Dream DPC (00:05.678)
Welcome back everybody to the Dream DPC podcast. Thanks so much for returning to listen. And I hope you're still working on your direct primary care practice because it's an adventure that you'll never forget. Today I want to talk about being sick. And I just got over getting a cold and my little guy gave it to me. And of course it took me out and I had to call in sick to my own practice.
I wanted to talk a little bit about how there's a big difference between calling in sick to your own practice versus when you're in a corporation. So I got sick and I was like, okay, what am I going to do? Right? Well, the first thing I have to do is kind of rearrange my day and basically tell my patients that I cannot make it in to see them today because I am sick. And
Honestly, it's not that hard once you get used to it. So I just basically text them and I say this, say, unfortunately, I got sick today and I have a really bad cold and I don't want to pass it along to you. So do you mind rescheduling to the same time next week? So I just kind of move them a little bit over, right, just by one week and
nine times out of ten, they tell me, well, I hope you get better. I hope that, you know, your family's doing well. Sometimes they'll send me suggestion, you know, recommendation from a non doctor. This is what you should be doing. Right. And they'll just pare it back, whatever I've told them in the past. And it's very kind of loving effect. And
It feels like, these people actually really care for me. They actually like me, which is a big question that comes up when you're starting your own practice. Because before you go into a practice and there's tons of patients that just kind of show up like the regular insurance based practice. But in this one, you've had to create your own kind of identity for the public to see.
Dream DPC (02:27.47)
So oftentimes you may wonder, well, do they really like me? Right? And when you call in sick, it's a kind of stark reminder that yeah, these people actually appreciate what you do for them. So it's in big contrast to what you experience in the corporate world. And I think this is very important for residents who coming out because they may have been mistreated during residency and
told to, well, you're sick, you got to come in, right? Which, by the way, is very selfish of the attending and of course of the hospital in general. And that's something that you don't want to repeat when you graduate residency. So in this instance, when you own your practice, you call and you tell them that you're, you know, just a reschedule. And you're not missing out one on any money that should be coming in from that visit because it's a monthly subscription.
And two, the patient is not missing out on a big amount of care that they otherwise would have had because you can actually just text them, right? So if they have a question or they have a rash that breaks out or they're sick themselves and they're wondering what to do, you can tell them, either go and get flu swab at your Walgreens or CVS, which they have a triple one, which is COVID and flu AB. They'll get swab there.
Or you could send them to like Quest or LabCorp and get tested there. So there's multiple ways that the patient can still get treated and you can still respond to them in a timely manner. Just because you're out doesn't mean that they still just can't text you and you can just sit there and kind of take care of clinic on your phone. And this is in stark contrast again to the corporate world.
Let's kind of get into that. Let's get into what is it like when you are in the corporate world and you call in sick. So for those of us in the corporate world or who have been there before, we know that we have a set limited amount of days. Even though we are a human being who takes care of hundreds, if not thousands of patients a year who are sick and who we deal with their tragedies, their chronic diseases.
Dream DPC (04:51.298)
their acute onset of illnesses that really knock them out, like maybe the flu, when we ask in return for understanding for our absence, many times it's not given by the leaders in the corporate world. So what happens is, and this is very clear in my mind, that during one season when it was winter, many kids got sick, you know, from the doctors on our team, on our medical group.
mean, if their kids got sick, so they had to call in a whole lot. There was just something that went around and just kind of took out people. It could have been a multitude of any numbered viruses. It wasn't the flu. It wasn't COVID. It was something else. And so it took them out, right? And some of them had to stay out for two, you know, maybe three weeks. And it was like interspersed in different times. It was interspersed like maybe one week here and then two weeks over here. And so they had to call in sick. And I had to do the same.
And then luckily, my kiddo didn't get sick, so he was still okay. But yeah, I was like, well, what's gonna happen? And we asked them, what's gonna happen with our PTO? And they would say, well, we'll get back to you, right? Not an immediate reply that says, no problem. You are a human being who takes care of the suffering of hundreds of thousands of others. get, you know, we don't mind if you take off a little bit extra.
Right, nothing like that. It was just, okay, it seems like, you know, your numbers are going down, and we've already had our numbers down, because they had just upgraded from the EMR, or changed the EMR from what one of the doctors said from a Cadillac to a Ford. And I mean, no knocking his Ford, but that's what the doctor said. And so it was extremely difficult with this new EMR. And so that on top of
like we had to lower our patients that we were seeing. So on top of the number of patients decreasing, we were then absent as well, like the main family medicine doctors. And management was like, well, we, our numbers are really low. Like I remember they sent out this email and I was like, God, this is horrible. Like how do you treat human beings or taking care of, you know, again, hundreds of people that are sick. How do you treat them like this? Right. How does that even cross your mind?
Dream DPC (07:17.73)
to be that basically horrible, right? Basically horrible and not understanding this other person's light. And so that really opened my eyes and it just gave me more fuel to open my direct primary care practice once my wife was done with her fellowship and we moved over to Michigan. So it's...
crazy things like that, like you are basically just a number and you have so many patients that some of them even actually complain when they have to remove that you're sick because you're just seeing too many patients in the insurance based world. And yeah, it would be great if we can control like our pricing set, right? If we could just charge insurance more or charge the government more.
and be like, hey, in that world, we're only gonna see 500 patients like indirect primary care practice, but you can't, the average number that they wanted us to hit was around 1800, which is massive and far too much. So basically you're, you are like, just kind of a number. And that's the big difference is that one, you don't have time to feel empathy.
for your patients in the insurance-based world. And then in turn, they don't feel empathy for you. And then also management has almost no care for your own plight or your own problems. And that was just a massive eye-opener. And so if you are experiencing these things, then what I would say is take these problems that you see in the medical world that you're in,
and then use it as fuel for your own fire, right? Take it from the patient as well. Like the patient will complain that they don't have time to see you or that they're having to be constantly scheduled and they can't get in touch with you when you're sick. So some of them may, you know, type on the, what is it, like send you an email or something like that and it goes to your inbox. But oftentimes you just have so many inbox numbers or inbox
Dream DPC (09:36.352)
Questions flying in that you can't get back to them until days later So use that when you create your clinic use it as copyright and say, you know are you tired of your doctor not replying and Many of them will say yeah, I'm tired of that right and so you can use these different things to actually add a little bit of substance to your website to your emails to your talk with
When you're giving like speeches and stuff so you can use this but I just want to go over that big difference that It's okay one that it's okay to call in to your own practice and Reschedule your patients like that's totally fine. They're still going to love you. Don't don't worry about that They're not gonna leave immediately, right? Cuz you have to remember they've never experienced a lot of them have never experienced What you're giving them you have never been able to text
their doctor ever. So it's important to remember that that's the reality. And it's okay to call in sick. So I hope that was useful. And this is a short little one. But that's what I like to do with these podcasts. And if you want to learn more, you can always check me out at dreamdpc.com. And if you like the podcast, give me a small rating on Apple podcasts, or Spotify can
help others find this podcast, help free up physicians, and so that way they can actually call in sick.
