot.

JOHN: No, it's good. I mean, it's, you know, we all have different stories. And so, so you were both, you know, working in different ways.

And so it sounds like, Kim, you kind of were the one that said, well, maybe we could do something together where we can expand and both benefit from that. So what was it, was it complicated creating this at the beginning, even from just a legal standpoint? I assume, you know, that your partners in this, in a business sense, as well as in, you know, just socially and so forth.

DR. ALLEN: Yeah. So we actually, I was looking into IV infusion. One of my nurses in our Herman location was talking about doing some IV infusions in our Herman office, and I knew it was a great idea, but I didn't have the, the free time, essentially, to be able to build that by myself.

And it wasn't, I mean, it was literally like a month later, Kim came to me and I was like, you know, we've been considering this. So, so she really was the physical energy that was able to come in and, you know, put the paperwork together and, you know, the literal physical plant, if you will, of it. We just formed an LLC 50-50 partnership and pretty easy, opened our doors.

KIM LOWE: So the moon, the sun, and the stars aligned like all at the right time for this to happen, because it just, it was meant to be, it just was a meant to be practice and things just worked out how they were supposed to.

JOHN: All right. Well, one of the questions, you know, I, I'm kind of, when we were talking and, and even in the summit, you know, I keep throwing this term around, you know, infusion lounge, infusion center. And I understand that you're, the well does a lot of different things and maybe even shouldn't be pigeonholed.

And I understand things like, you know, aesthetic services and med spa type services. I mean, a lot of these clinics have different mixes of what they do. So tell us like what you do, what the technical definition of an infusion lounge is and anything else you want to tell me about the actual business and how, how you take care of people.

KIM LOWE: So I think it's, it's kind of sprouted more from the initial idea was of course the IVs, right? And so as time went on, you know, you start getting to know more things, you see more things, you research more things. Integrative medicine is one of those things that's forever expanding and there's always new things out there that's better and more healthier.

And we actually after, I would say, probably a year of doing IVs and things like that, we were approached by a rep for hormone therapy replacement. And at first we weren't necessarily cool on the idea. I'm like, I don't know, this is somewhat new.

I had heard of it before. I'd never actually done the pellets myself, but at the integrated medical center where I worked, they did those. And I really kind of pushed.

I was like, I think we should, you know, maybe look at this, right? So we got some books, we got ideas. They offered to do pellets for us and give us the information and send us to all these locations to go to watch these things and talk to the actual patients that have gotten them placed before.

And the more we knew about it, the more research we ended up landing on, it probably took, I don't know, three or four months before we were really like, yeah, let's do this.

DR. ALLEN: And so go ahead. Sorry. That's okay.

I mean, again, I, in my separate journey as the DPC doctor, I was looking for new ways to help my patients be healthier. I'm not a box checker. I don't, I don't like a lot of big pharma kind of medications.

And so I was coming on this information on my own in my other practice with nutrition and hormone replacement therapy. And so I was already learning about it. And literally the rep came in the door one day and was like, Hey, what do you think about pellets?

And so the, you know, you either love pellets or you don't, there's a, we live in a very, um, delineated, you know, culture and hormones are not bad. And, but unfortunately the last generation of us as healthcare providers have been educated that they are bad because of bad science and bad research. And that, that stuff gets perpetuated.

And until you delve in on your own and start learning about these things, we just don't know, you know, we're, we have these preconceived notions. And so I was gaining this knowledge. And again, Marla walked through the door and I was like, you know, let me look at this because it's, it's just a different vehicle for the same kind of hormone replacement as patches, creams, and pills that everybody is okay with.

So once, once I realized that it was just a different vehicle and it's not scary and there is a lot of good science behind it. Um, I was like, yeah, let's try this.

KIM LOWE: And so I would say it's, it's probably a different topic for another day, but, and maybe even in the summit, we can talk about this, but hormones are one of those things that I think are absolutely life changing for people. I mean, it is, it literally been a life changing thing in our practice. And, you know, just to see people come in and actually tell you that they feel better.

We're able to get people off of medications that they've been on for years for anxiety and statins and all of these things that have all these eroding side effects to your body later on in life, all in place of a bio-identical hormone pellet. And so to me, it gives you some really warm and fuzzy feelings that we're actually doing good for people out there.

JOHN: Can you give me a one example, just a type of person, client, patient, if you call them in terms of with the implants that what would be like their, the problem that they have, you identify it, how do you identify it? And then, um, what was the impact of, you know, using the implants?

DR. ALLEN: Well, so for a lot of women who are going through menopause, I see it as a continuum. You'll have people who have symptoms early on with the, the loss of testosterone that, that starts actually in our early thirties, women have testosterone. That's the first thing.

Oh, really? Yes. Women have testosterone and it's a very important hormone for us.

And when, when you're coming into your forties, you start to, you start to get the brain fog, you start to get anxiety, you start to get depression and, you know, nobody has a, um, venlafaxine deficiency. Nobody has a Prozac deficiency, right? So, um, when you start looking at those things and how people are interacting in their interpersonal relationships, they're tired, they have no libido, sex doesn't feel good anymore, things like that.

That patient, if you could get somebody to open up, they come in and they just say, I don't feel well. And so you have to sort of peel off the layers and figure out what's going on. And then you approach the subject of hormone replacement.

And I've had women tell me, you gave me my life back and tears streaming down their face. So it's so rewarding to see that.

JOHN: All right. Well, the next question is just kind of a follow-up on sort of the business aspects and just the lifestyle. It's just, you've been doing this, I think three or four years.

And so just kind of, other than that story, which is a very positive one, like, just give me a, what your sense is you're feeling about how it's been going. And do you really think looking back now that it's definitely been something that you're glad you got into?

KIM LOWE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we laugh now because we were at another location last year, roughly about this time, and it was an 800 square foot clinic. It was tiny.

We were on top of each other. The amount of people that we were seeing was steadily climbing, you know, every day we were seeing more and more. And so we had expanded now to our new location, which is fantastic.

It's 3000 square feet. The regenerative medicine side, the well side is on one side. And then we have the primary clinic on the other side with a conjoined waiting room.

So our patients feel like they have access to both places. The amount of awareness I think has really skyrocketed. And to be honest, you know, the best way that we get patients is word of mouth.

People are really happy with our services. We're a small town, I would say we're rural still. We're not a big town.

We're, you know, we have, we don't have a Chick-fil-A if that tells you anything. So we're not that big. We would still have a rural population and our Hermann office is very rural.

But I would say our, our clientele is just continually going uphill because people are so happy with the services. They come out, they feel better. They don't feel like every time they walk in here, they're just wrote another prescription.

JOHN: Now you've expanded the services even beyond what you've mentioned so far, right? I mean, it seems like there's new things. They probably aren't maybe, you know, 30% of your activities, but what, what other things are you doing besides what we've already talked about?

DR. ALLEN: So we have some radio frequency devices. We do aesthetic procedures like wrinkle reduction, skin tightening, body contouring. We have a cryotherapy machine.

Stress incontinence. That's huge for women.

JOHN: So now if I think about like what would be checking my boxes, it'd be something that, you know, I enjoy doing making a decent income. My patients are happy and I don't, I might be busy, but I'm, you know, I'm happy to do the work because it's, it's part of a mission. So that's what I'm kind of hearing from you that it's kind of checking all those boxes.

DR. ALLEN: Yeah. From, from my point of view, because I have both responsibilities, I mean, I, I work more than the average person who's probably watching this podcast would like to work, but from on the well side of it, it's not something that I have to do on Saturdays and Sundays or at night. And, and that's really, you know, that's really nice.

Now on the direct primary care side, I work a lot, but some of that is me. I'm kind of a workaholic, but I am getting better at boundaries. And if you just teach people, you know, Hey, I am a human being and I deserve my Saturday and Sunday, then they're okay with that.

And if they're not, then they can find somebody else. So.

JOHN: Yeah. And that reminds me when we, when we're finished and when I post this, I'll put links to everything, you know, about the well as of course, but then I'll also put links about your practice, you know, just, you never know. It might be some physicians that maybe don't even live too far from you that might want to look at, you know, what you're doing and maybe call with a few questions or send some patients over.

But, uh, you know, I, I, I've found that even physicians who are busy, if they're doing things, they love, they actually don't have burnout. I mean, they might be tired, but they're not fried the way, you know, it was back in, you know, the corporate style of medicine that most of us physicians and nurses at least learned in our training and, and dealt with. So it sounds like you'd agree with that.

DR. ALLEN: Absolutely. Yeah. Everything about it is different.

KIM LOWE: Yeah.

DR. ALLEN: The documentation is different. The requirements, the environment's just different.

KIM LOWE: The interaction with patients. I mean, just the, the doctor nurse, everything about it is completely different than an intense setting where you feel like you're constantly under a pressure cooker to do more, excel more, be better, take more patients, like all of these things where you don't, you don't have time to actually sit and talk and get to know your patient and build a rapport with your patient. And in the end, that's how you start to peel back the layers is to, to have them feel comfortable enough to talk to you because they are feeling better.

Then you really start getting to the core of a lot of the problems. Right.

JOHN: And the model that you're using with a, you know, a partnership between a physician and nurse that seems to be working out well also. Right. Because a lot of the delivery requires, you know, someone in nursing, obviously that really knows what they're doing and, you know, the physician can deal with the things that require that license.

But it makes sense to me that that would, that partnership would work out.

DR. ALLEN: Yeah, we do things. I mean, a lot of what she does in the clinic is delegated by protocol. You know, so there's established steps, but you know, she's a bachelor's prepared nurse with a lot of experience, so she can use her clinical judgment and problem solve.

And she knows her limitations and she calls me if she needs recommendations or advice.

JOHN: Yeah. Excellent. Well, go ahead and give us the links, the URL or the phone numbers, anything you want to share with anyone who might want to contact you about The Well.

KIM LOWE: So the website is thewelliv.com. And then our phone number is 636-629-8444. And we're responsive to either call or text, so we welcome either.

JOHN: All right. And so some of my listeners might want to see, you know, an example of direct primary care. So what's the website for your practice?

DR. ALLEN: It's newfreedomfamilymed.com. And our phone number is 573-271-2927.

JOHN: Okay, great. Well, we're going to get into a lot more detail during the summit. In fact, I've split this couple up for the summit, Tom Davis and I, because we want to get the perspective, you know, individually from the nurse and the physician, you know, but I think there's just so much interest in doing things like this that are novel and not your run of the mill type of practice.

And, you know, a lot of us are saying we need more individual, you know, family physicians and internists and others who are going into practice outside of the big corporate style of medicine and healthcare. So this is a really good example. So I'm really happy you were able to join me today as guests.

DR. ALLEN: Thank you. Well, thanks for having us. We, I'm very passionate about it.

And I really think that direct primary care could save our healthcare system and keep practicing physicians practicing instead of retiring early, you know, because they can't do it anymore.

JOHN: I think I have to, I might put you on the spot right now and tell you that I'm going to definitely invite you to come back and just talk about that topic sometime as someone who's been living it. And so I just throw that out there. So listeners keep that in mind.

If you want to learn about that, we'll get Dr. Allen back here sometime to talk about her practice in more detail. All right. Any last words of advice for our listeners who might be frustrated, upset, burned out, any of the above, and they're just thinking about maybe just leaving medicine completely or nursing for that matter.

Any advice?

KIM LOWE: I mean, I was there once. I mean, I thought for sure. I'm like, I'm going to go be a veterinarian or something.

But I was there. All I can say is I, I prayed on it. I thought about it.

I, I found somebody who I knew I could trust. I mean, I think, I mean, kind of the same thing. You just see the burnout was high enough.

We just, we wanted something different. We wanted more.

DR. ALLEN: I think you keep it simple. You think of an idea of something, you know, that makes sense to you and then just put one foot in front of the other and see if you can make it happen. It's scary when you keep it in here, right?

Down, look around other people.

KIM LOWE: I mean, we are more, I have people all the time that ask me, how do you do this? And I'm like, well, it's, it's simple. It's really not that hard, but if you ever want help by all means, let me know.

I don't mind giving you a hand up on something information you need to get started, or you have the idea, you have the practice, but you're looking to expand on stuff. And we do that quite a bit. I think we have a couple of practitioners that come to us and Hey, we're trying to start IVs.

Can you help us like figure out where we need to go and what we need to do? So, I mean, I just one physician, one nurse helping each other, I think is fantastic. It works out really well.

Just be willing to help.

JOHN: Yeah. I think when you're in it, you can't even see the light, you know, that there's an option. And then once you actually break through that and you start doing it, it's amazing.

It's not like easy. It's kind of simple in a sense, there's just steps you have to do and it takes work, but I think you're a good example of that making it work. Okay.

Well, thank you so much. I, with that, I am going to say goodbye and thanks again for being here.

DR. ALLEN: John, thanks for having us.

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The post Why an Infusion Lounge May Be the Best New Thing appeared first on NonClinical Physicians.