Latest / DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast / How Dr. Rebecca Berens Uses Referrals to Grow Her DPC Practice

Transcript

How Dr. Rebecca Berens Uses Referrals to Grow Her DPC Practice · DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast

0:00
I don't like talking about money.
0:01
I don't like to charge people for things, but like the world
0:04
doesn't work that way. And that's the thing, like I
0:06
think there is a a DPC culture of you don't need anyone, you
0:10
could do it all yourself. And I'm like, yeah, that's
0:13
actually not very effective for a long term sustainable career.
0:16
When I heard about DPC in residency and I was like Nah but
0:20
most of my new patients now are coming from referrals.
0:24
Welcome to DPC Life, the podcast where independent doctors share
0:28
real stories, bold ideas, and the freedom of doing medicine on
0:32
your own terms. I'm your host, Doctor Ann
0:36
Gonzalez, and together we'll explore the wins, the struggles,
0:40
and everything in between. Let's dive in.
0:44
My guest today is Doctor Rebecca Barons.
0:47
She is the founder and owner of Vita Family Medicine in Texas.
0:53
And thank you so much for coming on.
0:55
You've been open four or five years now, correct?
0:57
6 actually. 60 Wow. Yes.
1:00
You're a year ahead of us, so like I said, I've been kind of
1:03
watching you as you've grown. So thanks for coming on.
1:06
Now why don't we start with let us know how you got into DPC,
1:11
how you found it, and what made you switch.
1:14
Yeah, well, thanks so much for having me.
1:16
I started thinking more seriously about DPC after my son
1:20
was born. So at the time I was working, I
1:23
was residency faculty at a family medicine residency.
1:27
And I, I loved my work, but it was becoming increasingly
1:32
difficult for me to navigate to doing a good job at work and
1:37
also doing a good job at home. And prior to that, I had been at
1:40
an FQHC and and similarly loved the work, loved the patients,
1:44
love the people I worked with, but just was not sure how I was
1:47
going to manage to do that and also take care of children at
1:50
home. Just cuz emotionally you get
1:52
home and you're completely emotionally drained and there's
1:54
just not a lot of space for other things in your life.
1:58
And so anyway, after coming back after having my son, I just
2:01
started thinking about what I wanted my career and life to
2:04
look like. My family is important to me.
2:06
I wanted to make sure I was be able to be there for them.
2:08
So I was looking into what are my options for not full time
2:12
employed practice, right? And I had heard about DPC in
2:16
residency, but I didn't ever really seriously consider at
2:21
that point I was like, oh, that's interesting.
2:23
But that doesn't, that would never work for me.
2:25
But I started learning more about it from other DPC doctors
2:28
that I met through the Internet and, and it started to seem like
2:32
a more serious possibility. And so I just decided I would
2:37
give it a try. Yeah, yeah.
2:40
So you let's see, you'd been in practice for how long?
2:43
Before you started, I had been in practice about four, 3 1/2,
2:48
four years by the time I opened. Two of those years were at the
2:52
FQHC and then about a year and a half at the residency faculty
2:56
position. Yeah.
2:57
And then I opened in January of 2020.
2:59
Yeah, great timing. I know it was great timing on my
3:03
part. Who knew?
3:06
So yeah, that was the whole thing.
3:08
A lot of people opened around the same time as you and said
3:11
that they grew very steadily throughout the pandemic.
3:14
What did you experience? Yeah.
3:16
So definitely not what I was hoping for my first year.
3:19
So part of the issue is open in January and then March of 2020,
3:24
obviously everything started shutting down the same week that
3:27
my son's daycare closed for. They said they were closing for
3:30
two weeks because they had a case of COVID and they were
3:33
trying to do case control. And that same week I found out I
3:36
was pregnant. And so I, we didn't know much of
3:40
anything about COVID at that point.
3:42
And I was very concerned about being exposed, especially in my
3:47
first trimester. So and then I also didn't have
3:49
childcare. I didn't have childcare.
3:52
I was worried about sending my child back to daycare because of
3:55
course they bring home everything.
3:56
And I was like, it's a matter of time before he brings that home.
3:59
So I actually ended up from March till June pretty much just
4:04
barely working on the DPC for two hours a day while my son was
4:07
napping and doing pretty much all virtual like networking
4:12
virtual visits. I did get new patients during
4:15
that time who were looking for virtual visits cuz obviously
4:17
that was a time when that was what people were looking for.
4:19
But because I was not, I hadn't really well established myself
4:23
from a networking standpoint yet.
4:25
It, I didn't know a lot of people.
4:26
So a lot of people didn't know about me.
4:29
So I think that was definitely a limitation.
4:31
And then after my mom worked for a school district and she was
4:33
available to help with childcare.
4:35
So then I was able to start doing more and I did grow.
4:37
But then I had my daughter in November.
4:39
So then that kind of it was a, it was an up and down year, not
4:43
at all what I projected when I opened.
4:47
Well, yeah, it never follows the.
4:49
Plan. Yeah, yeah.
4:52
Well, so let's talk about this is an interesting thing.
4:56
A lot of women go into DPC for the same reasons that you did,
4:59
right? Because of the flexibility and
5:01
raising children and being there for their kids, but then still
5:05
being able to practice medicine because you can have two loves,
5:08
of course, right? Your career and of course your
5:10
family. So how did you make that work?
5:13
I mean, you started early and then you had a kid right after.
5:17
And so that's a lot. Yeah.
5:19
And it was the pandemic. Yeah, that year was just a fun
5:23
year for all of us. But yeah, I think it was
5:27
definitely a bumpier start. And I think it was frustrating
5:31
for me initially because I felt very behind cuz like you said,
5:35
there's a lot of people who opened at the same time as me
5:36
and I saw them really growing and getting hitting milestones
5:41
that I had sort of projected for myself that I was not hitting
5:43
serious. Saying it was frustrating
5:45
because you felt behind. Yeah.
5:47
So I felt behind because I was seeing everyone else that had
5:50
started around the same time I did, really growing and hitting
5:53
the milestones that I had sort of expected and projected for
5:56
myself after researching and planning for a while.
5:59
And so I felt very behind. But I think that I just had to
6:03
sort of reframe that like this is the season I'm in with maybes
6:08
and that's just how it's going to be.
6:11
And I've actually had a third child.
6:13
So I've had now 2 maternity leaves during DPC.
6:17
And yeah, I think it definitely you just figure it out.
6:22
That's what you with when you're a parent.
6:24
You just have to figure it out. And, and just, I think just
6:27
holding my trying to hold myself up to a little bit of a
6:31
different standard that I'm seeing for other people who are
6:35
in different seasons of their life.
6:36
It's just not going to be the same.
6:38
And initially that felt very like, like I was failing or I
6:41
wasn't doing it right. But then I sort of realized it's
6:43
just not going to be the same. So we just have to just do what
6:46
we need to do for where we are. Yeah, and it's very much kind of
6:51
the same thing. You've seen one DPC, you've seen
6:53
one DPC. Everyone's a little different
6:55
and we just have to give each other a grace because it is
6:58
going to be different. And like you said, the different
7:00
seasons of life. You really, you just can't give
7:04
the same thing that you can if your kids are grown and out of
7:06
the house as opposed to having two under 2.
7:09
It's way different, way different.
7:12
And so over the past several years, I think it sounds like
7:16
you've kind of shifted a little bit and where your focus is with
7:19
your practice. Can you talk about that?
7:21
Yeah, when I opened my practice, my real goal was I wanted to
7:25
just be accessible for patients who don't have otherwise access
7:29
to primary care. And I'm in the Houston area and
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we have a huge, I think it's 20% uninsured rate in Houston.
7:34
And there there's a great need and that's what I was going for.
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And you get your initial bunch of patients that come.
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And I have lots of patients that have actually been with me since
7:44
2020 with who I love. But over the years, one thing
7:47
that I think really started to begin the shift in the practice
7:50
was I have a patient that I'm referring for dietitian
7:54
services. For example, I specifically
7:57
we'll look for a dietitian that is weight neutral health at
8:01
every size aligned. That's just a philosophy that I
8:03
personally follow in my practice.
8:05
I had an eating disorder when I was in college and I was
8:07
introduced to that concept in recovery.
8:09
And it's just something that has always informed the way that I
8:11
practice. And so I was referring then my
8:14
patients who I needed dietitians, I was looking
8:16
specifically for these dietitians.
8:18
And so then these dietitians would reach out to me and say,
8:23
oh, like you're a doctor sending patients here.
8:25
That's not usually how that goes.
8:27
They're maybe getting patients through a an eating disorder
8:30
treatment recovery process or from a therapist, or it's just,
8:33
it's less common, I guess, for them to get referrals from
8:35
physicians. And so I just started meeting
8:38
all of the specialists in the Houston area who are therapists
8:43
and dietitians that treat patients who are recovering from
8:45
disordered eating or eating disorders.
8:47
And just in building those relationships, they were seeing
8:51
me as a safe person to send their patients to.
8:54
And I really love working with those patients because we have
8:57
very similar sort of goals and philosophies and I think they
9:00
felt heard and seen. And I felt these were people who
9:04
wanted like I felt I feel good when I'm able to do something
9:07
that's working for the patient, right?
9:09
And so it just sort of naturally shifted that I started getting
9:12
more and more patients who were specifically in recovery from
9:16
disordered eating and not all of them with like severe active
9:20
eating disorders. Most of them had a history or
9:23
something like that and were no longer actively in their eating
9:25
disorder, but just had metabolic health problems.
9:27
And they go to the regular doctor, they get a handout like
9:30
here's how to lose weight and it just floods everything back to
9:33
them. And so just being able to work
9:36
with patients in a mutually aligned philosophy that worked
9:40
for both of us. And I just started getting more
9:43
and more of these patients referred to me.
9:44
And so that's almost exclusively the patients that I see now
9:47
because I think just like I know the community in the Houston
9:51
area really, really well of therapists and dietitians and
9:53
other clinicians that treat patients recovering from eating
9:56
disorders. And so it just naturally shifted
9:59
that way over time. So there's a lot of word of
10:03
mouth and getting patients from referral sources like those
10:06
dietitians and other specialists.
10:09
Yeah, almost exclusively. Almost exclusively, Yeah.
10:11
I mean, I think, of course, like there'll be some people who
10:13
might Google and find you. And I have social media content
10:17
that people sometimes find. And after six years, my Google
10:21
SEO is pretty good. But most of my new patients now
10:25
are coming from referrals. That's fantastic.
10:28
At what point did you find that word of mouth was really driving
10:32
your new patient growth? I think it's pretty much always
10:35
driven my new patient growth, just different.
10:38
So one of the main things that I did that first year in 2020 when
10:41
I couldn't really network in the way that I wanted to because
10:44
even there were virtual networking meetings happening,
10:47
right? But I literally had for three
10:48
months, 2 hours a day that I could do anything.
10:52
So a lot of what I did was just going into neighborhood Facebook
10:55
groups, like mom groups, physicians groups, and just
10:59
responding to people's questions in a helpful way and getting to
11:03
know what people were looking for in the community and then
11:05
being able to serve in that way. And so I people got to know me
11:10
who'd never actually met me just through these groups.
11:13
I met a lot of other clinicians in there too, like physical
11:15
therapists and dietitians who are also moms in these mom
11:17
groups. And so then word of mouth built
11:20
that way sort of virtually. And then as things opened back
11:25
up again and we were able to go to more events and I would be
11:28
asked to speak maybe, or I would go to educational events that
11:33
were being held by dietitians or therapists with eating disorder
11:36
specialist group. And I would start to meet people
11:38
that way. Then it sort of shifted.
11:39
But it's pretty much always been word of mouth.
11:41
It's pretty rare that someone just randomly finds me on
11:44
Google. It happens, but it's not the
11:48
most common thing. And that's fascinating.
11:52
So the groups that you're in, I know a lot of Facebook groups,
11:55
of course, community groups like you can't just post.
11:58
And advertise. They don't like that.
12:01
So all of these posts that you're responding to were
12:04
questions, I guess from, from people saying I need a doctor or
12:08
what kinds of things were people?
12:10
Putting out yeah. So like some people would post,
12:12
sometimes it was just like mom questions and I would just post
12:17
in response. But, but you know, if it was
12:19
something where I was giving a, not medical advice, but like
12:23
advice that's informed by the fact that I'm also a doctor and
12:26
that is where I'm coming from and giving this advice.
12:28
I would mention that because especially one of the common
12:32
things was like breastfeeding questions.
12:34
So I also got my IBCLC in just the International board
12:38
certified lactation consultant certification.
12:40
I was kind of studying for that as I opened my DPC and then I
12:43
got it, I think about a year in. And so people would have
12:46
breastfeeding questions and I would answer and be like, I'm
12:48
also like, not just a random person that's telling you this.
12:51
I am a doctor and I breastfeed my kid and I, I'm an IBCLC.
12:55
And so, so people would then see that.
12:58
And then sometimes what would happen is if there was a
13:01
question that came up that was something I'd previously
13:04
responded to that was helpful, people would start tagging me to
13:08
respond. And so then I would go in and
13:12
respond. But I was never really doing any
13:14
sort of salesy messaging. For me, it was more so getting
13:17
to know who's in the community and what do people need and how
13:20
can I help? Because I just have this idea
13:22
that if you put yourself out there as helpful, you're showing
13:26
people who you are and you're, you're contributing to the
13:29
community and that will come back to you in some way.
13:31
It doesn't have to be a direct transactional relationship,
13:34
right? It's just building community and
13:37
contributing to your community. I think there's of course going
13:39
to be benefits there. So it was not actually that
13:42
often that I was saying anything about this is my practice and
13:45
this is what I do and this come see me.
13:46
I'm pretty much never doing that.
13:48
There were times where I would post if we were hosting like an
13:51
event or something. They have a marketing Monday or
13:53
whatever where you can post an event.
13:55
And a lot of times too, I would just message the admin, hey,
13:57
we're hosting this free event that people in the group might
13:59
be interested in. Is it OK if I post it?
14:01
And then that would be fine. But again, the post was like,
14:04
here's a free event to help you, not hey, come see me and pay me.
14:09
It's just it's a different, it's not a salesy way of interacting.
14:13
Right, right. So tell us more about the events
14:16
that you were doing. Yeah.
14:17
So during the pandemic, one of the things that I was actually
14:21
really focused on when I opened was breastfeeding and like
14:23
postpartum care because that I think I was personally recently
14:27
in that season and also just felt like that was a real gap in
14:32
what's available to patients because it's just, it's really
14:35
hard to find good lactation care, particularly in a medical
14:39
sense. There's lactation consultants,
14:40
of course, but if there's anything medically going on, a
14:42
lot of doctors are not very well educated or at least at that
14:44
time they were not. I think it's and improving.
14:46
But anyway, I was doing, I did some like free virtual
14:49
breastfeeding classes and I would do one a month and I just
14:52
post them in the mom groups like, hey, if anyone wants to
14:54
come and learn just the basics about breastfeeding, you can
14:57
come to this free virtual event. And I would have people come.
15:00
We posted on Eventbrite. I even had people from other
15:02
states come sometimes because of Eventbrite shows virtual events
15:06
everywhere. So like we'd have people from
15:07
other states or even other countries show up.
15:10
And it was just yeah, yeah. Because it's just Eventbrite
15:14
just like pushes out the stuff, I guess, based on the interests
15:16
of the people, right. And so, yeah, so people would
15:18
come and I would do a little maybe 30 minute presentation
15:22
about whatever the topic was, mostly breastfeeding at the
15:25
beginning, but more things as we went.
15:27
And then we'd have AQ and A at the end.
15:29
So, and then I started doing more events, particularly last
15:32
year, where I would bring in someone that I'd met who is a
15:35
specialist in some area, like a cardiologist or a dermatologist
15:38
or a physical therapist or something that had some
15:40
expertise that I don't have. And they would be able to
15:44
present something to both my patients and then anyone from
15:47
the community that wanted to come to learn about whatever
15:51
their area of expertise was. And it was great for me cuz I
15:53
got to learn from them. And then also it allowed me to
15:56
bring to my patients, my patient audience and then also just my
15:59
larger community audience, connecting them to these are
16:02
people that I know and trust and work with that can do something
16:06
for you that I can't do. So yeah, I think that's been
16:09
really helpful. And I think again, just built
16:12
the network in a very organic way.
16:14
So once you started doing these events, did you start seeing a
16:16
growth in your new patients? I mean, I don't know that I ever
16:21
directly get any patients from these events.
16:24
Maybe on occasion. We did a couple in person events
16:26
actually where people did come and we did like an in person
16:30
presentation and immediately after they would say, oh, I want
16:33
to come see you. But more so the with the virtual
16:37
events, I think it's more community building because
16:39
actually a lot of the people who attend the events are other
16:44
clinicians and just people who like maybe other therapists,
16:47
maybe they're a dietitian and they just don't have a lot of
16:50
connection to the medical community.
16:51
But they're seeing patients who have a lot of medical concerns
16:55
and questions and they don't know where to send them.
16:57
But it's not in, it's not in their scope to do anything about
17:00
it. And so for them, they like to go
17:02
and they like to learn and then be able to refer.
17:04
And so I think it actually has been more of a way of building
17:08
the referral base than anything else.
17:11
And it allows me to continuously interact with the people that
17:15
often refer to me and I get to know them really well.
17:17
They get to know me really well. And we get to see times where it
17:22
makes sense for us to share a patient like, oh, this is a
17:25
patient that you can help, so I'm going to send them to you
17:27
and vice versa. So, but it's never the intention
17:30
behind it necessarily. It just that's kind of how it
17:32
happens. And then I just think for the
17:34
community, like there's sometimes random people that I
17:37
don't know who somehow find out about the event and show up.
17:40
And whether or not they turn into a patient, I feel like they
17:43
at least got some information that might be helpful to them.
17:46
And later if they're talking to someone or if they later need
17:50
something that one of us can help with, they'll remember.
17:53
Oh yeah, they taught me this thing.
17:55
That's a person I can ask about this, right?
17:56
And so it's it's more indirect, I think.
18:00
I think it's very true, you know, like we personally in our
18:02
practice, we've gone to events before and they've been attended
18:06
well and we talked to a lot of people.
18:08
And but then when you think about what's, how do you measure
18:12
kind of the effectiveness, right?
18:15
What you've done, it's so hard because you can't just say,
18:17
well, I definitely got 2 patients from this event.
18:21
I think my thing is saying network is struggling which is
18:24
really annoying because I put my I'm on my hotspot which is
18:27
usually like. Yeah.
18:29
As I was saying, yeah, you can't really measure it because it's
18:32
kind of this web effect, right? It's this, it's a spider web
18:36
effect because these people will hear about you and then they
18:39
just remember it, like you said. And then when they meet somebody
18:42
or they meet, see a family member that, oh, you can benefit
18:45
from this kind of practice. That's that's really the true
18:48
value of these kinds of events. So I don't people sometimes feel
18:52
disappointed because I didn't get anyone, but it's every touch
18:57
point counts, even though you don't see any result
19:00
immediately. And I'm sure you've seen this
19:02
where people will come to you and say, well, I've been
19:05
watching you for a couple of years and finally decided it's
19:09
time to join your practice. That happens a lot.
19:13
So you obviously are very educated about business.
19:17
Did you have business training before or how did you learn?
19:21
No, absolutely not. And I would say when I started I
19:25
had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
19:27
And I really, I thought I had done a lot of research and I was
19:32
like, OK, I think I know what to do.
19:33
But it's just when it's in theory, it's so different than
19:37
in practice. And then yeah, I had absolutely
19:40
know what I was doing and definitely made a lot of
19:43
mistakes from a business standpoint at the beginning.
19:46
I'm inherently not a businessy kind of person.
19:49
And I don't like talking about money.
19:51
I don't like to charge people for things.
19:53
If it were up to me, I would just work and do it for free and
19:56
it would be great. But like, the world doesn't work
19:57
that way. So yeah, so I was really
20:00
struggling from that standpoint. About a year and a half in, I
20:03
think it was middle of 2021. I was like, OK, I've built some
20:07
momentum here, but I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know
20:11
how this is going to work financially.
20:14
Like I'm seeing the patients and I'm helping them, but I don't
20:17
know if this actually can work. For me and I wanted to figure
20:21
out what I was doing wrong and how I could improve that.
20:23
So I actually I ended up joining the Entre MD Business School,
20:26
which I don't know if people that are listening may or may
20:28
not have heard of that, but there's a doctor Una has a
20:30
podcast called the Entre MD podcast and it's a podcast
20:33
specifically for a physician entrepreneurs.
20:35
And then she has a business program that I decided to join
20:39
because I was like, I need help. I don't know what I'm doing
20:42
wrong, but something's not working.
20:44
And I've actually continued to be in that program since the
20:46
middle of 2021. So it's going on, what, five
20:50
years now? Is that right?
20:52
Wow. Yeah, so and.
20:54
That is an investment. It is.
20:56
It's truly an. Investment, it is a big
20:57
investment, but I think because it's a big investment, you are
21:02
very committed to getting something out of it.
21:05
Because I think there's a lot of free advice on the Internet
21:08
about TPC and you get what you pay for.
21:12
It is all I'm gonna say about that.
21:14
Because I was following a lot of free advice that I got and it
21:18
was helping in some ways, but it was really hindering me in other
21:21
ways. Cuz I think the problem is that
21:23
everyone's context is very different.
21:25
So the person giving you advice is talking about what worked for
21:29
them in their season of life, in their community and their style
21:32
of practice. And that just does not translate
21:34
to everyone. So there has to be a more like
21:37
strategic and systematic way of thinking about it where you look
21:40
at what you're actually dealing with and go from there.
21:43
And that's what I feel like I really got from that program and
21:47
just a different way of thinking.
21:49
I've also read a ton of books, like a ton of books.
21:53
I've learned from all the different books that I've read
21:55
about business and sales and networking and finance and all
22:00
of these things because they were just skills that I
22:01
absolutely did not have. And so I've, it's been like a
22:05
gradual process, but I think the biggest thing that I found
22:08
helpful was the Business School for sure.
22:11
Yeah, I am a complete Doctor Una fangirl.
22:14
I will admit she came on the podcast a couple months ago and
22:19
I was just like. Yeah, she's amazing.
22:23
She is amazing and there really is.
22:27
There's a lot of benefit to reading the books.
22:29
What are your favorite books? I'm guessing Doctor Una's but
22:32
then. Yeah, so I mean, I read Doctor
22:35
Una's books. I'd already been in the Business
22:36
School for a while, so I was like nothing was new.
22:39
But you know, I think a couple books that I think have been
22:43
stand out ones for me. One is called She Sells and that
22:49
one is excellent. It sounds like you've read it,
22:50
but particularly for women, I think it really addresses a lot
22:55
of the specific hang ups that we have around selling and around
22:59
just the way that we might have to do things differently given
23:02
our season of life that we may be in and our different
23:06
responsibilities or priorities. So that one is excellent.
23:10
And that one is by Megan Di Pietro and I'll link you.
23:12
In the notes, yeah. I couldn't remember her name, so
23:14
I was like, I don't want to butcher it.
23:16
I'm trying to think about some other really good ones that
23:20
really stuck with me. Oh, there's one called Buy Back
23:23
Your Time, which I guess I'll have you read that one.
23:27
Yeah, what is his? Name Dan Martel.
23:30
Yeah, that 1 was great. And then I'm trying to think.
23:36
And buy back your time is all about literally buying back
23:39
your. Time.
23:40
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
23:41
Again, it's a it's an investment, yeah.
23:43
But you have to look at it as far as the unbalanced, whether
23:46
you pay somebody to clean your house for $100 a week when you
23:51
take those four hours that you would have been doing it and
23:55
building your business. Yeah.
23:56
It's. Kind of or resting because
23:58
you're like exhausted. It's resting, yeah, that's true.
24:02
Or exercise. Yeah.
24:03
Like there's so many. And that's the thing like I
24:05
think there is a, a DPC culture of you don't need anyone.
24:09
You could do it all yourself. And I'm like, yeah, that's
24:11
actually not very effective for a long term sustainable career.
24:15
Like it just doesn't work. And I think especially when
24:18
you're a parent, like there's a shift when you become a parent
24:22
of having to rely on other people to help you.
24:25
Cuz you actually, you cannot parent alone, right?
24:27
You have to have help from someone, whether it's
24:31
babysitter, daycare worker, grandparents, neighbors who like
24:34
you need to rely on other people.
24:36
And it I think that is very difficult to learn.
24:41
And I think a lot of people when they're starting DPC, they're
24:43
like, I just want to do everything and this is the way
24:45
I'm going to do everything. And you just can't do
24:47
everything. You have to, you have to have
24:49
other people help you even in a micro practice, right?
24:52
You can't do everything in a micro practice.
24:55
You do need to have someone helping you with something and
24:58
maybe it's not a practice specific thing, but you have to
25:01
have help to be able to run a micro practice.
25:03
And I think that's like a misconception that I see a lot
25:06
and that I also sort of believed when I was starting, I was like,
25:10
it can just be me and I won't need to hire any staff and it'll
25:12
be great. And yeah, no, that's not how
25:14
that works. So, yeah, So those are two that
25:20
like really stick in on mine. And then I guess I'll say the
25:21
one that I'm reading now, this is actually we have a monthly
25:24
assigned book in Entrendi that is really great.
25:27
And the one we're reading now is called Influence by Robert
25:30
Cialdini. I want to say we say we're
25:33
saying that, right? And that's a really good one
25:35
just to, I mean, it's not directly marketing, but it's
25:38
just understanding the psychology of what influenced us
25:42
to make decisions. And that is applicable to
25:44
marketing, but also applicable to like even coaching and
25:48
motivating patients or working in a team.
25:51
There's so many or just in life, there's so many applications to
25:53
that. And it's been a really great
25:55
book. But those are the ones that
25:56
immediately jump out at me. I'm sure I have others.
25:59
Maybe I can define my list and send it to you after and you
26:02
could put it in the show notes or something.
26:04
Yes, yeah, I have a list on my website of favorite ones, but
26:07
when I I just read recently is it's Benjamin Hardy 10 times as
26:13
easier than. Two times, yes.
26:14
Yes, we read that one about a year and a half ago in on Term D
26:17
Yes, that one is very good. Yeah.
26:19
And again, it comes back to that.
26:21
You can't, I mean, you can do it yourself.
26:23
You're never going to get very far if you do everything by
26:26
yourself. Yeah.
26:27
And then yeah, about the 10XI guess it's really 10X.
26:31
It's easier than two X. It is really true.
26:33
But when you think about goals, it's I guess maybe you can kind
26:37
of think about, well, is 3 kids harder than two once you have
26:41
that second kid? You're yeah.
26:43
After that, they just kind of deal with themselves.
26:46
It's like it's really nice, really no big deal.
26:51
Yeah. So you mentioned also in your
26:53
Facebook groups how you would be reserving, right.
26:57
And this is a big thing also. It's very Doctor Anna selling is
27:01
service, right? I keep talking about how because
27:04
women and doctors, we know, we don't like to promote ourselves.
27:08
We don't like to talk about ourselves.
27:10
But if no one knows about you, you just can't get anyone to
27:13
join your practice if you don't talk about yourself.
27:15
Yeah, but I think there's a way to do it that's not just talking
27:20
about yourself. Like to me, it to me, it's
27:22
getting I'm just like a kind of like a shy, introverted person.
27:26
And so the idea of posting in Facebook groups was like very
27:31
scary to me. But I think it was a good entry
27:36
level Internet networking cuz I was like, at least no one's
27:38
looking at me, right? I can just log off.
27:40
I get scared. But so it helped me build the
27:43
muscle of just talking to people I don't know and also just being
27:48
able to recognize like, hey, I actually have something I can
27:51
offer. And I'm not doing it in a way of
27:54
I'll give this to you if you do this for me.
27:57
It's again, just like contributing to the larger
28:00
society. And that's something that
28:01
obviously now with the way our society is built, like
28:05
everything is. So the virtual space has taken a
28:08
lot away from society, like all the community meeting places and
28:12
group events in person just don't happen in the same way
28:15
that they did before. So we have to set sort of
28:17
recreate some of that in a virtual space to get that human
28:20
connection. And that's the way I see it is
28:22
like, it's just this is the way that we are doing our normal
28:26
human connectedness in this weird virtual space.
28:32
Right, right. Yeah.
28:34
So, yeah, so it's it goes both ways.
28:36
So selling a service service is also selling, but not in a
28:39
selling. Yeah, kind of way, yeah.
28:41
Yeah, well, I wanted to shift a little bit to your new podcast.
28:46
Oh yeah, yes, I'm really excited about it because honestly, I get
28:50
a lot of these same kind of questions.
28:53
Like people come up and they say, oh, I heard this on TikTok
28:56
or blah, blah, blah. What do you think?
28:57
And it does take time to to talk about these things, so I'm not
29:00
going to tell them there's. This awesome.
29:03
Well, thank you. I want you to listen to so tell
29:07
us more about the podcast and how you and Doctor Singh got
29:09
together. Yeah, so I'm so glad you said
29:11
that because that was exactly our goal in making the podcast.
29:13
So it's called the antisocial doctors.
29:15
And it's myself and Sonia Singh, who's another DPC doctor in the
29:18
Houston area. And she and I met right before
29:21
she opened her practice. I had been open almost a year, I
29:24
think, at that point. And she basically was, she was
29:27
opening very near me. And she called me and said, hey,
29:30
I'm opening near you. And I don't want us to be like
29:33
competing. I want us to like work together.
29:34
I was like, great, that's what I want too.
29:37
And so we've also both had our children together through DPC.
29:40
We've peripherally been working together.
29:42
We cover for each other when we're on vacation, on maternity
29:45
leave, all of this. So we've kind of built our
29:48
relationship over time through both being DPC doctors and moms.
29:51
But we both have, I would say Doctor Singh's niche, if
29:55
anything, is maybe more like health anxiety.
29:57
And then I have this sort of niche of disordered eating.
30:00
And there's a lot of social media that goes into to both of
30:03
those issues. Social media has a huge
30:07
influence on both of those things.
30:09
And we are also primary care doctors.
30:11
So the experience that every primary care doctor is having
30:14
now of I saw this on TikTok. What do you think?
30:16
Or oh, I'm taking the supplement because I read it does this or
30:20
like I read I shouldn't take this medicine because it has
30:23
this in this side effect. And it's social media is really
30:26
entering into the exam room and becoming, it can become a
30:30
barrier between a physicians and patients.
30:33
And of course, during COVID, a lot that happened on social
30:36
media that influenced the physician patient relationship.
30:39
And so our goal with this was really to look at what are
30:43
people hearing on social media. So each episode we cover some
30:46
sort of viral either trend or claim or something that you
30:50
might see on social media. And we break it down into what's
30:54
fact, what's not fact. You know, what is a nuanced way
30:59
of understanding this? Because a lot of what we've seen
31:03
with doctors that are on social media trying to sort of like
31:05
debunk misinformation is it's kind of snarky and rude and just
31:10
increases that division. And what, the way that we both
31:14
approach this with our patients, but also the way that we just in
31:17
general would prefer the world to be is like, hey, you know
31:20
what? If you saw this, there's a
31:23
reason that it made sense to you.
31:25
It's not because you're stupid. It's because there's a kernel of
31:27
truth in there somewhere. And there's a lot of real like
31:31
fear or uncertainty or there's something that made this
31:35
appealing to you. And it's because it, that's
31:37
real. It was not, it's not a bad
31:39
choice that you made. It's not because you're stupid.
31:42
It's because there's real stuff there.
31:44
And what is, what is the nuance there?
31:46
And how can we help a patient come to an informed decision
31:50
with real, factual information? And also really pointing out and
31:56
calling out specifically the flaws in the healthcare system,
32:00
the gaps in research, whatever it is that has allowed this
32:03
thing to become bigger than it probably should be based on the
32:07
facts. And so that's, that's sort of
32:09
the the approach that we take in each episode.
32:11
So the goal is that, yeah, there's an episode that you can
32:13
direct a patient to that says whatever the claim is that
32:17
they've heard, hey, there's a whole podcast episode about
32:19
this. I want you to go listen to it.
32:20
And for each episode, we have an accompanying Substack post where
32:24
we sort of summarize it. If you don't have time to sit
32:26
and listen to the whole podcast and you just want to hit the
32:28
high points. And it has little scripts at the
32:30
ends of like how you can talk about it with the patient and
32:34
from the patient to how they can look at this and say, OK, this
32:37
is what this is like a more nuanced discussion of this than
32:41
I got in my 32nd reel that I saw.
32:43
So now I understand it better and I can make a more informed
32:45
choice. That's fantastic.
32:48
I think that's going to be a big time saver for a lot of doctors
32:54
and I love the name. We were really waffling about
32:58
the name, but we're both like introverted people and we're
33:00
just like, we're not antisocial, but we're also just so, yeah.
33:06
I love that that's so. Funny.
33:07
That's great. Well, I wanted to ask you just
33:10
one last question. Someone asked me this question
33:12
yesterday and I thought that's a really good question.
33:15
So in the past six years with your practice, what have you
33:19
done that has given you the best happiness ROI, the best
33:25
happiness return on investment? I thought that's an amazing.
33:28
Question I think, I think it's a more of a mindset shift than an
33:34
action. And that's a gradual thing over
33:36
time. But like I've said this to
33:38
doctor Uno before, like I feel like the Antra MD Business
33:40
School is has done more for some aspects of my mindset than
33:43
therapy hasn't been in therapy for a million years.
33:45
And there's some things that you just don't get passed in therapy
33:49
that like when you have to start and run a business and adjust
33:54
yourself to be able to do that, you just have to make these
33:57
mindset shifts. And so it's nothing that's, it's
34:01
not like one thing that I could point to, but it's just that the
34:04
way like the I guess it's maybe self concept and what you
34:07
believe is possible for yourself and what you're capable of
34:10
starts to gradually shift and you start to see more
34:13
possibility. And then that affects the way
34:15
that you see yourself and the way you show up for as yourself
34:19
in relationships and in your social life and all of that.
34:24
Like it's just you just kind of change and like the core part of
34:28
you is still the same of course, but like any little hang ups
34:31
that you have start to fall away.
34:34
So I would say that if that, I don't know, that's not really
34:37
one thing, but hopefully that answers the question.
34:41
Yeah. No, that's really important
34:42
though, because that's really key to running your business
34:46
right is because if you can't get over these kind of mindset
34:50
blocks, you're not going to get very far.
34:52
Yeah and yeah, cuz imagine yourself 10 years ago.
34:56
My gosh, yeah, yeah. It's, I mean, I mean, like I
34:59
said when I heard about DBC in residency and I was like, Nah, I
35:03
would, that would never be something I could do.
35:04
And yeah, it just it when you just have to do it and you don't
35:08
have it like now it's I'm in, I don't have a choice.
35:11
Like it's either I'm either gonna fail or I'm gonna succeed.
35:14
And if you decide you're gonna succeed, you just have to change
35:16
some things. And yeah.
35:19
It is what it is. Yeah.
35:22
Well, thank you so, so much. I'm so glad to finally get to
35:24
talk to you and hear all about your practice and what you're
35:28
doing and tell everyone you know how to find you on the Internet
35:32
and the podcast again. Yeah, absolutely.
35:34
My practice is called Vita Family Medicine and we're
35:36
located in Sugar Land, which is a just outside of Houston, TX.
35:40
Our website is Vita Family med.com.
35:42
I have my own personal social media handles which are at
35:46
Rebecca Barron's MD, which is on Instagram and TikTok.
35:49
And so I post things there relevant to the practice,
35:52
relevant to the podcast, and just educational kind of stuff
35:55
as well. And then the podcast is called
35:58
the Antisocial Doctors Podcast and you can find it on any
36:01
podcast platform. And we also have a sub stack
36:04
called the Antisocial doctors.com, no hyphen or
36:07
anything. And that will take you directly
36:09
to our sub stack and you can subscribe and then you'll get a
36:11
notification for every new episode.
36:13
And the summary that I mentioned that has sort of talking points
36:17
if you don't have time to listen to the whole podcast before you
36:19
talk about it with a patient. Fantastic.
36:22
Well, thanks again. I really appreciate it.
36:23
This has been a lot of fun and we'll post all the like the book
36:27
recommendations and all the links and everything in the show
36:30
notes, so thank. You thanks so much.
36:33
Appreciate it. All right.
36:34
Hope to see you sometime. In person, yes, I hope so.
36:37
One more thing before you go. Knowing where to find patients
36:40
is one thing, Knowing what to say when you find them is
36:43
another. If you're still in the planning
36:46
stages and you want to nail down your practice identity and
36:50
messaging before you start marketing, go to
36:54
dpcfoundations.com. Founding member price is 499 and
37:01
I would love to have you join us.
37:04
Thank you for listening to DPC Life.
37:07
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