Latest / DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast / What Does an Automated DPC Practice Actually Look Like? — Dr. Erik Petersen

Transcript

What Does an Automated DPC Practice Actually Look Like? — Dr. Erik Petersen · DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast

0:00
And the one thing that we see inside of the ER, especially
0:04
with the sick folks is either no access to primary care at all or
0:10
very poor access with limited time complicated medical
0:15
problems. But what we have really found
0:17
out is people actually love the virtual visits.
0:21
They don't want to get out. They can't get out for whatever
0:24
reason, or they're gone somewhere, and the fact that
0:27
access is there means a lot to these patients.
0:30
All about the trust you build up, and that speaks a lot to you
0:33
if you're getting to know your patients well enough where
0:35
they'll open up about their home environment.
0:38
That's an important part of medicine.
0:39
I'm Doctor Anne Gonzalez. A lot of women are opening
0:42
direct primary care practices right now, and from the outside
0:46
it looks independent and flexible.
0:49
But what I. Keep hearing privately is how
0:51
much of it they're carrying alone.
0:54
Every decision, every system, every patient situation.
0:59
There isn't really a colleague down the hall anymore.
1:02
So we're doing something a little different.
1:03
We're hosting a small in person gathering for women in DPC.
1:08
It's not lectures or conference, just conversations about how
1:13
practices actually run, what's harder than expected, and what
1:17
we have experienced. And honestly, that's also why I
1:21
built the systems I use now. Welcome to DPC Life, the podcast
1:26
where independent doctors share real stories, bold ideas, and
1:30
the freedom of doing medicine on your own terms.
1:34
I'm your host. Doctor Anne Gonzalez and
1:37
together. We'll explore the winds.
1:39
The struggles and everything in between.
1:42
Let's dive in. Let me go ahead and properly
1:46
introduce Doctor Eric Peterson of First Call DPC in Panama City
1:51
Beach, FL. And we talked just a touch about
1:54
your rebranding. But tell us how you found DPC.
1:58
How did you get into it? So my partner and I that started
2:01
this business together, we are both lifelong and full time ER
2:06
docs. So I trained in Med PEDs and he
2:08
trained in family medicine and we've been leadership role side
2:13
of the emergency department me for 15 plus years.
2:17
And he's coming up on probably 10 years of leadership
2:20
experience. And the one thing that we see
2:22
inside of the ER, especially with the sick folks, is either
2:28
no access to primary care at all or very poor access with limited
2:35
time, complicated medical problems and folks just aren't
2:38
taking very good care of which leads to them being in the
2:42
emergency department. So giving the type A personality
2:46
that are, we said, you know what, we can do this a little
2:48
bit better, but how can we do it?
2:51
We did a lot of research on what would be the best possible
2:54
situation in the area that we live, and direct primary care
2:59
was an easy answer ultimately. So you found DPC as kind of the
3:03
best solution for people who were just either they didn't
3:07
have primary care, they would wait and just get sicker and
3:10
then end up in the ER, right? That's right.
3:12
Yeah. So when did you start your DPC?
3:16
We came up with the idea in 23. We researched it for several
3:21
months and then we started the process of the actual practice,
3:26
which was 100% virtual to start virtual and in home visits to
3:31
start was February of 24. And from there we have learned a
3:36
million lessons about what DPC is, what it isn't, how to, how
3:42
to make it work. And probably the best lessons
3:45
are how not to make it work. If you want to fail we've you
3:49
could take a lot of advice from us on that too.
3:51
Actually, we talked a lot about that on the podcast is what kind
3:55
of mistakes have you made that you think I would have done that
3:58
differently? So we'll come back to that.
4:01
Yeah. A lot of people also like to
4:03
when they start thinking about DPC, they do consider doing
4:07
either a home visit only or virtual and home visit combo
4:12
like you. And are you still just home
4:16
visit virtual now or you have brick and mortar?
4:19
We still what we have found since we have moved into our
4:23
brick and mortar, it's a combination brick and mortar and
4:26
which we love kind of the hybrid version of what we do.
4:30
It's a Wellness Center. It's primary care center, It's
4:33
an urgent care center. We see primary care patients
4:36
there. We see Wellness patients there.
4:38
We do joint injections and we see urgent care patients there.
4:42
It's kind of the hub of our practices.
4:45
But what we have really found out is people actually love the
4:48
virtual visits. They don't want to get out.
4:51
They can't get out for whatever reason or they're gone
4:53
somewhere. And the fact that access is
4:56
there means a lot to these patients.
4:59
Before this was an an option, people just would miss their
5:04
appointments, wouldn't go, would get behind on their medicines,
5:06
not take their medicines, etcetera.
5:08
So I think this offers an opportunity for patients to
5:11
really feel like no matter what the situation is, they can at
5:14
the very least turn their phone on and have a virtual visit.
5:17
Right. Yes, like this week because I'm
5:20
in North Carolina and we had a lot of ice over the weekend and
5:24
it's still especially areas that are shaded.
5:28
And so and me personally, I haven't been to the office this
5:31
week yet and it's Wednesday. And so I've been able to convert
5:35
everybody to telehealth, which is wonderful.
5:38
Just like you said, either people would just not come in
5:42
when they miss their visit, or they can't come in because they
5:46
can't get there. And then it's two or three
5:48
months down the road and then now they don't have their
5:50
medicines. Yeah.
5:51
That's right. And then they end up in the ER
5:53
and and here we are kind of full circle with the way the
5:55
conversation began. Yes.
5:57
So yes, the virtual visits are great.
6:00
And when we started doing them during COVID, I really liked
6:03
them too because I could see where my patients lived, what
6:08
kind of things they have to deal with in their home, what kind of
6:11
struggles they have. And it makes, it really does
6:14
help you be that full spectrum holistic Dr. to know what's
6:20
their status at home. What does it look like?
6:23
Do they have? Do they live in a hoarder house?
6:26
For example? I've had some that I had no idea
6:29
until I started doing home visits and virtual visits.
6:32
So you just never know right when they come into your office.
6:36
Yeah. And we've gotten used to that in
6:37
the emergency department. Obviously it's not virtual, but
6:40
one of the first questions I'll always ask the paramedics is
6:44
what was their home situation like?
6:46
And it's awful. There's this, there's that,
6:49
they're hoarders, there's roaches, there's excrement,
6:52
there's all sorts of pets. So you just know that they're
6:55
behind the 8 ball and getting their care done.
6:57
And that is something that we address with case management
7:01
that's on hand in a busy emergency department.
7:04
But you're right, you can see that situation virtually if
7:08
they'll let you, if they'll open up.
7:10
And it's developing that relationship with them and the
7:13
trust with them to get them to open up enough to say, yeah, I'm
7:16
really struggling at home, don't have money, can't pay the bills.
7:20
All of these things are happening, all about the trust
7:22
you build up. And that speaks a lot to you if
7:24
you're getting to know your patients well enough where
7:26
they'll open up about their home environment.
7:28
That's an important part of medicine.
7:30
It is. And yes, I know you are doing
7:34
all kinds of interesting things and you've mentioned having
7:38
another practice in Missouri. So tell us how that came about.
7:43
Yes. I was in Missouri working in the
7:46
emergency department seeing patients, and a nurse had come
7:50
up to me and heard that I had a medical practice down in Florida
7:56
and started asking me questions about it.
7:58
And I was telling her about it and showing some excitement
8:01
around what we were trying to build.
8:04
And she says it's really not for me, but one of my really close
8:09
friends is a nurse practitioner who does not have a supervising
8:13
physician. Would you be interested in
8:15
supervising her? So that was how the conversation
8:18
started. I agreed to meet her and her
8:20
husband for coffee the next morning.
8:23
Absolutely loved her and loved her thoughts about practice, how
8:28
she approached the patient. She did a lot of Women's Health.
8:32
She did was more into the functional medicine piece that
8:36
we love. The wheels got to spinning and I
8:38
thought why would just supervise her?
8:41
Let's build something here and see if it's a plus for our
8:45
practice in Florida. We started her out the same
8:49
exact way that we started out virtual, only she had a small
8:53
panel of patients already from her previous situation.
8:57
All of those people came with her, which is a real testament
9:01
to her, which got her a good jump start.
9:03
It's a smaller town with less options as far as medical
9:08
buildings. What was appropriate.
9:10
She started out virtually. The next step for her was a
9:14
single room and a hair salon, which that's true and patients
9:19
didn't care, they just wanted to see her.
9:22
So as she was in that situation, we were working on another
9:26
building that had a reception area in a couple of exam rooms,
9:31
and we got that fixed up the way we wanted it.
9:34
And she moved into that. And now we've got that whole
9:37
area, 2 rooms, and we've got another room next door to that,
9:41
the other suite, which we do Wellness, her Wellness practice
9:45
in there. So yeah, it was a happen chance
9:48
meeting. You know, ordinarily when I'm in
9:50
the ER, kind of a big no no for us is #1 recruiting patients out
9:55
of the Ed when we're working for another hospital, say, hey, we
9:58
could do it better, come to our practice.
10:00
We don't do any of that. We don't see patients when we're
10:04
in the emergency department and we try not to have meetings or
10:07
discussions. So it was interesting that
10:09
anyone even heard me talking about it.
10:11
It was meant to happen. And we're so glad that we have
10:14
her. And now it's kind of opened our
10:16
eyes to, you know, where's next. And it's just a town that really
10:21
needs primary care. And she's doing such a good job.
10:25
And the community itself is so thankful that she is there and
10:29
more and more people are coming to her.
10:30
In fact, I think she's had a busier month with new patients
10:34
than my partner and I combined. So tells you something that
10:37
we've got, we've got to straighten up and be be nicer I
10:41
guess or something. Wow, that's wonderful.
10:43
Now, do you have a connection to Missouri that?
10:47
I went to medical school in Missouri and I went to undergrad
10:52
in Missouri. So I was in the northwest
10:55
portion of the state for many years.
10:58
I went did my residency in Texas at Texas A&M and then practice
11:02
for a number of years in East Tennessee.
11:05
Then got an opportunity in emergency medicine to come back
11:08
and manage multiple emergency departments in the city.
11:11
We came back to Kansas City and that's my kids kind of grew up
11:15
in the Kansas City area. So I've had a long standing tie
11:20
and love for the state of Missouri.
11:22
There's there's plenty of opportunity there.
11:25
I actually have obviously have my Missouri license.
11:28
So I have several DPC patients that I see 100% virtually that
11:33
live in Kansas City and they're more on our what we do men's
11:36
health and we do weight loss as part of our practice.
11:38
So most of them are former college football teammates of
11:41
mine and I take care of them on the men's health side.
11:44
As we get a little older, our testosterone goes down a bit.
11:47
So yeah, they're all perfect candidates for being a member of
11:51
our practice. So yeah.
11:53
And I do the same thing with my friends in Knoxville and in
11:56
Nashville, TN. So that is again, the beauty of
11:59
telemedicine. You can reach out and have a
12:02
broad patient base. As long as they understand that
12:05
they're, you know, if they need to be seen in person, then it's
12:09
probably not going to be me. They're going to have to find
12:11
another situation. So most of the time I haven't
12:15
had anyone yet really that's that's required that most of
12:19
them are young and healthy and just want to be healthier, which
12:21
is great. Those patients, the ones that
12:25
are out of state, are typically that way, so.
12:28
Yeah, well, so you've got licenses in how many states?
12:32
25. Wow.
12:34
So I'll tell you why and here's a, here's a feeder that really
12:39
works well to our DPC. So again, going back to our
12:43
experience in the emergency department, especially in the
12:47
Panhandle of Florida, Panama City Beach, everybody's down
12:50
there for spring break, they're down there for summer, they're
12:53
down there for fall break. And in the emergency department,
12:56
we've got all of these sick people.
12:57
And then we'll have a whole bunch of people that have a
13:02
jellyfish thing, have sunburn, have all of the ailments
13:06
associated with too much fun out in the sun.
13:11
On vacation. So we would say it feels like
13:14
we're practicing vacation medicine today.
13:17
And that was be when we would see patients that were not from
13:20
the state even and were there and got sick on vacation with
13:24
one problem or another. So we started something called
13:27
vacation medicine. And vacation medicine is a
13:30
virtual urgent care clinic that sees patients now in 25 states.
13:35
And it's really tailored towards very minor stuff, infections,
13:41
urinary tract infections, nausea, some of those kinds of
13:45
things, child with an earache, swimmer's ear, all of the basic
13:49
stuff. We started to do this only in
13:54
our area of Florida. We partnered with some rental
13:58
agencies and if people would go and rent a house for a week, the
14:02
rental company would promote us. If somebody gets sick, use these
14:05
guys that are great or whatever. That started going really well
14:09
and we thought, well, wait a minute, what?
14:11
This isn't the only place to vacation in the country.
14:14
Why not just kind of promote vacation medicine all across the
14:17
place? So we see patients in Maui, we
14:20
see patients in Florida. We have a blog right now that is
14:23
the number one foreign travelers that come to the United States
14:27
and get sick blog. So that feeds us a lot of
14:31
foreign travelers into our practice.
14:33
At the virtual urgent care practice, we see patients in
14:37
Breckenridge and Aspen and Inger, Maine, in South Carolina.
14:43
We see them really all over the place, all of the hot vacation
14:46
destinations. I know you and I talked a lot
14:49
about automation inside of your practice.
14:51
How does that work to feed and build our DPC?
14:56
Well, the automation is when we see these people, it's $100
14:59
cash. We see them, we talk to them
15:01
virtually just like we're sitting here now, get their
15:04
problem, deal with their problem in 5 minutes.
15:07
They love it. They never had to leave their
15:09
home where they're didn't have to get out, sit in the waiting
15:12
room. But immediately, a minute after
15:16
their visit, they get a text from our practice about the good
15:20
RX. So download good RX and you can
15:23
get discounted prescriptions. If you got a prescription. 24
15:27
hours later, a text comes about. How are you feeling?
15:31
Reminding them that part of their deal that they paid for
15:35
was the $100 was, hey, if you're not better, you don't pay again,
15:39
just call us and we'll, we'll take care of you for the entire
15:43
time that you're on vacation. So they love that.
15:45
We remind them of that. And then five or six days later
15:50
it's hey, now that you're doing better, if you wouldn't mind,
15:53
give us a little review that helps grow our practice.
15:56
I think the automation is set to seven days where it says, hey,
16:00
just so you know, if you enjoyed me or my partner, Doctor
16:03
Carlson, we also have ADPC that sees patients in 25 states.
16:09
So if you're in search of a primary care physician, here's
16:13
what we do. And we really started out
16:16
thinking, is that ever going to work?
16:18
Is that ever going to be a funnel for patients for us in
16:21
our practice? I thought it might get a few
16:24
here and there. My partner didn't think we would
16:26
get any. We took on a digital marketing
16:29
partner. His name is Anton Novika Bauer
16:32
from Real Advice Agency. He's awesome, he said.
16:36
I think you're going to get 25% of these people coming back to
16:40
your practice and that's really about where we are.
16:43
So about 25% of the patients that see us loved, I wouldn't
16:49
say loved us, but loved the concept of how easy it was to
16:54
get the care that they need. And most of these aren't like
16:57
your typical diabetic that needs a lot of attention.
17:01
They are. I'll pay that just so when I'm
17:05
somewhere and I need something that I can make an appointment
17:08
quick because that's kind of how we sell it is if you think about
17:13
it, we're going to be immediately available for you.
17:15
We'll make time. So that has worked out great so
17:19
far. We're growing fast enough now
17:21
where we're in the process of trying to figure out how we're
17:25
going to staff it going forward. And do we really want that
17:28
promotion growing our DPC anymore?
17:31
Because we've used that now as a funnel that's worked well.
17:35
So that's one of the lessons that's been great is, hey, not
17:40
everything has to be direct primary care.
17:42
You can do something else that's just as effective for patient
17:46
care, patient satisfaction. They love it.
17:49
They see what you do and then they're going to come and and be
17:53
a patient that pays you every month to do it, which has been
17:56
great. Yeah, that's amazing.
17:58
That's I'm just mind blown. It's so funny when you think
18:02
about DVCS when once you've seen one DPC, you've seen one DPC and
18:07
I think yours is certainly very unique.
18:09
Yeah. So when you see these patients
18:12
for your vacation medicine part, it's kind of equal to like if
18:17
people if they had brick and mortar doing one off visits and
18:21
a lot of people, a lot of DPC doctors frown upon it.
18:25
But I can see how it does help people get into your kind of
18:30
into your sphere. And like you said, they see how
18:33
amazing it is and how easy it is.
18:36
So that's amazing. There's so much to do with the
18:39
website about, you know what it is.
18:42
It's surprising to me, and it shouldn't be, but it is, that
18:46
people just don't know that this exists quite yet.
18:50
So what we have run across is, you know, to have a Google
18:56
business, Google My Business page, right, You have to have a
18:59
physical address on there though.
19:01
Our physical address is our Wellness clinic called Vitalife
19:06
Coastal Infusions. So I will get an appointment and
19:11
I'll get online with someone and I'm like, are you sitting
19:14
outside of Vitalife? Like came right over here.
19:17
We thought we were going to have an urgent care visit and we
19:19
walked in, they said, yeah, you're scheduled in 5 minutes
19:22
and here's how you get online. So we didn't do a good enough
19:25
job at first helping people understand that it was a virtual
19:29
visit. They were still coming to our
19:32
physical location, you know, Googling us.
19:34
So we've had to you go back in and strategize about what else
19:38
can we say on our website to make this completely obvious
19:44
that they're not supposed to go to a physical place.
19:47
Now we still do. We still will see patients.
19:49
We are set up in our Wellness clinic.
19:51
It's kind of like the Wizard of Oz.
19:54
It's what's behind the curtain. We have all the stuff to do
19:58
urgent care in our Wellness. It's a spot like environment.
20:01
They come in and they immediately don't think of an
20:04
urgent care. But we have everything there.
20:06
We can do lacerations. We do joint injections, all of
20:09
the. Fun stuff from an urgent care.
20:12
If we need to see people along 30A where we are, if they need
20:16
to be seen in person, we can convert them into an in person
20:20
visit. Most of the time if we're out of
20:23
town like I am right now, we can't obviously, but most of the
20:26
time somebody can be down there pretty quickly to to take care
20:29
of them if need be. Yeah, wonderful.
20:33
So you mentioned a little bit back about automations.
20:38
And so I've been looking forward to this conversation because I
20:42
was like, we get to nerd out about automations now.
20:45
I will say the best, most effective automation has been
20:49
kind of what I described earlier, which is when you, when
20:55
you look at all of this stuff that's out there and you do
20:58
social media just like I do, you're out there looking at all
21:01
of these groups and this and that.
21:02
And how do you get started and how do you build this and that?
21:05
And how do you get patients to sign up with you?
21:07
If you can have a patient engage with you in some way, I even a
21:13
visit to your site and they get a personalized greeting from
21:20
you, a picture of you sitting at a desk, a message, hey, I'm
21:24
here, this is me and that kind of with not overbearing
21:29
information. How are you doing?
21:32
Hope you're doing well. Remember, here's how you contact
21:35
us. Those kind of things that people
21:39
that have for the people that have engaged with us has been
21:43
the most powerful for sure because it's grown our practice
21:47
in a way that's that I don't think it would have grown
21:51
otherwise. I mean, I think most of the time
21:53
if I jump on a site and I know that I'm going to get hit up by
21:58
something, I just won't go any further.
22:00
So these people taking the steps to make an appointment with us
22:04
and have seen us personally. So creating that connection with
22:08
them, strengthening that connection with them has been
22:11
super important. And then keeping that going,
22:15
coming up here in a few days, in the next two weeks, I guess
22:20
Valentine's Day, we could, there's a Valentine's Day
22:22
greeting that's going out. Then there's March 1st is the
22:26
Big Spring break time all over the place.
22:28
We have stuff automated out to March 1st.
22:32
Remember spring break is coming up.
22:34
Remember, we're here, but it's not a promotional for us.
22:38
It was that message is, hey, don't forget your medicines.
22:43
If you are a diabetic, remember your medicine.
22:46
Otherwise, if you don't, we're here.
22:48
But Please remember it. So I think that's been the most
22:52
powerful piece where we haven't perfected it yet.
22:56
Everyone, and I tell Zocdoc this, everyone hates Zocdoc.
23:01
That was a marketing strategy that we used early on to get
23:04
patients. We have built some automation
23:08
around Zocdoc that Zocdoc doesn't like, which means it's
23:13
probably good. And that is, hey, this, if you,
23:18
if you come in and you want this, this is how much it costs,
23:23
This is the way it's going to be.
23:25
If you don't like it, if you don't like that or want this or
23:29
can't pay for it, then you need to cancel your appointment.
23:32
So it gets back then to the patients to cancel their
23:36
appointment. So before, if you know anything
23:38
about Zocdoc, it's it's not a medical service, it's a
23:42
marketing service. And they can't charge patients
23:48
or not charge the practice for patients that are directed to
23:52
you, even if they know show and things along those lines.
23:55
And we understand that. But the creation of some of
23:58
these automations around that funnel in particular was we'd
24:04
have 30 patients sign up with sock doc and maybe 5 would show
24:09
up. So that would be 25 * 45,
24:11
whatever that number is, we pay that.
24:17
You'd have to pay even for no shows.
24:19
You don't pay for cancellations, but nobody wants to pay.
24:22
Nobody wants to cancel. They just didn't cost them
24:25
anything to sign up on Zocdoc or make an appointment on Zocdoc.
24:29
So there's no, the patient has no skin in the game.
24:32
But if you communicate with them, then they'll start, Oh, I
24:36
don't, that's not what I want. I want this and I don't want to
24:40
pay that or whatever. So just please cancel and here's
24:43
why. So then reached out to me and
24:48
said, we've noticed a lot of patients are canceling.
24:51
What's going on? Like nothing, nothing.
24:55
We're just, we're making sure patients know what they're
24:57
getting into. So I've had, they even put my
25:01
account on hold. So I said, you're not The thing
25:04
is not quite right. So I've, I've eventually told
25:06
them, they said, oh, if that's what it is, then that's, that's
25:09
OK. We think, I mean, those are the,
25:12
that's the power of what high level can do.
25:15
I mean, you can create value for yourself if you think about it
25:20
in the right way. We have a handful of patients
25:24
that are ADHD and on Adderall or are one of those things.
25:30
And we knew this from patients in the ER that those people
25:37
don't want to miss their date and if they get low or if
25:40
they're coming up on their date, they are very engaged in texting
25:46
and calling the practice and make sure that they don't forget
25:50
kind of thing. So we have built automation
25:53
around there are two refill dates for our ADHD patients that
25:58
get Adderall, the 1st or the 15th.
26:01
We put them in one of those two slots and then to have automated
26:09
guardrails around. Don't just remember, don't text
26:13
Doctor Peterson about remembering your prescription.
26:17
We've got it. It'll be refilled On this date.
26:20
Just cut down on much of that. There's enough of that noise.
26:25
It's not that we have a ton of those patients, but there's
26:27
enough of that noise every day that sometimes important things
26:31
get missed because we're dealing with 10 different texts about
26:37
things that are coming up in the that we already know about.
26:41
So that's been one that's been there's just, we're nowhere near
26:46
optimized in our practice. Those are just some of the
26:49
bigger ones that have had the most impact.
26:51
There's easy ones that are out there right now.
26:55
We've just realized today that something was broken on our
26:59
website that you know, here you get a discovery call, you call
27:03
in, here's the that happens. So tell us what you're
27:08
interested in. I'm interested in direct primary
27:11
care for myself, for my family, men's health, Women's Health,
27:14
weight loss, whatever. 678 things that we think we do
27:19
pretty well. And someone would click weight
27:22
loss and then we'd have the discovery call and they'd say,
27:26
well, I clicked weight loss and I didn't get any information
27:29
about weight loss. What's so you we fixed that now.
27:33
So they get you click weight loss, you're going to get
27:35
information about what we do, how we do it, information about
27:38
semaglutide, information about diet, information about exercise
27:42
programs, all the stuff that's incorporated into our weight
27:45
loss program less and what the labs look like and how often
27:49
we're going to do all of that. So if you click that, all of
27:53
that automation is set to capture the patient's interest.
27:58
Same thing with men's health. What what is that?
28:01
What do you do for men's health? What does that mean?
28:05
Same thing with Women's Health. Me and my partner typically
28:09
don't do a lot of Women's Health.
28:11
It's just not what we're good at.
28:13
But Jessica's great at that. So there'll be information in
28:17
Jessica's tone about what Women's Health is and a lot of
28:21
the stuff that she does for them is automated to go back to those
28:25
patients that are interested in hormone replacement for women.
28:28
So that again, that kind of stuff, when something's broken,
28:32
we typically hear about it because patients aren't engaged.
28:36
If they know the men's health, they got their men's health
28:39
automation. Wow, this you guys do all you
28:41
check the labs and you pay for the labs and blah, blah, blah.
28:44
That's you got it. All right, We figured out that
28:48
there wasn't enough automation around.
28:52
What's next? A lot of I'm sure you do the
28:54
same thing. It's patient feedback.
28:56
What aren't they getting that they want and how do you provide
29:00
that without breaking your neck or hiring extra office staff or
29:05
whatever? And most of the time all they
29:07
want is a text or all they want is an information is an e-mail
29:12
that's with their name in it and that kind of thing.
29:15
So yeah, that's the that's our automation.
29:20
I'd love to hear about what you're doing with your.
29:22
I know you told me that, that you had some things going on.
29:26
You were trying to build some of that stuff out.
29:28
So I have my platform is Harmony OPS for DPC and so it's based on
29:34
high level and it is, I call it the all in one solution.
29:40
It's HIPAA compliant. And I think what I've done is
29:44
I've created an ecosystem to help practices grow, right?
29:49
And it's sort of like you're saying sometimes, especially
29:52
when you're starting out, if you don't have the money to hire
29:55
someone, the automations can kind of push that out for a
29:59
little bit and take a lot of, like you said, the noise away,
30:04
the busy work so that you can focus on the important stuff.
30:08
So I have 4 things kind of, well, it's really five that that
30:12
are part of how I run my high level.
30:16
The chat widget, Oh, conversation chat widget on the
30:19
website, voice AI. So you have someone answering
30:23
the phone 24/7. The CRM, which is customer
30:26
relationship manager for people who don't know, it's all the
30:29
names go in there. And that's how you run your
30:31
automations for emails and texts to go to people.
30:35
So when somebody gives us their name and they say like, we have
30:40
aesthetics. So if they're interested in
30:41
aesthetics, then we automatically send them an
30:44
e-mail saying, hey, thanks for signing up for our newsletter.
30:47
These are the things we do. And that's their first e-mail.
30:51
And then another day, the next day they have another e-mail
30:54
saying, oh, we also do this. And then the day after that, we
30:57
also do this. So over four or five days, they
31:00
learn all about our practice. Very similar to like what you do
31:04
for your weight loss program and for men's health.
31:07
So I guess somewhere along the way, someone said people don't
31:12
convert into customers until they've had seven or eight touch
31:15
points, which now is probably more like 30 because people have
31:19
so many choices. But these are those touch
31:22
points. And so also the other part is
31:25
the social media planner. That's another touch point or
31:27
multiple touch points because you can post on 7 or 8 different
31:33
platforms from one page, but you don't take that extra time to
31:37
log into all these different things like Meta and YouTube.
31:43
So it saves you time that way. And then the last part is the
31:46
reputation management, which you use sounds like because you're
31:50
asking for reviews. So that is automated, but people
31:53
don't like face to face asking for review.
31:57
It's awkward and we don't like to ask for things like that as
32:01
physicians. I think that it, yes, it does
32:04
make things easier in your practice for sure and drives
32:07
engagement and helps because you're right, I think it is 30,
32:11
30 touches is probably what people expect.
32:15
And I think it, it is a little bit different.
32:18
Their expectation is different. It doesn't matter what you
32:21
charge per month. If they're paying you money,
32:24
they expect to be touched in some way.
32:26
Most of them do, some of them don't, but most of them do.
32:30
So I think there's so many on that are just benign.
32:32
Just reaching out to say hello and if you need anything, let us
32:36
know kind of stuff. But there's also all these other
32:40
really cool things that you can do in a subtle way to help grow
32:43
your practice. Asking for reviews, nudging them
32:45
for a review If they don't give it, we.
32:49
And that's, yeah, you don't have to think about it.
32:52
Yeah, it's off your plate. Yeah, you know.
32:54
And that is, that's probably the most valuable thing to me is
32:59
I've continued to work essentially full time in
33:01
emergency medicine and grow these businesses.
33:05
What can be taken off of my plate because you can't continue
33:09
to grow a practice? Be a good doctor, be a good DPC
33:12
doctor, be a good ER doctor, be a good husband and dad.
33:16
If all of this stuff is on your plate and you know, taking some
33:22
of it off is important and I think helping, it's always on my
33:27
mind that I don't want people to make some of the same mistakes
33:31
that we made coming up. And I see one of the things that
33:35
I continue to see, and I think you've even commented on it in
33:39
these groups is hey, I've got I'm starting my I'm a new
33:42
Doctor, I'm starting this DPC. I've got a chance to buy this
33:45
5000 square foot office building.
33:48
And what do you guys think? It's like, no, no, don't do
33:52
that. That's the craziest thing you
33:54
could possibly do. Get a few patients first and,
33:58
you know, grow your grow your practice.
34:00
Get a feel for what it is and how it works and what the
34:04
demands are of these patients before you decide on, you know,
34:07
some big office space. Yes.
34:10
And you do have, you do have a lot of good advice.
34:13
And so you've started the school group.
34:16
And that's we have. A.
34:18
We've got a big project coming there.
34:22
Hopefully there'll be news on that.
34:25
We've been working on that over the course of the last few
34:29
weeks. That's really going to go
34:32
through almost kind of in school fashion in some chapters, what
34:37
to do and what not to do. We're going to do some videos
34:41
around that, why I started, what mistakes we've made, where we
34:45
are now, what we could still do better to try to drive
34:49
engagement there to get answers to these questions because I
34:53
think people, I know you feel this way.
34:56
I do. I think looking at those groups
34:59
and looking at the questions, I've learned a lot just from
35:02
reading the question, not even necessarily answering the
35:05
question or giving advice on a question, but like, oh, wow, I
35:08
didn't even think about that. Somebody else is asking that.
35:14
And then I also see a lot of people that are asking questions
35:17
about, you know, some of the just very basic stuff that needs
35:21
to be addressed and needs to be. I know that's probably touched
35:25
on at the summits and, and you know, the big events, but that
35:28
happens what once a year where you can go to ADPC summit and
35:33
get a lot of this information. So we're going to, I think what
35:37
we're doing in the school project will be really good.
35:42
I think you and I talked, I'd love for you to be able to
35:45
promote your your workflows on there in the background of of
35:51
that and continue to grow that. But that's another thing that
35:55
that is kind of the next squirrel that I saw like this is
35:59
great. I want to be able to do that and
36:02
but now I don't want to do it halfway.
36:04
I want to make sure that the things that we're putting in
36:06
there are valuable to people that that take the time to, to
36:10
join and to look in there. So I think ultimately it will be
36:13
enough time into this project. It's all mapped out now.
36:17
It's just got to be filmed. And I just wish the AI version
36:22
of what I could do could film, you know, 20 minutes of video
36:25
rather than 10 seconds. So I've just got to sit down in
36:30
a nice spot and be videoed and, and not make any mistakes.
36:33
Well, but more to come on the school piece.
36:36
Yeah, I think that I think school is, you know, I, I just
36:40
learned about that Lee. And I think that's such a good,
36:44
such a great spot really for all of us to learn from each other
36:48
about VPC. Did you know that there's a
36:52
collab group and high level you can do communities?
36:57
No I didn't. But again, thank you.
37:01
You need to send me that so I can join and sort it out.
37:04
You heard about Lovable, So Lovable is it's a website, but
37:08
you can build, you can build websites, you can build apps,
37:13
you can do so many things. All you need to do is just you
37:17
prompt it. It's kind of like the AI
37:19
workflow builder, but like Augmented 10 * 100 times.
37:25
So I, I built AI, built an app literally in 15 minutes.
37:30
So the app is called DPC Reality Check.
37:35
And what you do is you put in the number of patients that you
37:39
have, how many you want to have your, when you're full, what's
37:44
your monthly membership cost? And it automatically tells you
37:48
need this many to break even when you hit your total goal,
37:52
whatever 3400, this is your monthly recurring revenue.
37:56
So, but it built this app for me, but with me just telling it
38:01
what I need. It's incredible.
38:03
It's called lovable. LOVABLE you won't sleep for a
38:08
week. Yeah.
38:10
So I think the whole, the whole concept of the app I think is
38:14
interesting. There's a lot of ideas I've had
38:16
around apps and the usefulness of apps we try, especially in
38:21
our men's health, in our weights and a lot of the men's health
38:23
pieces combined with weight loss and with certain goals, whether
38:28
it be strength goals, weight loss goals, measurement goals,
38:32
things along those lines. We, I feel like that could be an
38:35
incredible touch point for the patients that yeah, we're, we
38:39
care and here's how you track it.
38:41
And so I think that is that's the I the app idea that I've
38:45
had. I'm sure it's out there, it's
38:47
just not branded to us, but even.
38:50
You can create your own. I think in care in general,
38:54
people want to be supported in that way.
38:56
It's not always about medicine. What medicine can you give them
39:00
next? But what part of your brain can
39:02
you give them and help them understand how to be the best
39:06
version of themselves, how to optimize themselves?
39:09
And I think that's probably the most important word that we try
39:13
to use in our practice. And the number one thing that
39:18
that we talked about seeing the men's health piece is they'll
39:23
have had their testosterone checked and said, yeah, my
39:26
primary doctor said my testosterone was normal.
39:29
Yeah, it's normal for a 56 year old guy, but it's not optimized.
39:33
It's normal for it you to have a blood testosterone of 150 when
39:38
you're 56, but that doesn't mean that you can't have it a little
39:42
higher and feel a little bit better.
39:44
So we try to use what is optimized and what does that
39:48
mean and how do we get there and what do we need to do to get
39:52
there. That's where I think ultimately
39:54
kind of as I know we're probably running out of time here, but
39:57
ultimately that's the really exciting piece about primary
40:02
care to me. In my career training in
40:05
internal medicine and Pediatrics, yeah, I got that in
40:07
residency a little bit. I didn't understand it then
40:10
because there was just the grind of residency.
40:12
Then you start doing emergency medicine.
40:14
You realize I don't know what happens to any of these people.
40:17
And now you can help people get better in a way that's impactful
40:22
and meaningful, and not just for the patient, but their families.
40:25
That's kind of where ultimately we want to be with our practice.
40:30
Just I'm sure that's how you feel as well about all your
40:33
patients. We talked so much in the
40:35
communities and you know about the business side of it and how
40:39
do you get started and how do you make money and how do you
40:42
keep the patients. And keeping the patients means
40:45
continuing to have recurring revenue.
40:47
But ultimately, you're not going to keep anybody if you can't
40:50
make them happy, you can't get them better, and you can't
40:53
provide them something different than what they're getting with
40:57
traditional primary care. Yeah, yeah, definitely much
41:03
better. Well, I have taken up enough of
41:05
your time this has been. An absolute delight.
41:07
A lot of fun to to share all of this.
41:10
It's it's cool to. Yeah, definitely it.
41:13
Has similar passion around DPCI, love that.
41:18
The nerdiness, but also the mission to spread.
41:21
Spread the word I guess. Evangelize about TPC.
41:25
Yeah, that's exactly right. That is what we're doing.
41:28
And you want to make it. I think we're in this time right
41:31
now with technology that you can make it a lot harder than it
41:34
really is if you don't know all of the tricks that are out there
41:38
to make it easier. So that's what I want to
41:41
ultimately be able to do with all of this is help everybody.
41:46
You know there there's going to be a lot of people a lot younger
41:48
than me getting started in this and you want them to be on the
41:51
right foot. Well, Doctor Peterson, thank you
41:53
so much. Please tell us again you're at
41:56
first call DPC. Yep, first Panama City Beach,
41:59
FL. That's right.
41:59
First call DPC, Panama City Beach, FL.
42:03
We do virtual primary care in 25 states.
42:07
We see people in person there. We also have vacation medicine,
42:10
and you can look that up at vacationmedicine.com.
42:13
Super easy. Yeah, that's us right now.
42:17
Love it. And the school group.
42:19
The school group 1st called EPC school group, if you get on
42:22
there you can see it in first called EPC.
42:24
There's going to be a lot of exciting stuff there in the
42:27
coming months and maybe now even in high level that's you have
42:32
just ruined by night. I was going to rest and relax
42:35
and. You're on vacation.
42:39
Yeah, I'm getting into, I'm getting into this high level
42:42
stuff tonight. Anyway, it's been such a
42:44
pleasure talking with you and I appreciate.
42:46
You too. You too.
42:47
Appreciate you. Yeah, Thank you.
42:49
This has. Been a lot of fun, thank you so
42:51
much. Thank you for listening to DPC
42:53
Life. Before we finish, if you're a
42:56
woman in direct primary care and you've mostly been figuring this
42:59
out on your own, you're exactly who this gathering is meant for.
43:03
The details are in the show notes and if you can't make it
43:06
in person, I've also put together a physician community
43:10
and some tools so you don't have to do this.
43:12
By yourself.