Latest / DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast / What No One Tells You About Starting a DPC Practice: Coaching Dr. Jo Ann Beltre

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What No One Tells You About Starting a DPC Practice: Coaching Dr. Jo Ann Beltre · DPC Life: Direct Primary Care Podcast

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The number one question I hear when people find out about my
0:02
practice is do you take my insurance?
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I was having some health issues and the urgent care wasn't
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really willing to make accommodations.
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And I just decided, you know what, this is silly and I can't
0:11
put myself at risk and I need to just dive into the to this DPC
0:15
thing that I had already started you.
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Want to serve what people want. But then you also need to figure
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out really, what do you what do you really, really, really want?
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The thing is the messaging, it's the creatives and the copy and
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the messaging just has to be the right message so that people,
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they really, they, they see it and they're like, oh, that's me.
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They're talking to me. And that's why picking your
0:41
ideal portion is so important, because you want them to see
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your message. It's honestly, I now look at
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these posts and I'm like, what are we even doing?
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Why are we putting up with this stuff?
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You know, it's like sometimes I see people post stuff with
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what's going on in their job and I'm like, why are we doing this?
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Is crazy. Welcome to DPC Life, the podcast
1:00
where independent doctors share real stories, bold ideas, and
1:04
the freedom of doing medicine on your own terms.
1:08
I'm your host, Doctor Anne Gonzalez, and together we'll
1:12
explore the wins, the struggles, and everything in between.
1:16
Let's dive in. Hey friends, welcome back to DPC
1:21
Life, the podcast where we talk about DPC and our lives outside
1:25
of the office. So today we are starting our
1:29
mini coaching series. I started this because I wanted
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to help new DPC doctors and those who are still planning
1:38
their practices, maybe wanting to gather patients while they're
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still working in their fee for service jobs to help them firm
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up what they are trying to do. Clarify their offer, clarify
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their message, work on those elevator pitches, and also see
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if there's anything else that I can help them with as they get
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started because it is daunting. I was there.
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It took a lot of planning and a lot of mindset shifting.
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And so that's another thing that we can't.
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We talked about how do you promote yourself without feeling
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icky, which a lot of us feel like that sometimes when we
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first start out. So we have our first coaching
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guest today, Doctor Joanne Beltre from New Hampshire, and
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she is a pediatrician. This is something different to
2:28
start out with, but the concept is the same.
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We all have to learn how to present ourselves and how to
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promote ourselves and how to show the value of DPC to people
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who don't know anything about it before we even jump into that.
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If you're building or growing your DPC or about to start, make
2:45
sure to check out Harmony OPS for DPC.
2:48
It is the all in one tech solution that I built to help
2:52
DPC docs automate front desk answer questions.
2:57
Reach out to patients regularly and once they are your patients,
3:00
retain them by communicating with them through newsletters
3:04
and emails. And it also helps with your
3:07
social media. It can do so many different
3:09
things and help you wade through the tech without too much
3:13
overwhelm. Also, if you are still planning,
3:16
go ahead and sign up for the free DPC Confidence course.
3:20
It's a five day e-mail series to help you stop overthinking
3:25
everything and then start building your practice step by
3:28
step. And the links are in the show
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notes. So let's get started with Doctor
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Joanne Beltry. Today my guest is Doctor Joanne
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Beltry, and she is the owner and founder of Wander Care
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Pediatrics in Massachusetts. So she is a pediatric direct
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primary care doctor, which is unusual but growing, growing,
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and I'm so excited to see that take it away.
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Doctor Joanne, tell us how you got into DPC and all about your
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DPC and what you're doing outside of it too.
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Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I've had an interesting
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Rd. in my practice of medicine. Actually, I, when I went to the
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medical school, I initially, I had a National Health Service
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course scholarship. So I had agreed to serve the
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underserved in a primary care field.
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And I remember when I had been offered this scholarship, I was
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pretty sure I wanted to do Pediatrics.
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But there was a part of me was like I.
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Don't know, I really love. Emergency medicine and I
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remember having a conversation with my dad and him saying you
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need to take the scholarship. It's so much money and I came
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from not a lot of money at all and really went to college and
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Med school, you know, college anyway on loans.
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And so he really encouraged me. He's like, is that you can
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always change. And so this will become
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important later when I tell you sort of what my career has been.
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OK, So yeah, so I did that. So I took the scholarship and I
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I trained in Pediatrics at UConn.
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And after that I took a job at the County Health Department in
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Tampa, FL. And I love that job in a lot of
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ways. I spoke Spanish like all day,
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which is amazing. I love my patients.
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They were very compliant. They were very like they wanted
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their vaccines cause a lot of them had come from Mexico and
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the Caribbean and Central America and they had seen the
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diseases that that we don't see here.
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But it wasn't truly a career. And I really did not like
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Florida. I'm a New Englander and I missed
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home. When I finished that obligation.
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I spent four years down there. I moved home to New Hampshire
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and I actually joined the pediatric practice that I grew
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up in as a patient. Yeah.
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And it. Was amazing.
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And, and honestly, when I took that job, I really thought that
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was going to be my last job like for the rest of my career.
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And I liked it a lot. I was there six years.
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And the community I live in here in Southern New Hampshire is
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it's, it's mostly fairly affluent community.
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And what happened over the years in my practice there, it just
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became more and more and more mental health as the years went
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by. And I had this moment that I
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just was like, I don't feel like a doctor anymore.
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It's not that I minded treating those things.
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I don't. It was just so much of what I
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was doing that I was sort of missing all the procedures and
6:20
all the sort of sick visits and everything else.
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I sort of just took this wild risk and I actually left
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practice and went to an urgent care center.
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And actually the lifestyle was really good.
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My kids were young at the time and it allowed me to have
6:36
complete days off and only work three days a week and feel like
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I wasn't missing a lot. And I love the medicine.
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So it was fun. I right away I was like, oh, I
6:46
was doing laceration repair and doing all the procedures and it
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just, it was, the hours were great.
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I wasn't working nights anymore because in my PS job, we were
6:53
covering the hospital going to deliveries.
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And yeah, it was hard. And I was getting older and it
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was just really hard to be up all night.
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As everybody knows who's probably listening to this
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podcast. So I have opened this practice
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kind of throwing everything against the wall and seeing what
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sticks, right? So it's, it's difficult here
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because I'm not in a big city. So I'm in fairly not populous
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area. We have small towns around here
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that are like 5 or 6000 people. And I also didn't have a panel
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of patients because I came from urgent care.
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So it's been a struggle actually to recruit patients.
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But I basically said I'll do pediatric primary care, I'll do
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urgent care for everybody. I've been doing it for 10 years,
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and we'll see what people want. So that's where I'm at.
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OK. Oh, I did want to work with you
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on that. But before that, tell us more.
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You also do travel medicine. Yes.
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And so that's like you have a travel medicine clinic almost
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and then you also do mission trips.
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Yes, so I did a lot of mission trips back in the day.
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I've been, I think, I think I'm at like 13 or 14 mission trips
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that I've done and since 2016, I think I've been leaving them.
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So, yeah, so I've been all over. And because of that, I have a
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lot of experience in Tropical Medicine.
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Yeah. So I do offer travel medicine,
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basically consultations that I usually do over a virtual.
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Yeah, yeah. And it's.
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Hard to find around here. And it's like people charge a
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lot of money. So I tried to, I tried to price
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it in a way that people can afford it because they're also
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paying for their vaccines and everything.
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It gets really expensive. That was my next question is the
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vaccines, do they go to health department or pharmacy?
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How do they get those? Or you?
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No, I can get everything they need except for yellow fever and
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then the local Walgreens are now doing yellow fever.
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There was a while that it was on.
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It was like back ordered. So you do you do vaccines in
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your practice I. Am going to be doing vaccines.
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I'm trying to figure that out with the state right now.
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It's been a real challenge in the state.
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We do have VFC. It's not a financial issue, but
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the state is very particular about having you transport that.
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And I'm actually working with another DPC pediatrician who's
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willing to allow me to pick up from her office and take it,
9:16
take the vaccine to my patients before I have cuz I mean, I
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don't have enough patients right now.
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So to make, to make it sort of worthwhile to like invest in the
9:24
refrigerator and everything. Right, right.
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So there's another DPC pediatrician near you.
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Yes, yeah, there's actually 2 that I know of in the state.
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There's one over in Portsmouth and there's one in Concord.
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Let's shift into talking about what you mentioned was kind of a
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hard thing for you is getting patients.
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Now these other DPCS, again, how far away are they, the DPC PEDs
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practices? The one in Concord's probably 45
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minutes and the one in Portsmouth is half an hour.
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So they're not that far away. No, they're not that far away.
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But yeah, people don't want to drive around here.
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People don't want to drive more than half an hour to get to
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their doctor. And where they are, I'm not real
10:04
familiar with the geography. So yeah, bigger cities.
10:08
Yeah, bigger cities. Are there, you mentioned there's
10:10
another DPC practice your friend and then is she doing full
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spectrum family? Does she have pediatric
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patients? I think she does 2 and up but
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she says she doesn't have that many.
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So she came with a panel. So she actually had a lot of
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patients that she like was able to close almost as soon as she's
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to practice, which is. Wow.
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Yeah, she, she, she brought a lot of people with her.
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OK. But yeah, she was telling me
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that she sees 2 and up. I think, you know, the number
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one question I hear when people find out about my practice is do
10:42
you take my insurance? And then you have to go into the
10:44
whole explanation. And I almost in seeing that
10:47
people don't truly understand the value of having ADPC doc
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until they experience it for themselves.
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So it's like that's the, there's like an educational hurdle that
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I'm facing right now is that people are like, why would I pay
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for that? And I'm sure I'm not alone, but
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unlike a lot of areas in the country, here where I am, it's
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not super well known yet. Yeah.
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And that's that's a hurdle pretty much most places, even if
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there are a lot of DPC doctors in an area, there's still a lot
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of people who don't understand or don't know about it either.
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So yeah, yeah, that's that's one of the hard parts about it.
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OK. So what has worked so far to get
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you patients? I mean, honestly, the most
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people that I've had have been word of mouth.
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OK. So either people who met me or
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people who knew me before or people who met someone who knows
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me. OK.
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Yeah. And I feel like I'm doing all
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the things which I may not be doing them to their maximum
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effect, but like I've been, you know, using social media, both
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just regular posting as well as paid meta ads.
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I've been doing that. I joined.
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I just joined within the last couple of weeks, our local
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Chamber of Commerce and I've been going to their networking
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events. And like, by and large, people
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seem really excited about what I'm doing.
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And I feel like universally people like, Oh my God, that's a
12:08
great idea. Let me have your card.
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But I'm not seeing the calls or anything come in.
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So I'm missing this a little bit.
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It's a little bit frustrating, but it's also scary.
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Like I was planning on keeping my urgent care job actually, but
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a couple of things happened. First of all, I found I didn't
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really have the time even working.
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I was only working 30 hours a week.
12:27
I didn't really have the time that I needed and, and to be
12:30
available and to sort of start working on things.
12:32
But the other thing is I was having some health issues and
12:35
the urgent care wasn't really willing to make accommodations.
12:38
And I just decided, you know what, this is silly and I can't
12:40
put myself at risk and I need to just dive into the to this DPC
12:44
thing that I had already started.
12:45
So, so that's why, but it's, we're digging into our savings
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and it's, I can't stay like this forever.
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Like I need to start seeing people, right?
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Right, right. Yeah, OK.
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It's hard when you have kind of two jobs, like if you're you
12:59
can't really focus on one and even though the other job does
13:04
pay the bills, but it's also hard to build the other one, the
13:07
new one when you're working in the other one.
13:09
So it may still be to your benefit.
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It's just, yeah, we got to get things moving.
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Who is, who's your ideal patient?
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Do you have one patient now that you're like, I love this kind of
13:21
patient. I wish I had more of them?
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What is that patient and family like?
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I've been really excited about families signing on for urgent
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care. I made my memberships really
13:34
flexible so I have both primary care and urgent care options.
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So it's like I had this family sign on and they have two kids
13:42
and the two parents and they, she runs a school and she has a
13:48
lot of pre-existing health issues that need a lot of care.
13:51
And she felt like for herself, it would make a lot of sense for
13:55
me to be able to just come to her any and if she was sick and
13:59
check her out and see how we can sort of get things moving in the
14:01
right direction. And they signed on for basically
14:04
family urgent care membership. And I don't pressure people to
14:07
change to me for their PCP because actually I love urgent
14:10
care and it's if they want to see me as a pediatrician, great.
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And if they don't, that's great too.
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I'm happy to see them all. So that was like for me, the
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ideal situation is that OK Anytime any of the family is
14:19
sick. And also she's a business owner.
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So she was like, Hey, you know what, when my staff get sick
14:24
this winter, like I wonder if we could have some sort of business
14:27
relationship where you can come and see them because they leave
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and go to urgent care and spend 4 hours away from the job.
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If you come, they don't even barely have to leave work for
14:36
except to get seen. And then we talked about the
14:39
kids in the school, their a lot of their parents like drop them
14:42
off and go to Boston to work. And so that too when those kids
14:45
get sick. And so we're working on some
14:48
consent and that sort of thing so that we can maybe have the
14:50
kids seen at the school. So that type of relationship,
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it's like, that's what this is, this is a small community and
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that's what I want to be known for.
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I want to be like, Hey, you know what, my doctor comes to me and,
15:01
and it's just, it's good for everybody.
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It's good for me, it's good for them.
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So though I think that's probably, if I had to say,
15:07
that's probably sort of my favorite situation.
15:12
So what I'm hearing is you like obviously the flexibility you
15:17
and let me just make sure I understand.
15:20
So you are seeing adults and kids?
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For urgent care, I don't do adult primary care.
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I'm not trained for that, but I'll see kids for primary care
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as well. Sure.
15:30
All right, so that is a little confusing.
15:35
Yeah, I know. And that might be part of the
15:40
issue is when you're trying to get new patients clear is always
15:47
better. And that's for so I understand
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DPC already and right, listen to this.
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I'm like, wait, what? Huh.
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So it's, I don't know, you may have to think about somehow just
16:04
making it even clearer. OK.
16:07
You have. So that's kind of like 4 or 6
16:11
different lines of ways that people can enter your practice,
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which is awesome but also confusing.
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And when people are confused, they're just like, no, there's
16:26
like something like saying like a confused mind doesn't buy or
16:29
something like that. So that might be part of it.
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And maybe if you, your family or friends who you can bounce ideas
16:41
off of, maybe say, OK, this is how this works.
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This is what I have. Is that clear?
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Do you understand how that I mean just to kind of see and
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maybe they can help you figure out yet that part is clear, but
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I don't understand this, but I think maybe that that might be
16:59
part of the issue. OK.
17:01
You got and it's all wonderful and, and I I see what you're
17:05
trying to do, you're trying to serve.
17:07
A lot of people, exactly. But the problem is when you try
17:11
to serve so many people, like, no one really feels like you're
17:16
talking to them specifically. So that's why I asked about
17:23
who's your ideal, who's your ideal?
17:26
And it sounds like, I mean, you really love the urgent care.
17:30
Yeah, I do. And I spent 10 years hearing the
17:33
complaints about the waiting rooms and the wait and then
17:37
seeing a provider who doesn't know you.
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And you know, it's just, it's not, there's a better way, you
17:44
know? I'm just thinking about what
17:46
because urgent care is so different from regular primary
17:50
care, so how do you merge that? It's tricky, right, with the
17:54
nutrition. And I did that for 10 years and
17:56
then I did urgent care for 10 years.
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And it's, there were so many patients, kids and adults while
18:01
I was in urgent care. I was like, do you have a
18:02
practice? We want to see you as our
18:04
doctor. And it's, so that's why I wanted
18:06
to do both is I wanted to give people a chance to like, I, I
18:09
guess also seeing that as OK, if I, if I see you for urgent care
18:12
and you like me, you're going to want to bring your kids to me,
18:15
right? So it's yeah.
18:16
So that's, and like I said, it's not a, it's not a big city.
18:20
You know, it's like almost I'm trying to see what people want.
18:25
But I hear you. It's a very good.
18:26
Point. Yeah.
18:28
And the other thing I'm thinking of is like when, what about when
18:31
you have 200 patients in the middle of winter?
18:36
How are you going to handle that?
18:37
Yeah, if you're doing home visits and going to work like
18:41
how you know your schedule, I I see you want to be able to
18:44
manage it. That sounds like a tricky.
18:48
Schedule. I have office space too.
18:51
And obviously so like the whole idea of wonder care was
18:55
flexibility. So if you have a reason, like I
18:58
have a patient who has fragile X and is very medical traumatized
19:01
and so he can't actually go into a medical setting.
19:04
So it's like to have someone that comes to him is otherwise
19:07
he wouldn't be getting any care right there, there.
19:09
The whole idea was to have that flexibility built into it.
19:13
So if someone calls for urgent care and it's something that can
19:15
be done over telemedicine and we do it that way if or if I have
19:18
20 home visits or whatever. So yes, I hear you and that, but
19:22
the idea was to sort of have that flexibility.
19:25
OK. Yeah, just DPC in general.
19:27
Yeah, it's flexible. The other thing about
19:29
flexibility is you want to be flexible, but you also have to
19:32
think about your time and your boundaries.
19:37
And you don't want to give so much of yourself that you end up
19:39
just running yourself into the ground.
19:43
And so I always tell people to think about future.
19:46
That's why I'm asking about what about when you have 200 and it's
19:49
like January? Right.
19:51
What are you going to do? Because if people are so used to
19:53
being like, hey, I'm sick, can you come see me today and you're
19:57
there in an hour. But then in the middle of
19:58
January, I can't. You can't get to them right Then
20:03
what they expect is you're here in an hour, but in.
20:07
January, you just can't. There's only one of you.
20:11
Yeah, it's a really interesting, interesting situation.
20:13
But yeah, definitely, I think clarifying who do you want to
20:17
see? Who's your best?
20:18
Because it sounds like you also like the medically fragile
20:22
patient, like your fragile ex child that you see you go to
20:27
their house because they can't, right?
20:29
And that's, that's a whole nother situation.
20:34
I think if you wanted to just see patients like that, because
20:37
even though it's a small community, they're out there,
20:39
right? And even your other DPC
20:42
colleagues that are 45 minutes or half an hour away, if you're
20:45
willing to go that far, because if they're a brick and mortar
20:48
and they don't want to do that right, you can.
20:51
Right. So that's an, I think, the focus
20:56
trying to figure that out. If you do something like that
20:59
where it's just a fragile, like medically fragile children and
21:04
in a big city, you may find more.
21:05
I don't know where you are, but they're everywhere.
21:08
Those parents are going to value your service so much.
21:13
They will pay whatever they need to because they want to protect
21:17
their child, right? Yeah.
21:20
And then you don't need as many patients, right, If you have a
21:26
much higher price point, but you know it's going to be higher.
21:30
Right. Yeah, it's going to be.
21:33
So that's another way to look at it is if you if that's really
21:39
where you really want to see patients.
21:42
And then it's, I wouldn't say it's simpler, but it it focuses
21:47
what you're doing, you know what I mean?
21:48
Yeah, yeah. So that's another potential way
21:52
that you could go. Yeah, I think that, yeah, just
21:55
just trying to figure out and focus is a really, it's really
21:59
important because the clarity is, is much is it's much more
22:03
helpful and what you could do and what you're trying to do is
22:07
figure out what people want. So one way, I know you said you,
22:12
you are doing some ads. One way is to do some ads, but
22:18
target them to specific, specific populations.
22:23
OK, Just by the way you word your ad just because of the
22:26
message like the creatives and the copy.
22:30
So one thing that's really helpful is to actually do, well,
22:36
it's a little hard when you're doing advertising for healthcare
22:39
because meta's rules are really specific.
22:42
They don't want you like you can't be like, hey, you tired of
22:46
those wrinkles on your face? Like that will never, you can't
22:51
do that. They won't let you.
22:52
They don't want you to put anything on there that's going
22:54
to make someone feel bad about themselves.
22:56
So I was thinking like, OK, so what's up?
22:59
You have to be very positive when you put these ads out.
23:02
You have to say something like, do you want to keep your child
23:06
healthy if you have a medically fragile child or something along
23:14
those lines. So having a whole set, like a
23:16
whole campaign of ads for that, see what kind of response you
23:21
get. But then you can also have a set
23:24
of ads if you still want to try and focus on kind of an urgent
23:28
care type picture. It's almost in a way it's like
23:33
focus groups without an actual focus group.
23:36
You know. You're just kind of getting kind
23:38
of the temperature for what people want.
23:42
But yes, you want to, you want to serve what people want, but
23:48
then you also need to figure out really, what do you, what do you
23:52
really, really, really want? Cuz yeah, yeah.
23:55
You want to do many, many different things, but it's hard.
23:59
It just, it muddies the waters, I guess.
24:02
Yeah. So that's, that's one thing I
24:05
think would help. And it does sound like you're
24:07
doing a lot of the things that you need to do, like word of
24:11
mouth. That's always help.
24:13
I mean, that's the best way. That's the best way.
24:15
Do you ask your current patients for referrals?
24:19
No, I haven't. It's hard to ask, but that
24:23
that's the best thing. And and do you ask them for
24:26
reviews? Yes.
24:27
OK. Yeah.
24:29
Yeah. So definitely you want to get
24:30
reviews. Yeah, and I've noticed I had, I
24:33
built my own website. I learned all about SEO.
24:36
And I've noticed that actually the one thing that's helped is
24:40
writing a weekly blog. I did see that because when I do
24:44
that, it like bumps me up if you're searching for a
24:46
pediatrician near me. I actually started showing up
24:49
when I started doing that and I was doing all the other things
24:51
and it wasn't making a difference.
24:53
So I was like, oh, OK, I got to keep doing that, so I'm doing
24:55
that too. I had looked at your website and
24:58
I had, I was like, oh, I took notes.
24:59
I did say blog, nice, yes. So the blog that is great.
25:05
That is a really good thing and that is good for your SEOSEO is
25:11
most of the time kind of like a long game.
25:14
Yeah, you're not gonna see it immediately, you will see it
25:17
eventually. But the blog is really good.
25:19
I'm sure that's really helping you kind.
25:21
Of well up what I do is I go into the social media moms
25:25
groups where you're not allowed to advertise your business and I
25:28
see what they're talking about and I'm like, oh, you all are
25:30
talking about potty training I'm gonna write A blog it's.
25:32
Easy for me to write a. Blog and or people are talking
25:35
about flu and people are talking about whatever so I go in there
25:38
and I'm like all right, let's write about this.
25:39
This seems timely so and I am starting to see it already so
25:44
that's good. I've had a couple of meet and
25:46
greet calls with people who are like oh I was like how did you
25:50
find me? Oh I just googled pediatrician
25:52
near me and I'm like. It's so the first time you hear.
25:56
That you're like yay, yay it. Worked it.
25:59
Actually. Works.
26:01
All that work is paying off. It does a.
26:04
Lot of work though, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
26:06
So on those groups, I don't know if the, you know how the rules
26:10
are for those particular groups, but a lot of times the groups
26:13
you cannot advertise yourself, just put a post and be like,
26:17
hey, I'm a paediatrician, da, da, da.
26:19
But if somebody asks a question. Yes.
26:23
Do you do that? Do you answer?
26:24
Hey, I literally do that every time.
26:26
If I catch it, I'm like, hey, there was one day that, you
26:30
know, they were having trouble getting into the local Pete's
26:32
practice. And I know the practice just
26:34
switched their EMR so I know what was going on.
26:36
And I was like, hey, I'm available all day and text me.
26:38
Nobody did. So I was like, maybe they were
26:41
trying to get their meds refilled or something that
26:42
wasn't urgent care ask, but I was like, I do I try to do that.
26:47
Yeah. And even if there's some kind of
26:49
question, I mean, you don't want to give medical advice, but you
26:51
can kind of just make some kind of comment, educational comment,
26:59
not giving advice and just say, yeah, if you wanted to talk
27:03
about it more, you can call or get my blog or something like
27:08
that. Just but every every time trying
27:10
to redirect them either to your website or your socials or
27:14
something. Yeah.
27:17
Yeah. So then your I did not look at
27:21
your social media posting. What are you doing there?
27:25
When I do a blog, I will do a like insta post which says new
27:29
blog and link it back to the blog.
27:32
Other times I've done like ads like I do ear piercing and I've
27:35
actually had a lot of people because they can't find anywhere
27:37
to Pierce their babies. Like I did a post for that I've
27:40
actually used a couple times because it seems to be like
27:42
really popular thing. I figure it at least gets them
27:45
into my office and what else? Yeah, I just, like I said, it's
27:50
just linking them back when I do the blog.
27:52
I'm trying to think of what else I've done.
27:53
I haven't done a lot of just generic posting, but I probably
27:58
should. Oh, I'm going to be on a, I'm
28:00
sponsoring this pediatric panel in a couple of weeks here.
28:03
APT group is actually hosting it.
28:05
So they put together all the posts.
28:06
So I've been actually re sharing those, of course, because I'm
28:09
sponsoring, I'm going to have a table at the event.
28:11
And so yeah, I'm doing that. And like I said, I joined the
28:15
chamber. So like when they post stuff
28:17
about me, I try to repost that. Perfect.
28:21
Yeah. How often are you posting?
28:23
Probably once a week, yeah. And are you on Instagram or
28:28
Facebook? Both, both.
28:30
Are you on anymore or just those two?
28:33
I'm. On YouTube and TikTok but I
28:35
haven't used them a lot. OK.
28:37
So social again, organic, social, good, it'll get you
28:42
there. It's slower.
28:43
The ads are faster. Yeah.
28:47
And I like that you can target the actual like zip codes and
28:50
yeah, because good around here. I don't.
28:53
If it's really far away, it doesn't make sense to be paying
28:55
for that, you know? OK, good.
28:57
So you're not just boosting posts because that's not really
29:00
helpful. Boosting posts is not helpful.
29:02
No. Oh so I have been boosting.
29:05
OK so then what? How do I?
29:08
So yeah, because the boosting plus all it does is it just
29:13
pushes it out to more people. It doesn't necessarily push it
29:15
to people that you want to see it.
29:18
OK, so when I actually make an ad and select the population,
29:22
that's the better way. Correct.
29:24
OK, OK, that is that makes sense.
29:29
OK, yeah, so boosting posts it's easier, but it's it it doesn't
29:35
really help. Yep.
29:37
Doesn't really help. OK, I think I did get those
29:41
confused. Yeah, yeah, the the boosting, I
29:43
mean, it's just so easy to because it's always.
29:45
Do you want to boost this? Yes, I do every time.
29:49
Yes, I do. Take my money, Mark Zuckerberg,
29:52
please. But yeah, you have to do the
29:55
more directed and that it's a little bit more confusing, but
29:59
it's it's doable. And that's kind of how I got
30:04
into this whole thing, like with the podcasting and everything is
30:07
because I started out teaching people how to do that.
30:10
OK. Yeah, if you wanted to talk more
30:13
about it later, we can. Because I have been confused
30:15
about like the campaigns versus just the ads, and I've tried to
30:20
set it up and failed several times.
30:22
And I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing about this.
30:25
It's very complicated and they try to have the little
30:28
information but it doesn't really explain it in a way that
30:30
I can. Understand no yeah it's hard and
30:33
we our DPC, we do aesthetics as well and so that's how I that's
30:37
why I had to learn because aesthetics is completely
30:40
different you. Have and it's not treated.
30:43
No kidding, right? And I mean I.
30:46
Live in a small area and there's tons of places going.
30:48
Yeah, It's like, yeah, that's hard.
30:50
Yeah, so that's why and I did it for a couple years, just not
30:54
very well. And finally I was like I gotta
30:55
figure this out cuz this is not working.
30:59
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one.
31:01
No, you are not. You know, I knew I was going to
31:04
make mistakes along the way, so it's OK.
31:06
It's OK, It's all learning. It's all learning.
31:09
But yeah, that's. So that's what that's how I got
31:10
into this podcast and a lot of other stuff.
31:13
But yes, so ads are good. You just have to do them
31:18
properly. Yeah.
31:20
And you don't have to spend a ton of money.
31:22
Yeah, you. Really don't.
31:23
The thing is the messaging, it's the creatives and the copy and
31:27
the messaging just has to be the right message so that people,
31:32
they really, they, they see it and they're like, oh, that's me,
31:37
they're talking to me. And that's why picking your
31:40
ideal client. Or your ideal portion.
31:42
Is so important because you want them to see your message.
31:46
You want them to see that and see themselves in that situation
31:51
and say, hey, Oh yeah, that would be so much better.
31:56
Yeah, they they need to see the transformation for them.
32:01
Right. A lot of times we talk about
32:05
I've got all this experience and I went to such and such school
32:08
and da, da, da, and it's great. But what they want to hear is
32:13
what's in it for me? What do I get out of it?
32:17
How does this help me? But yeah, the ads, we can work.
32:22
We can totally work on that. It is.
32:25
It's really fast and if you get it right, it works.
32:29
It really does. And you don't.
32:30
You don't have to spend a ton of money.
32:32
Yeah. The chamber is also excellent
32:38
getting out there networking because you need to have
32:40
referral sources. So the PTS are good if there's
32:44
any particular pediatric either PTS or is there specifically
32:51
like a pediatric hospital near you?
32:54
No, but there are pediatric PTS. There's a lot of doulas and
32:58
like, yes, yeah. The OB practices there's.
33:03
I'm trying to think of what else.
33:04
I've been to a bunch of networking events for women, and
33:07
a lot of them are in fields that are dealing with moms who have
33:11
little kids. They're going to have little
33:12
kids. So.
33:13
Right. Perfect.
33:14
Yeah. When you go to these networking
33:16
events, do you get their e-mail addresses?
33:19
Yes. And then what do you do with
33:21
them? I haven't done anything with
33:23
them yet. I have a list from I went to
33:25
this moms and business 1 and I have a list and I wasn't really
33:28
sure what to do with that yet. OK, so that's like gold.
33:35
OK. And yes, that's also part of I
33:41
got into all of this. So there's a way, I have a way
33:44
that you can create the e-mail sequences because that part is
33:48
just write these emails. What do I do and how do I write
33:51
these? Again, you think about the
33:53
messaging, what's in it for you? But the idea is, and it's the
33:56
same thing with the social medias.
33:58
You just got to put yourself out there.
34:01
They need to hear from you. They need to remember you, OK?
34:05
But. You've got, you've got a
34:08
goldmine, literally and. You.
34:10
Just have to reach out to them. So are we talking about like a
34:15
newsletter? Sure, emails, newsletters, you
34:18
can send a sequence of emails just saying, hey, it was great
34:22
to meet you at the blah blah blah event.
34:25
I wanted to introduce myself or tell you more about my practice.
34:29
And then you do a whole sequence to warm up.
34:35
Warm them up, let them. Know.
34:36
More about you because they probably didn't get a chance to
34:39
learn about you a whole like in depth at.
34:42
A like a. Quick networking thing.
34:44
OK, that's a great. Suggestion you can send
34:47
sequences of emails that say this is what I do I do primary
34:54
primary care for kids. I like seeing urgent needs or
34:59
what just but each e-mail. So you can send it out every
35:02
day, or you can send them out every two or three days,
35:04
whatever you want. But the idea is to keep you in
35:09
mind, the top of mind, so that they know.
35:12
And even if they don't need you, maybe someone they know needs
35:15
you. Right.
35:17
And so in those emails, you can set up a sequence of one day you
35:21
talk about one thing, one day. Oh, I do travel medicine, too.
35:25
I did such and such mission trips, learned a lot about
35:29
travel medicine. I can make it really easy.
35:32
If you're going to some place where you need vaccines and
35:36
can't find somebody to help you with that, I can help you with
35:38
that. OK, that's great.
35:41
And then the next one would be like, I do urgent care, I come
35:43
to your house, right? The next one can be.
35:46
So you have a whole sequence, but in each one you also want to
35:50
say what you want to have some sort of call to action Call me,
35:55
share this with a friend, look at my blog, go to my website,
36:00
something in each one. Don't put a whole bunch in one
36:05
because. They're.
36:05
Confusing. Again, just one, one per.
36:08
OK, so each e-mail can have one topic and then you can do so
36:14
that's completely separate from like a newsletter.
36:16
Cuz newsletters usually it's like a bunch of different little
36:20
things. Yeah, you want these direct
36:22
emails to go to them and talk to them.
36:26
So you can have a sequence, and then at the end, you can say at
36:29
the last e-mail, thanks for letting me tell you about my
36:33
practice. Da, da, da, da, da.
36:34
Call me if we can help. Right.
36:37
And then later on, if you don't hear from them, you can do a
36:40
reactivation campaign. Just say, hey, I'm still out
36:44
here. This is something new we're
36:45
doing now. Makes sense.
36:47
Yeah. So trying to get those emails is
36:51
key. So when you're at the Chamber
36:52
and even the Chamber, they will give you the emails of people
36:54
who are in the chamber so you can send a sequence to.
36:57
Them, yeah, they just did a blast for me.
37:00
They have like a mailing list of 3000 something.
37:03
So I put together, yeah, I put together, I get a couple blasts
37:08
per year with my chamber membership.
37:09
So I put together, you know, a one page, it was literally 8 1/2
37:13
by 11. Like very.
37:14
Here's what I do, you know, here's why.
37:16
And yeah, welcoming me basically to the chamber community.
37:20
So are people able to reply to that e-mail?
37:23
Yes, In fact, I did get an e-mail from someone working at a
37:27
spa who was like, wait, let's come meet.
37:30
We can probably. I don't do aesthetics.
37:31
I don't know what she's thinking, but I don't care.
37:33
I'm like, great, I'll come meet you.
37:34
Just let me know when. I mean.
37:37
But I it's almost like you're just like, oh, it's been a
37:39
couple of weeks since I've signed a new one up and I'm
37:41
starting to feel the crunch. Yeah.
37:43
Oh yeah, no, I get it. You know, one thing I think I've
37:46
done right is my overhead is really low, but it's still not
37:49
nothing. Exactly.
37:51
You know, I've got the EMR, I've got Spruce, I've got my
37:55
insurance policy is it's like Bill's got to get paid.
37:59
Yeah, yeah, yes. But the chamber you can go
38:04
through I guess the member directory and just pick out
38:07
people like they're a good referral source.
38:10
They might be somebody to just. Reach.
38:14
Out make a sequence just for chamber members say, hey, I'm
38:16
new to the air or new business just opened up.
38:21
And then these sequences don't all have to be completely 100%
38:25
different. You can just kind of rework them
38:26
for different audiences and then that way they they hear from you
38:32
and again, right, if they don't need you, odds are they probably
38:36
do know someone who will. Right.
38:39
That's a great idea. And I think that's actually
38:40
probably where I've fallen down or where I haven't followed
38:44
through because I just didn't really think about it honestly.
38:48
So. It's like, yeah, no, it's it's
38:50
something that it again, you never had to do this.
38:53
Never. I just showed up to the urgent
38:57
care center and saw whoever. Came in I never had the patients
39:00
just came how did they get there?
39:02
I don't know It's all new. It's all new.
39:04
It's all new. It's all learning, yes.
39:07
And that's, that's part of The thing is trying to get the word
39:10
out about what is DPC, how does this work?
39:14
So your socials, I think more consistency hosting more
39:18
frequently would help. And yeah, it's just getting
39:23
stuff out more regularly and you will see, you'll see more
39:26
engagement. The other thing is, any of your
39:28
patients, are they in those mom groups?
39:32
Oh yeah. Yeah, OK.
39:34
Do they say hey, you need to go see Doctor?
39:36
Beltre yes, in fact, fantastic. Yes, my friend I told you about
39:40
the had her whole family because I actually had to go see her one
39:44
morning last week and she put up this big post.
39:46
And then someone else who actually isn't a patient of mine
39:49
but is a friend of mine has ADPC doc and she went on and posted
39:53
this huge thing about DPC and I was right there to be like hey,
39:56
guess what? You know nice.
39:58
I know I'm trying to catch all that but.
40:01
Yeah, so if anyone 'cause there's always who's a good
40:04
pediatrician, you know, these posts like like that, ask your,
40:09
ask your patients. Hey, it would be really helpful
40:11
because I need patients. That's a really good idea.
40:15
So just that has worked. There's ADPC pediatrician in our
40:21
our city or town, small, small city and he was having a hard
40:24
time for a little bit, but that was one thing that really made
40:27
things take off is his wife got on to these moms groups and then
40:31
a couple people, couple patients of his.
40:33
Every time someone said I need a pediatrician or I can't get in
40:37
my pediatrician, they'd be like, you need to go see Doctor
40:40
Barrett. Mm, hmm.
40:43
That's great. Yeah, and just ask them.
40:46
And, and really, it's not, it's not a bad thing to ask because
40:52
you need to impress on your patients like I need to succeed.
40:56
Can you please help me? Right, Because I'm going to have
40:59
to close my door. I mean, hopefully not, but you
41:01
know, if I don't have patience, I can't continue to do this for
41:03
you. Right.
41:05
That's right. And then you can say the best.
41:08
The best way you can show me your thanks is by referring
41:11
people. Right, that's great.
41:14
There's. ADPC doc in Georgia, Doctor
41:16
Mehta, he every time he meets a new patient and basically like
41:22
that. Best things that you can give me
41:24
is sharing my card. He gives everyone a couple cards
41:27
before they leave. That's a good idea too.
41:31
Yep. And asking for the reviews is
41:34
important. So everybody that you see ask.
41:38
And that's The thing is asking is so hard.
41:42
It's so hard. It is.
41:44
And like you said, we're not used to doing that, no.
41:47
No, we're not used to talking about ourselves.
41:49
We're not used to selling our. Promoting, yeah.
41:52
Promoting and you're just not used to it.
41:53
It's hard. It gets used.
41:55
It takes a while to get used to, but yeah.
41:57
So I hope that helps. I hope that gives.
41:59
Those help I got to go put together some e-mail lists.
42:05
Yeah, and that's another thing is the posting and the emails,
42:09
they get very cumbersome and it's, I mean literally it's like
42:12
a whole nother job. Well, it is, but I have time
42:15
right now and that's one thing I have.
42:19
Yeah. But yeah, there's there's ways
42:21
to automate that, there's ways to automate posting, there's
42:26
ways to. It's, it's amazing.
42:28
There really are a lot of systems and operations out
42:30
there. I just plug my thing too.
42:33
Plug it go, you're allowed. Yeah, it's my podcast.
42:37
Yeah. So it's a whole system.
42:39
It's it's called Harmony OPS, but it's based on Go.
42:44
It's a Go high level platform. I don't know if you've.
42:46
Ever heard of it? But it's a what?
42:48
Go high level platform. Oh, I.
42:50
Don't know what that. Is, so it's ACRM, so customer
42:52
relations. Oh yeah, you know what that is?
42:54
Yeah. And so it's a whole system.
42:56
So you can do your social media planning.
42:58
If you sit down, take an afternoon and put all your posts
43:01
out for the next month, it'll automatically post them.
43:05
There is AI capabilities, so if somebody messages you, your bot
43:10
can respond with the answer that you would respond with.
43:14
No. You can send out the e-mail
43:17
sequences and make them so that if somebody does reply and
43:20
they're like, yes, I want to book, it'll take them out of the
43:24
e-mail sequence, send them to book, Nice.
43:27
And then if they don't book, if they don't respond, it just
43:30
keeps continuing them on the sequence.
43:34
And then there's chat widgets for your website answering your
43:38
questions. Just like you said, you get that
43:40
question a million times to take my entrance.
43:44
So it's nice to have that because that saves you time.
43:49
Oh yeah. Instead of saying the same thing
43:51
over and over and over again. And then there is also voice AI
43:55
to answer the phone and also answer those questions.
44:01
So yeah, it's a whole system. It's great.
44:03
It's really good for people who are by themselves solo, not able
44:08
to hire someone yet. Actually, yeah, I don't know if
44:13
I honestly ever want to hire someone like, oh, it would be
44:17
great to be in the position. But.
44:19
It's like right now, for the foreseeable future, I'm happy to
44:22
be solo, you know, and do everything because I Love
44:25
Actually learning all the stuff I had to learn to open the
44:28
business. It was amazing actually.
44:30
Yeah, I I feel like that too. It's.
44:32
Really. Yeah, you must if you were
44:34
running ACRM platform. I think it's really interesting
44:40
and it's really it's helpful for us.
44:42
It's and part of my goal with the podcast is really to help
44:45
other people who are in fee for service, particularly moms.
44:50
Because. It's just a lot regular, regular
44:54
fee for service, get out and be able to do, get out, be able to
44:57
do. This.
44:58
Yeah. And with everything happening in
44:59
the world, I don't know how anyone is still doing primary
45:01
care and fee for service. I felt the squeeze 10 years ago.
45:04
I can't even imagine, you know how it is now.
45:07
Yeah. So.
45:08
I'm in a lot of the groups on Facebook and the physician moms
45:12
group, family medicine. I mean, every day it's just like
45:14
people are like crying on there and yes.
45:17
And same thing with the Pete's one.
45:19
And it's like, it's honestly, I now look at these posts and I'm
45:22
like, what are we even doing? Why are we putting up with this
45:24
stuff? You know, it's like sometimes I
45:26
see people post stuff with what's going on in their job and
45:29
I'm like, why are we doing this? It's crazy.
45:31
It's not working for us. It's not working for our
45:32
patients. But I mean, that's what happens.
45:35
You shift to the other world and you're like, you see things
45:37
differently, you know? But it's like it breaks my heart
45:40
every time to see what people are putting up with.
45:43
It's really, I know it's sad. It's really sad, Yeah.
45:47
So anyway, is there anything else I can help you with?
45:50
No, I really appreciate it. You gave me a lot of great
45:53
suggestions and I'm. So happy I came on, and I hope
45:56
that, you know, I was helpful too in some way to someone else.
45:59
Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah.
46:01
I appreciate it because it is hard to be vulnerable like that
46:04
and just be like, I don't know. I don't know how to do this, but
46:07
no one knows. None of us knows.
46:09
No, we're all learners here. Yep.
46:11
Definitely. Well, great.
46:13
Thank you so, so much. And then let's see, you're just
46:17
to reiterate your wanderer care. So I keep saying it.
46:20
I keep saying wander. It's WANDER because yeah, we're.
46:24
Wandering around, you know, hang out in my community and yeah.
46:28
It's perfect. It's perfect.
46:29
And then traveling, it's great. It has so many meanings.
46:32
I love it. Yeah.
46:33
OK. Let me know if there's anything
46:35
else I can do. To I will thank you.
46:38
And yeah, so you can look up my little, my project Harmony.
46:41
OPS, I'm going. To Yes, Harmony OPS Health.
46:44
There's another Harmony OPS out there.
46:46
Somebody stole the demo before I got to Harmony OPS Health.
46:50
You said it. Yeah.
46:51
Harmony OPS Health. Got it right, I will check it
46:54
out. Yeah.
46:56
And so it's I, it's something that I keep reworking about how
46:59
do I want to do this? And I think I finally have it
47:02
down again. We change things all the time,
47:07
but yeah. It.
47:09
Is flexibility. So yeah, I've made it so that
47:12
you can do either the chat AI and voice AI by itself, cuz not
47:17
everyone wants the social media stuff, or you can do social
47:20
media stuff by itself or if you wanna do all of it, that's the
47:22
whole package. Nice.
47:25
OK, cool. So I'm so glad to meet you.
47:29
Me. Too.
47:30
Anne, thank you so much. Let's talk again, maybe six
47:33
months and do this again, would you?
47:35
Mind. Yeah, that would be amazing.
47:37
Yeah, OK, good. I hope you have a great weekend
47:40
and good luck with your emails and thank you.
47:43
Thanks for your time. All right, bye.
47:46
Bye. Thanks again to Doctor Beltry
47:49
for being my first DPC Life Coaching guest.
47:53
And if this episode got you thinking about the system side
47:56
of DPC, don't let that just sit. Head to Harmony OPS for dpc.com
48:02
and see how we can help you automate your practice.
48:05
Or start with a free DPC Confidence course to build a
48:09
solid foundation before you even open your doors.
48:13
Thanks for listening to DPC Life.
48:15
This conversation was full of insight and real takeaways that
48:19
you can use, so I've pulled the key highlights together for you
48:22
in a free download. You'll find the link in the show
48:25
notes. And if you're just getting
48:27
started or planning your own DPC, check out my free DPC
48:31
Confidence course. It's a five day e-mail series to
48:34
help you move from ideas to action with one or two steps
48:38
every day. This episode is sponsored by
48:42
Harmony OPS for DPC helping doctors plan their practice
48:47
before they leave the system. Thanks for joining me and
48:51
remember your DPC families got your back.