Latest / DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast / Leaving the ER for DPC: How Dr. Chelsea Johnson Built Kidz MD to Keep Kids Out of the Hospital

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Leaving the ER for DPC: How Dr. Chelsea Johnson Built Kidz MD to Keep Kids Out of the Hospital · DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast

0:00
I would not be going into primary care if it wasn't for
0:03
the DPC model. And after three years, I had a
0:08
gut wrenching moment where I thought, when am I going to stop
0:11
traveling? And then DPC came along and I'm
0:13
like, this is how I'm going to get to families and keep them
0:16
out of the ERI from the mindset that if you're not good at
0:20
something, you don't like to do it, then you should just double
0:22
down and just do it and get really good at it.
0:25
And so you're no longer have that hesitation and that ick
0:28
feel. I think social media is more
0:31
scary than public speaking. Welcome to DPC Life, the podcast
0:35
where independent doctors share real stories, bold ideas, and
0:39
the freedom of doing medicine on your own terms.
0:43
I'm your host, Doctor Ann Gonzalez, and together we'll
0:47
explore the wins, the struggles and everything in between.
0:51
Let's dive in. I'm here today with Doctor
0:55
Chelsea Johnson. She's the founder of Kids MD in
0:59
Liberty, MO. And did you open already?
1:02
I know you said you were shooting for November.
1:05
I was shooting for October. I think it's AH.
1:08
OK. OK.
1:10
All right, Well, let's start out with telling us how you got into
1:14
DP so, how you found it, and what brought you to it.
1:18
Well, thank you. Thank you for letting me shoot
1:21
my. Journey, thanks for being here.
1:22
I have been in academic medicine all of my career in Kansas City,
1:27
and I left in 2020 during the height of the COVID pandemic.
1:31
And I did a number of things while I was out there and
1:35
including telemedicine. And then I got into Locum's work
1:40
and after three years, I had a gut wrenching moment where I
1:45
thought, when am I going to stop traveling?
1:47
I travel about 80% of the month and my family has to deal with
1:52
me being gone or coming back and leaving again.
1:56
And so my light bulb moment was I need an off ramp from Locum's
2:01
work. It was really my DPCPCP that
2:06
said, hey, why don't you get into this?
2:09
I'm really focused on adults right now and I need somebody to
2:13
take care of the kids. I have lots of parents that want
2:16
their kids to be under DPC practice and that was in
2:19
February of this year and that was the month I said I'm going
2:23
to do DPC. And this has been my journey.
2:27
I'm told by some it's not long enough ramp in order to get
2:31
started and by others who has said you just got to go and just
2:34
start doing it. So here I am getting ready to
2:38
open with the weird things that hold you back that you didn't
2:42
ever consider would be your issue, which is floors in the
2:44
clinic. I don't have any floors right
2:46
now. It's been two months trying to
2:48
get fluorine installed but I'm told by mid mid-december.
2:51
Oh good, well you could start out mobile.
2:55
I am. I'm mobile intelligent, that is.
2:57
Fantastic. Awesome.
2:59
Well, thank you again for coming on and for willing to do little
3:04
coaching and putting it on the podcast, 'cause that's very
3:07
brave and vulnerable if you so appreciate it.
3:11
I know that you wanted to talk about vaccines.
3:16
That part's very difficult for pediatricians and for family
3:19
meds that do PEDs. And the other thing is patient
3:23
acquisition and operations. Right, right.
3:27
So the one thing I think that many DPC pediatricians are
3:31
working with is Zach's care. But the stipulation with that
3:36
company is do you have to have a historical annual record of 850
3:41
vaccines. And since I am not going
3:44
transitioning from a fee for service practice and having a
3:47
patient panel that's coming with me, I don't qualify for that.
3:51
So in one of my groups, my DPCP group, one of the other
3:56
pediatricians had said they went through another vendor GPO
4:00
company that got them access to vax care.
4:03
So I'm doing that right now. And so I have a bridge in order
4:08
to access that care. And hopefully over the next two
4:12
or three years I will be able to meet out those requirements so
4:15
that I can contract. Directly with.
4:17
Oh good. So it does cost a little bit
4:19
more, but I don't think that you can do a really good job of
4:25
child care if you're not offering vaccines to families.
4:29
So that was really important for me to solve that.
4:33
Issue. I'm glad that you found
4:34
something that will work because that's been a real problem for a
4:38
lot of people for a long time. So is that GPOA nationwide
4:43
situation? Yes, Freedom Healthworks is the
4:48
one that I went through to access tax care.
4:52
There is another company very similar to Vax Care called
4:54
Abacus and these they also do something very similar, but I
4:58
did not qualify to work directly with them either.
5:02
So this is my pathway, but I'm hoping that as this becomes a
5:08
very much larger percentage of pediatric practices that there
5:12
will be more vendors that are going to want to support
5:14
Pediatrics in DPC or anybody that's in DPC that wants to
5:19
provide that. Yeah.
5:21
Well, that's wonderful. There are a lot more
5:22
pediatricians doing it, and I think it's wonderful.
5:26
I would not be going into primary care if it wasn't for
5:29
the DPC model. My background is an emergency
5:32
medicine, urgent care, hematology, and oncology and I
5:38
spent two years doing some locums work in primary care in
5:41
rural North Carolina and it was difficult from my estimate.
5:48
It was miserable because I saw the other pediatricians just
5:52
suffer through 3040 patients a day trying to manage issues that
5:57
are beyond a 15 minute appointment.
5:59
But you got to keep plugging through and I didn't.
6:02
I never kept up with what they were able to do.
6:05
They gave me all the sick kids to take care of.
6:07
So I was really good and fast about taking care of sick kids.
6:10
So I knew then I was not going to be able to do fee for service
6:14
primary care. But in learning about the DPC
6:17
model, it certainly opened up my ability to say I can do that and
6:21
I can provide some really great care.
6:23
So it's a really tough gig to be in fee for service Pediatrics
6:28
and I have a lot of respect for my friends and colleagues, but
6:32
it's it's not for me. And this is and this is
6:35
something that I can do. So I'm really excited to step
6:39
into that journey on Yeah. Well, so let's talk about the
6:43
things that you are interested in working on patient
6:48
acquisition and systems. If at the end of our talk you
6:53
had some plan for something in particular, what would you
6:56
consider a successful session? What would you take away?
7:00
I think it would be really helpful for me to walk away with
7:04
a two or three-step plan, what I'm going to work for over these
7:09
next few days to weeks. That was going to help me feel
7:12
like I was prepared to open the doors, get these, get patients
7:16
enrolled, get families into meet and greets to open myself up to
7:20
the community to say, hey, I am here and I'm ready to start
7:24
taking your kids. Just come on in.
7:28
And if I was able to have some concrete steps with where to
7:35
prioritize my time and energies, whether that's pamphlets,
7:39
business cards, social media, meet and greets, community
7:43
events, and the kind of the way that I'm going to be able to
7:48
effectively acquire them going through the website or going
7:51
through social media or just calling me on the phone.
7:53
Or that initial process of getting the enrollment started
7:58
and and connecting so that people will roll and roll.
8:01
Know them here. So education and promotion and
8:06
then acquisition, that's the other things you need help with.
8:10
All right, So right now, what are you doing to promote and to
8:16
reach out to people? So I have a number of business
8:20
cards and pamphlets that I have made-up that I've sent out to
8:24
area businesses. And I have a social media
8:28
presence on Facebook. I have an Instagram account,
8:32
though I'm not really sure I know how to use it very well.
8:35
And I have a website. I don't have all of those
8:38
connected in a way that is there's no automation.
8:42
The only thing that gets posted is what I remembered to post on
8:46
any given day. I don't have any cadence for
8:49
posting or any plan of posts that are coming down the Pike.
8:54
And this one comes first and then this one and kind of
8:57
building that story. Those are probably my main areas
9:02
that I've done so far. And I will say that probably my
9:05
marketing and promotion has been the thing that I do every once
9:09
in a while when I think, oh, I should do that because of all
9:13
the other things that I'm doing, I'm putting my diamond
9:15
elsewhere. But I'm now recognizing probably
9:18
a little bit more effortful, bland presence is where I need
9:26
to be. And I'm still kind of at a loss
9:29
without spending hours and hours and hours planning and
9:33
scheduling and figuring out how to make that work.
9:35
I see absolutely because you still you still have some other
9:38
businesses. Is that correct or?
9:40
Yeah, I'm still doing a lot of travel, but I pushed it to my
9:44
weekends and I Co founder in a pediatric medical device company
9:48
that also takes some of my time. I mostly I do the the business
9:53
and marketing side of that. It's just interesting 'cause
9:55
this is where I'm struggling with my own business.
9:58
So we're we're kind of in the same stages of both businesses.
10:02
Yes I do have other things that are taking up my time and just
10:06
trying to make ends meet and I still have a family, 3 kids that
10:09
are still at home and just trying to live life as well.
10:14
That's a lot on your plate. So you've got some hard copy
10:19
things. You have a little bit of social
10:21
media presence, but not very consistent.
10:24
And what about like in person networking?
10:28
I have joined our local Chamber of Commerce and our local
10:33
private practice group. So we do once a month.
10:36
We have in person meetings. I will be presenting my business
10:40
at the the local private practice group meeting in
10:44
December that just announced my clinic share more information on
10:48
that business card and swag. The Chamber of Commerce will
10:51
provide me with an opportunity to have a ribbon cutting and an
10:54
open house and promote it. There's a lot of marketing
10:57
opportunities once I kind of get involved, including for use of a
11:02
billboard that's on the Interstate for I think a week
11:06
for free. And it's a part of my
11:07
membership. Yes.
11:09
And they will also take my promotional materials and
11:12
promote them on their social media and in their spaces.
11:17
So those things are just now kind of getting started.
11:20
I just enjoyed both of them, the last.
11:21
Wonderful. So in person networking and
11:26
let's see, do you have anyone signed up?
11:28
No, not yet. And I think that maybe that's
11:30
where a lot of my anxiety reach is at is how do I say, now's the
11:36
time, let's enroll, let's get on the list.
11:40
Maybe I'm still a little hesitant 'cause I'm like, am I
11:42
really ready? Am I really ready to open the
11:44
door? But I maybe I don't know the
11:46
best way to make that media push.
11:51
So that's a great place to start.
11:54
So, yeah, there's all kinds of things, all kinds of ways to do
11:59
this. And I did not do this as a sales
12:02
call, I swear. But I do have, I have developed
12:06
ACRM, which I think would be super helpful for you.
12:09
And it will do all kinds of things for you that you can host
12:13
your website, you can have automations to send emails out.
12:17
You can post your social media. It'll go out as whenever you
12:22
schedule it so that you don't have to do it yourself.
12:25
You can so you can post on multiple media accounts.
12:29
You can post on like Facebook groups.
12:32
And so it takes a lot off you. I mean, there's work involved
12:36
with it, but it does a lot of it for you so that when you do go
12:41
to the chamber and you meet people and you get their cards,
12:45
you can start putting them into your e-mail list and just
12:49
sending them, hey, this is what we're doing, talking about your
12:52
practice and keeping you top of mind.
12:55
So that's one thing about networking events is a lot of
12:58
times people go and they meet people and then they're like,
13:01
well, no one's calling me, but you have to keep nurturing that
13:06
relationship so that the automations, like you said,
13:09
that's really key. And so we can talk about that
13:14
later too. But definitely, I think getting
13:18
some social media started. A lot of people don't do like
13:23
paper or radio anymore. They just don't find that it's
13:26
been very helpful. So social media seems to be it.
13:30
And then organic social media is really good.
13:34
But then ads also can just really push your stuff out
13:40
because if you think about regular social media, organic
13:44
social media, if you have say 100 followers, two or three of
13:49
them are going to see what you post.
13:50
So it's a very small percentage. So the nice thing about ads is
13:55
you can put those in front of the people like you know that
13:59
that you want to see it. So you can put it in front of
14:02
moms mom group to people who have kids.
14:05
You can put it in front of OBS, You can put it in front people
14:09
who will send patients to you. So have you talked with the O BS
14:13
in your town? No, I have not.
14:15
I did reach out to the local hospital 'cause I am right next
14:19
door to the hospital. I wanted to introduce myself and
14:22
figure out who to speak with as like the community liaison or
14:27
what kind of pediatric patients would your ER be comfortable
14:30
seeing and what pediatric conditions would your
14:33
hospitalist take care of as opposed to send them to the
14:36
academic center. However, the hospital was
14:40
recently purchased by a very large university.
14:43
So I think there's a lot of now new layers because when I went
14:46
and dropped off my business card and they said they would have
14:49
somebody reach out to me. That was four or five weeks ago
14:52
and I'd never heard from them. So the Obs are associated with
14:56
that hospital. But now that you mention it,
15:00
there's certainly an opportunity I could just go to the clinic
15:03
and see if I couldn't speak with somebody there or or.
15:07
An office. Manager and yeah.
15:10
Absolutely. Let's back up a little bit.
15:12
I didn't ask you about this. So your practice, obviously
15:16
Pediatrics, who's your ideal patient?
15:21
Who would you love to see? Well, we are in a fairly well
15:25
established suburb of Kansas City and so there's a lot of
15:29
families here and it's a one of the two fastest growing counties
15:34
in the state of Missouri. So right across from my clinic
15:38
there is current construction plans for more townhomes and on
15:43
the Interstate there is a huge community development that plan
15:47
which will be more apartments and townhomes and single family
15:51
homes, another medical middle school and other businesses.
15:55
So the growth is still coming. So I think I'm in a really great
15:58
spot. So we have a very large high
16:02
schools, multiple middle schools and elementary schools.
16:04
There's lots of kids here, but there's not as many
16:07
pediatricians. So I want to be able to offer
16:11
any of the families that just feel like they want to have
16:15
better access to their pediatrician.
16:17
They want to have appointments long enough to have all their
16:20
questions addressed, and they want to be able to get in when
16:23
they need to get in. If their kid is sick today and
16:26
they want to get in today or maybe tomorrow, they don't want
16:29
to wait two or three weeks. I think they also want a
16:33
pediatrician that will take care of the family, will take care of
16:37
their family instead of always sending them to the urgent care
16:40
or the ER or the specialist. And I want to be that person
16:43
that I will do more, more of the things that deeper service
16:49
pediatricians may not have time for, like suture replacement or
16:53
laceration repair, foreign body removals, Abscess drainages,
16:57
evaluate for fractures or other injuries.
17:01
Because of my ER background, I feel really comfortable in LAMB
17:04
and doing things like that. Treating proof at 9:00 at night
17:08
with racemic or Decadron or both.
17:11
Just to say, hey, if I can meet you in the clinic, can you just
17:15
come in here? We'll see if we can avoid an ER
17:17
visit tonight. I think families would really
17:20
appreciate that because they're so busy.
17:23
They would like to have a well child check at 7:00 AM instead
17:27
of at 1:00 PM during the middle of the school hour or on a
17:30
Saturday because they don't want to miss school.
17:33
They have a perfect attendance. And these are the type of things
17:36
I don't want to be able to offer families.
17:38
And I don't think there's families of all social economic
17:42
statuses within this area that would benefit from having a
17:46
pediatrician and having that level of access, including
17:50
having my phone number, having the ability to call, text or
17:53
e-mail me and then get a response instead of ghosted,
17:57
which a lot of times happens in other practices.
18:01
To be able to talk with a doctor, not a nurse or a triage
18:04
center or somebody that's not even affiliated with the
18:07
practice. I think there are lots of
18:09
families out there that want to have that level of access and I
18:14
just want to be available to offer.
18:16
It you have a fantastic spiel already.
18:19
It's really good, yeah. I've been practicing and
18:24
planning this for quite a long time.
18:26
I've been trying to find the best way to get families where
18:31
they need to be. This started back in 2022 when I
18:35
was in my MBA program and I started the telemedicine company
18:40
Concierge Thera Pediatrics. And it all started because I was
18:44
seeing a patient in the ER whose mother was told by a nurse
18:47
triage line that because their child had a fever and was
18:51
complaining of neck pain that they had meningitis or needed to
18:54
rule out meningitis and they had to rush to the ER within 4
18:58
hours. And when I saw them, mom had
19:03
three kids in tow and they were all bouncing off the walls.
19:05
I thought they were going to hurt each other in the exam room
19:08
while they were waiting for me to come in.
19:09
And I just, mom was so upset because I was so calm and so not
19:14
overly concerned about this child that was obviously doing
19:19
fine. But if I had the ability to have
19:22
talked with that mom before or to do a video call, I could have
19:27
avoided that ER visit. And that would have made life
19:30
better for so many people that were involved with that visit,
19:33
including the mom and the kids, all the other patients that were
19:35
much sicker or needed to have a doctor of a present right away.
19:39
And for the doctors that have one less person in the ER that
19:42
needed to be seen. I wanted to be able to get to
19:45
these families before they came to the ER.
19:47
And so my journey has been, I was doing telemedicine in order
19:51
to just just talk with the doctor before you go anywhere.
19:54
And we'll see if we can't direct you where you needed to go.
19:57
And then DPC came along and I'm like, this is how I'm going to
20:00
get to families and keep them out of the ER Perfect.
20:03
So what you have there is your origin story and that's the
20:09
perfect thing to start out with. And then you also have a really
20:14
good handle on the pain points. So you really are you're very
20:19
good at marketing. I mean, you got these things
20:20
down, but still, who is your ideal patient?
20:26
Because right now what you're telling me is everyone is your
20:28
ideal patient and. As I know, having gone through
20:34
this customer discovery process, yes.
20:38
So suburban mom has got more than one child of various ages
20:43
in this area. They live in a middle income
20:46
home. It's two family, 2 working
20:49
family, husband and wife, and their kids are otherwise happy,
20:55
healthy. They may have some chronic
20:57
issues, maybe asthma or celiac disease or something like that,
21:02
where every once in a while they go down to the academic Center
21:05
for specialty care. But they're kids that need to
21:09
have, well, child checks. They are that's a busy family.
21:12
So they don't have time to take out of their day or their work
21:16
to see the doctor. And when they do, they really
21:19
need that appointment to get everything out of that
21:21
appointment when they do. So when it comes to kind of like
21:26
that picture of the people that they may rent or they may own
21:30
their home, they have at least one if not two cars that they
21:34
own. And I think those are the big,
21:38
big key points for my customer discovery ideal family that that
21:43
I would take care of so. These kids, are they in school
21:48
or are they in daycare? Many of them will be.
21:50
In daycare or preschool or going to a private school We have we
21:55
have a couple 3 private schools in the area yeah so they would
21:59
be attending school. I will also say that it's almost
22:02
like a divergent group, but we also have a number of home
22:05
school families that are in the area and which is another kind
22:10
of a unique population with how they engage with the medical
22:14
community. And one of my tenants was a lot
22:18
of the pediatricians in the area will not see patients if they're
22:22
not keeping up with a vaccine schedule.
22:25
And I feel like I really want to promote vaccinations, but I also
22:31
understand that not all families are in the same place in their
22:34
journey and children should not suffer that.
22:38
I think families need to be trusted and brought in to share
22:42
decision making and to give the pediatrician an opportunity to
22:47
talk with the family, to try to dispel any myths or
22:51
misinformation, to really explain what's at stake, and
22:54
then to walk them where they're at and move them forward.
22:57
Whether they choose to vaccinate or not.
23:00
I still think kids need to have care and that should not be a
23:03
hard stop for the relationship. I think DPC is ideal because we
23:07
can develop the relationship with families.
23:10
So there you are much more trusted because you spent more
23:12
time with these families. To that end, I.
23:16
Believe in good strong public policies and trying to keep the
23:19
public safe. So part of this allow
23:23
unvaccinated and under vaccinated families into the
23:26
clinic. But when it comes to sick kid
23:28
visits, fevers and rashes, well, those visits won't come into the
23:32
office. We'll see them on a telemedicine
23:34
visit or home visit if it's necessary because we don't want
23:38
sick kids to expose other kids. And I don't have a negative
23:43
pressure room in my clinic. I don't have the ability to
23:46
fully sanitize for measles and diphtheria and pertussis and all
23:50
of these vaccine preventable illnesses.
23:52
So we want to keep everybody safe.
23:54
And I think it's the nice balance to take care of
23:56
everybody in the most appropriate places that can be
23:59
done. And and that's why I think it's
24:01
really important that home visits are a part of my
24:04
offerings to families. That's wonderful.
24:06
Yeah, you're right. I think time is such a huge
24:09
issue and why kind of the larger practices just don't accept that
24:15
they won't see kids who aren't vaccinated because the time of
24:19
trying to explain it and trying to move people for it, you just
24:21
don't have that time when you're seeing, like you said, 30 or 40
24:24
people in a day. So very difficult.
24:26
You've got a lot of people moving in your city is growing.
24:31
So I have a couple of ideas. One is to meet some Realtors
24:36
because people are going to ask them who's a good pediatrician
24:41
and if you can meet some and develop a really good
24:45
relationship with them, when someone asks them, they'll say,
24:47
well, there's this really cool practice, this really great
24:51
Doctor Who she can see your kids when they're sick.
24:55
Like she doesn't send you to the ER.
24:57
I love that idea. Anne and I actually personally
25:00
know a number of Realtors in the area, including some some
25:04
pediatricians who are also. Yeah, so you could do like.
25:10
Like a fireside. Chat or something and just
25:14
invite a bunch of them and say, hey, I just wanted to tell you
25:16
about my practice and it may be helpful for your clients.
25:19
So that's one thing and daycares that's the other thing.
25:26
Because if new people come in and the kid is sick, then how
25:32
great is it that these parents no about you because they heard
25:37
about you from the daycare? Yeah.
25:39
So daycares, Realtors, who else? Mom groups on Facebook are
25:44
great. If you know anyone who's big in
25:49
those groups, like one of your friends, if they're on there a
25:51
lot, they can promote your practice for you.
25:55
Did you say you're going to have?
25:56
Yeah, you're going to present to a private practice group.
26:00
What about the chamber? Are you presenting at the
26:02
Chamber? Not that.
26:07
I don't know that they have a venue set up for that, but I am
26:11
still getting still getting involved with the chamber and
26:15
trying to figure out what all they offer as networking and as
26:19
supporting you on my own marketing and media and all of
26:23
that. So I am sure that there's more
26:26
opportunities that I have not yet fully looked into at the
26:30
Chamber and they're very. Active and.
26:33
There's a lot of businesses in the area.
26:35
I I just now stepping into it. So I do hope right the moment my
26:41
focus has been on I just need to know a date when I can set a
26:44
ribbon cutting open house so that I can get that date on the
26:47
books with the chamber. But in the meantime, certainly
26:52
I'm I'll just have to go through and figure out in their
26:56
newsletters and in some of their websites events that are coming
26:59
up what that looks like and if they have something for me to be
27:03
able to speak at and share my services there.
27:06
That's a great our. Chamber, we're just fairly new
27:09
with them and our Chamber is also really active.
27:12
It's wonderful because they had a new Chamber member kind of
27:16
welcome meeting. So you get to meet several of
27:20
people who join at the same time as you.
27:22
And then they have what they call leads groups, which I think
27:25
are really kind of like B and I. Are you familiar with B and I
27:31
it's do you know if there's AB and I group in or groups around
27:37
you? Yes, they're they're.
27:39
Expensive, but. They can be.
27:41
Really, they are. Expensive.
27:43
We have a group. There's a women's leadership
27:46
group in the area. I was a member for over six
27:49
years when I was still in academic medicine and COVID.
27:52
I just kind of lost touch because we weren't in person.
27:56
But that's a really good idea to get back involved with them
27:58
again and be less of an audience member and more of a speaker
28:03
earlier. So that's.
28:04
Wonderful. Oh, other things, sponsoring
28:08
sports teams, that's another thing you did then that
28:13
fantastic. That's good.
28:14
You know, your potential patients see that you care about
28:18
your community, that you're involved, and that's important
28:20
to a lot of people. So you know the goodwill.
28:23
So they will see that. Yeah.
28:26
So I think those are some starting ideas.
28:29
Do you find that helpful? And there's.
28:31
Been such a wealth of ideas and maybe there are things that I've
28:35
heard of or maybe thought of, but having somebody else
28:38
reinforced this is a good idea and you should consider running
28:41
with it. Even some things that I hadn't
28:43
thought about, which are a great that things that are low hanging
28:47
fruit that I can easily take care of and make that happen.
28:51
So it's a wonderful list of ideas of things that I can be
28:55
working on over the next few weeks to try and gauge some
28:58
excitement in my community that I'm opening up and I'm ready for
29:01
enrollment. So call text, get on the
29:04
website, e-mail. Yeah.
29:07
Well, good, good. I'm glad.
29:08
That's helpful 'cause I think got the information.
29:12
You know what to say. Yeah, you just got to do it now.
29:16
You got to just say it. Just got to get the patience in.
29:20
Yes, you got to let them know I'm ready.
29:24
I did. Want to tell you a little bit
29:25
more about the platform. I do, I know.
29:28
Of a number of CRMS. CRMS.
29:31
Out there, but one of those things you felt like that's an
29:35
extra thing that do you really want to spend money on it that's
29:39
is that really tailored to you or is that something like for
29:42
other businesses? So it's nice to hear from
29:45
somebody that has great working knowledge within my field of a
29:50
CRMCMR that would that's kind of honed for it's for DPC.
29:57
DPC practices, so the platform it's based on high level, which
30:04
is a kind of CRM. And the really cool thing about
30:08
it is you can develop it for whatever business industry.
30:13
So I thought, well, that would be a really good one for DPC
30:17
because for people like you or just started, newly started for
30:23
six months or a year and they're still trying to get patients,
30:26
this kind of thing can make those automations so easy and
30:31
really simplify things because of the automations.
30:35
So I've kind of chunked it up in pieces because like you said,
30:39
when you start, you don't have a lot of money.
30:41
So start small, like a chat widget on your website, just
30:48
that get patient's name, e-mail, phone number, and then you reach
30:52
out to them. And then the next level would be
30:54
chat widget and then a voice AI to take phone calls and into the
30:58
chat widget And the AI, you train them on your business.
31:02
You train them how you want questions answered.
31:06
So do you take my insurance? No, we don't take insurance, but
31:09
we can see everybody. That kind of thing.
31:10
Yeah. Do you require vaccines
31:12
questions that you know you're going to get?
31:14
Yeah. Yes.
31:15
Your epic use exactly that. You can do more.
31:18
Interactively. And then the, the voice AI, same
31:20
thing. You can get their phone name,
31:21
e-mail, if you, if they're like, yeah, I'm ready, I want to do
31:24
this. OK, can I text you a link to our
31:27
website like that kind of thing. And then you can go even
31:29
further. So chat, widget, voice, social
31:32
planner, reputation management and the social planner I think
31:37
you would love because it's amazing.
31:40
You can play it out for like years if you wanted to.
31:43
It's great because you can automate and you can put, you
31:47
can put posts on 6 or 7 platforms.
31:51
You don't have to go into them. You don't have to see them
31:54
because that's that's one thing. I know it's a time suck because
31:57
every time I try to like post stuff and I'm like, oh, let me
31:59
see what someone's always doing and then it's an hour later and
32:02
I didn't post my thing. So the social planner is awesome
32:09
so that you know, you can multiply your voice times
32:14
however many platforms you're on and you only have to post it
32:18
once. So it's like you 7 times what
32:20
you're doing and it's a bit of a numbers game, right?
32:23
It's just, you just got to get that word out.
32:25
The more you get it out, the more people know about you, the
32:27
more people are going to call you.
32:29
So that one I, I was just learning more about it today
32:33
because this platform has so many things that I haven't
32:37
really dug into that one as much, but it's incredible.
32:41
It's amazing. So we're just starting to use it
32:43
at our office. I was showing our office manager
32:45
and she's like, what I can do this?
32:50
Yeah. And they've been wanting to use
32:52
Tiktok. They wanted to be on Tiktok like
32:54
2 months ago. The and I said got another one
32:58
that we got to try and figure out and play, but once we got
33:01
the CRM, I was like, OK, you want Tiktok, what else do you
33:05
want? You want threads?
33:08
You can do YouTube, you can just it's it's great, it's wonderful.
33:12
You just do it from one place. Yeah.
33:15
And then the reputation management, it will
33:18
automatically send emails to your patients or your parents
33:23
afterwards and say, if you're happy with your service, would
33:26
you mind giving us a review? And it takes them automatically
33:30
there. So that's kind of like the
33:32
middle level. And then the next level just has
33:36
like more automations, more stuff, just more stuff.
33:41
It's like that one's for bigger established practices, like I
33:46
think the smaller tiers, those are the ones for people who are
33:50
starting out because they don't cost as much.
33:54
Yeah. So that is what I have.
33:57
So I'll send you a link to it if you want to see it.
33:59
Yeah. And it's got everything listed
34:01
on there. Well.
34:03
I've had them. I've had the mindset that if
34:06
you're not good at something or you don't like to do it, then
34:08
you should just double down and just do it and get really good
34:12
at it. And so you're no longer have
34:13
that hesitation and that ick feel.
34:16
But now I have so many of them as I'm starting this business,
34:19
it's like I know I want to spend all my time doing things that
34:23
I'm not good at and I don't do really well and I don't like to
34:26
do. But that that's definitely one
34:28
of the top ones. And of course, the public
34:30
seeking fees and just selling yourself, it's really hard.
34:34
I've not seen any fee for service practices around here
34:37
ever advertise, ever market themselves.
34:40
They just, they just. Patients just show.
34:43
Up because there's so few of them that mean kids have to get
34:45
care somewhere and that's and entrance.
34:48
The entrance is like you got to go here, so it.
34:51
Yeah, and it feels really weird to be the doctor.
34:54
It's like being the lawyer on the billboards advertising their
34:58
services. Like there's another lawyer in
35:00
every city finding the lawyer with the Billboard.
35:02
So I feel like there's that doctor selling her wares.
35:05
I'm like, yeah, you have to know that I'm here.
35:09
And if you don't, people don't know about you because no one
35:13
knows about you. Even if you think you've said it
35:15
a million times, they still don't know about you and it's
35:19
like it's it's your duty to tell them.
35:23
Just keep telling yourself it is.
35:24
It's my duty. Obligated.
35:29
Yeah, it. Is it's an obligation, right?
35:31
Because they wouldn't have it otherwise.
35:33
I'm super excited for you. Pete's DPC is really catching
35:38
on. It is catching.
35:40
On I'm really excited. I, I think this is one of the
35:43
things that's gonna allow healthcare to continue because
35:46
in our current state, I have a lot of hesitancies about what's
35:49
coming. But I think having DPC is so
35:53
important to keep physicians continue practicing because
35:57
otherwise I think a lot of them are going to continue leaving.
35:59
And I think this is the outlet, this is the vent that's going to
36:04
allow a lot of physicians to continue practicing medicine
36:07
and, and families need it. And so I'm really excited It's
36:12
no longer fringe. It's growing like 1015% year
36:16
over year. It's great.
36:18
And I think it's a great option for even the fee for service
36:22
doctors that are burnt out, that wanna come on over.
36:24
But there's now lots of them. They're coming right out of
36:27
residency, going straight into their own DPC practices, which
36:31
I'm a little jealous of that they have those opportunities
36:33
coming out of residency. I still didn't know what I
36:35
wanted to do when I was graduating, so I it's a great
36:39
place to be right now. So definitely good.
36:42
Well, I've enjoyed talking with you.
36:44
I so enjoy talking. With you, Anne, and thank you
36:46
for taking the time. Do you have these conversations?
36:50
Because it not only helps me, but it helps the the, the
36:54
audience and the listeners talk. So it's been a lot of.
36:57
Fun. Well thank you so much, I would
37:00
love to talk to you again in like 6 months catch up You bet I
37:04
would love. To tell you where I'm at, yeah,
37:05
but I'll. I'll.
37:06
Touch base with you sooner just to check in.
37:09
I want to say thank you to my guest Doctor Chelsea Johnson and
37:13
I hope that you can take away some ideas for your own DPC
37:18
journey if you are opening up your DPC or already opened and
37:23
maybe this may help you. Also, if you are a DPC dreamer,
37:27
you can get my free five day DPC Confidence course and you'll get
37:33
5 short emails that walk you through the beginning steps of
37:37
opening your DPC practice. Talks about ways to tell people
37:41
about DPC to catch their attention.
37:44
And then also a timeline to help you open your own DPC within 90
37:48
days. So you can get it for free by
37:50
direct messaging the Word course to at DPC Life on Instagram or
37:57
you can go to the link in the show notes.
37:59
Then for those of you who are closer to launching your DPC or
38:03
if you're planning to open your DPC in the next 6 to 12 months,
38:08
or if you're already open and piercing together spreadsheets
38:12
and random tools, then Harmony UPS for DPC is built for you.
38:17
This is my DPC specific CRM that I mentioned during the episode
38:22
with Doctor Johnson and it is an operations platform to help you
38:27
track leads, onboard your patients and run the back end of
38:31
your practice without all the chaos and nurture potential
38:36
patients and also help with onboarding patients.
38:41
It will run the back end of your practice smoothly and it's such
38:44
a good feeling to know that all of these things are happening
38:47
without you having to manually trigger all of these
38:52
automations. Right now we are in founders
38:55
mode, so setup fees are reduced through December 31st and also
39:00
our founders rates are going to increase in the new year.
39:03
So if you know that DPC is in your future and you want your
39:06
systems ready before you open, now is the time to take
39:10
advantage of the founders pricing.
39:13
All of the links are in the show notes, the DPC Confidence
39:17
course, Harmony OPS for DPC, and ways to connect with Doctor
39:21
Johnson. Thank you for listening to DPC
39:25
Life. If today's conversation inspired
39:28
you, hit follow, Leave a review and share it with a friend who's
39:33
ready for change. Remember, wherever you are in
39:37
the journey, your DPC family has your back.
39:41
Until next time, keep building a practice and a life that truly
39:46
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