Dream DPC (00:02.136)
Hey, welcome back everybody to the Dream DPC Podcast. Today, I wanted to go over some mindset when opening up your own practice because it can be extremely difficult and there's gonna be days when you question yourself and you go, why am I doing this and should I continue this? So let's go over three different areas that I think are very important to help you along and...
keeping your mindset and keeping that resilience to keep the practice going. So I was in Jiu -Jitsu today and I was getting smashed and I kept having to remind myself that's okay because it's part of the learning process. It's part of being able to get better and using each lesson, each lesson that each person was teaching me as they were destroying me that
Hey, it's okay that this is happening and they taught me a lesson through it. So the first thing I wanted to go over is setting expectations. When your practice is just starting out. So sometimes I remember getting on the Facebook group and the DPC docs Facebook group and going, wow, these people seem to have just this overnight success. They open up and they have a hundred patients. Like how is that even possible?
And as I would dive deeper into it, I'd realize that they are actually converting their practice. So they didn't have to move far away. They would just convert their practice. And reasonably these patients who like them would join. And so they would open with, you know, money coming in the bank, which was the exact opposite of my case. Meaning I had moved to a somewhat new area and then I...
had to fight against all of these other doctors and, you know, three large hospital systems and as well as other concierge doctors in the area. And even though my population was really high and really good, I still had to get my name out there because nobody knew me. And the other thing was there were other docs who did move and they got to a certain location and it seemed like they had this overnight success.
Dream DPC (02:26.316)
When in reality, what they had was hard work and grinding it out to figure out themselves that they had to market. Right. And that's what I didn't understand. was like, what are their marketing tips and how do they do it? And how do they get better? And I have a, there's another whole other podcast where I go over that, but it's important to realize that those who moved to a new area had to really grind it out.
So setting that expectation for yourself that you may not be overnight success that you see happen on Facebook, that it's important to realize that this may take several years to get running and up and going before you see profit come into your bank account. And it's like, you gotta make that little mind shift and say, okay,
this is what it's gonna take. And I may have to get a side job to support myself or talk with my spouse about how long this is actually going to take. And when you will look at it, in general, three, two to four patients may join a month in the beginning. And then later on, as other patients start talking, and then also as Google starts picking you up, it will start to increase. So,
Now I have like, you know, one phone call about every two to three days inquiring about the clinic. And that's because Google has picked me up and started to put me up a little bit higher, rank me a little bit higher. And I've done several things to do that, which I talk about in other podcasts, but it's taken me a year and a half or so to kind of get there.
And it's going to take me another, you know, two to three years, at the two year and three year mark to actually make a decent kind of profit that is sustainable and usable. And I can have excess money to do other things for the clinic. But that's the reality is that just like an insurance practice, if you're new to the area, it may take you a couple of years to.
Dream DPC (04:48.8)
really establish your patient, patient base. And then, you know, another year to grow that patient base to where you, you actually want it. So it's important to realize that that should be your expectation and that you're going to have to get out there and present yourself to the public because it's a little scary. And, you know, your mind is like, maybe I'll just be an overnight success. That's the easy way.
Right? That's why I don't have to do a lot of work. I'm just going to be overnight success. But in reality, you have to grind it out. You have to go to the networking events. You have to publish Facebook, posts and Instagram and Tik Tok. And you have to go to events and talk there. You have to go and meet with chamber commerce.
And so it's just, and you have to keep making phone calls to businesses and you have to keep doing this stuff until you get to that level of sustainability. So that's just a little bit of the expectations that, from my point of view, that I had to rearrange my brain a little bit. Now, the next part is the mindset needs to change from being solo in
is what we've been trained to do in medicine, know, be this like solo practitioner that knows all these things to being somebody who knows nothing about business and then asking for help on that. Asking somebody who knows how to actually do it and how to talk to people as well as how to talk to businesses and being able to just say, okay, I don't know this right now, post it to the Facebook group.
Right? Post it there or find somebody who knows how DM somebody, tell them, Hey, I have no clue either what this diagnosis is. And, you know, I'm trying to get my clinic off the ground. So I don't have time to research it that well. Or maybe you do, and you still can't find the answer. And, you know, you feel like a failure because you're trying to ask, but it's very important to know that as soon as you just ask for help, right? You make other people feel good for helping you. So that's kind of a little.
Dream DPC (07:05.556)
mind shift there that you can ask for help and then actually make other people feel good. And yeah, maybe somebody's going to be sarcastic, you know, just in the reply, right? And that's, that's sometimes expected. Some people, maybe that's how they were just raised and they just reply sarcastically or they reply with exclamation marks. You know, you don't, this is this blah, blah, blah. And that's okay. That's all right. That's how they are. And
you get an answer, right? You get an answer for that. And asking for help is extremely important. So you can go to your Chamber of Commerce and ask for help. You can go to the Facebook group and ask for help. You can send me a message. It's totally fine. I help people all the time. And that way you get used to that asking for help. So I don't know how to streamline my business. How do I do that?
I don't know how to organize. How did you guys do it? I don't know how to do a Facebook post. How do you do it, right? There's plenty of doctors who've done it on here and they've had significant success doing it. So having that mindset where you're going to ask other people for help, I think is very important. And it's hard to change from that because when you were, you know, maybe rounding in residency or even just in your own clinic,
You were kind of sometimes a one man show. Maybe you, you know, me, I asked my nurse for help all the time and I would just ask people, Hey, how do you do this? I don't know. And I got this mindset from when I used to run businesses before, because I eventually was just like, I got to do it. Otherwise, you know, the business is going to go down. So asking for help is a significant mindset shift that it's very important to go through and we'll.
help you go a long way in being successful. Now, the next thing is
Dream DPC (09:11.534)
taking a day off. So the clinic and you getting the clinic off and running, it is okay to take a Saturday off. It's okay to take a Sunday off and do things for yourself because what's happening is you'll see in the beginning you have only so much creativity and you'll see other doctors have more than you and that's okay. They have more than you maybe a different age, maybe a different group, right?
So it's okay that they have more, but you have to figure out when you have to take a break. Because if you don't, then you're going to burn out and you won't have that creative juice to apply the next day. And you'll find that, yeah, I only have so much creativity throughout the day itself too. So for me, it's mostly in the morning.
between like nine to 12. And even then I go to jujitsu at like 1130. So sometimes I cut it short just a little bit, but also designating a day to take off is fine too. And then you designate a day to be creative. So Mondays is my creativity day and I try and do that. Sometimes you can stick to it, sometimes you can't, but.
It's okay if you take just a little bit of time off because then you get that rest in your brain to reset it and then work hard the next day. And it'll get easier where you may be tired, but then you're okay because you've learned how to be that creative person and you can create things. Just like I'm doing right now. I just got back from jujitsu and I'm really tired and, you know, exhausted, but
Yeah, I've done this so many times that I can just, okay, let's put something out there and you'll get there. Like you will get there as a direct primary care practice owner. So it's okay that you take a break. That's basically what I'm saying. And you shouldn't feel guilty about it. You don't worry the, it's not gonna go down. The clinic's not gonna die that day that you take off.
Dream DPC (11:36.246)
It's going to still be there. name will be on Google business, you know, on the Google page and your website will still be there. All that good stuff. It will still be there. So you can take a day off. And that way you can also be there for your patients. And I think that that's a extremely important part. That's not really taught in medical school also is that it's okay to take a day off so that you have the.
dopamine, serotonin, or benephrine the following day to get back in it and create something. Because if you think medicine is hard, understanding that creativity is extremely difficult too, is something that you're gonna come to realize that, yeah, both of those things are very, very difficult. So you're gonna have to get some time for yourself, you know.
Take a nice hot bath that day, go outside, sit in the sun, maybe sunbathe, maybe go to the pool, go to a park, go spend the day with friends, right? Talk with some friends and talk it out. So really taking that time off is extremely important and you shouldn't feel guilty about it. So those are most of my tips that I have for mindset in the beginning that can really help you
understand where you are becoming a little bit frustrated. So you're becoming frustrated because you don't have expectations, you're not asking for help, and you're not taking the day off. And I do it too, so it's okay, but these are just some really good tips that'll help you not feel those things and feel a little bit better as you grow your direct primary care practice.
So I really hope that those tips had helped you. If you like it, give me a like on Spotify or the other one is Apple Podcast. And I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I'll try and put out some more podcasts because you guys always tell me that they help you out. All right, if today's your day off, keep doing it and keep living out your dream.
