The StartUpDPC Show Episode 1: How this Direct Primary Care Doctor Successfully Leveraged His Personal Brand

Building a Personal Brand can help you build your Direct Primary Care practice. By having a trusted personal brand, more people will be willing to sign up with your Direct Primary Care service.

Paul Thomas, MD and Kendrick Johnson, DO talk about personal branding for Direct Primary Care doctors on the first episode of the StartUpDPC Show.

But, many of you reading this are unfamiliar with how to build a personal brand. So, I wanted to show an excellent example of how to get this done.

Dr. Kendrick Johnson is a Direct Primary Care doctor with Ark Family Health and he recently made an excellent post on LinkedIn, which helps build his personal brand. The post is titled “Why this Doctor Had to Escape the Healthcare System.” During the video, he tells a personal story, shows real emotion, and even vulnerability. He becomes a relatable person and builds trust with his audience.

Because of this, we thought he'd be a perfect first guest on our StartUpDPC Show, where we will be interviewing thought leaders in the Direct Primary Care field and asking them some tough questions.

In our conversation, we talk about building a Direct Primary Care Practice, leveraging Social Media to get this done, the importance of Google Reviews, sustainable growth rates for Direct Primary Care practices and more.

One of the things that really struck me is that Dr. Johnson used a relatively inexpensive technology, an older-generation iPhone, to shoot his LinkedIn video. Take this as a lesson: you don’t need to hire a camera crew or an agency to produce high-quality content. Instead, you need to look into the camera (on the back of your iPhone or other smartphone) and tell your story with authenticity.

Thanks for watching and have a great day,

- Dr. Paul Thomas with StartUpDPC

How to Consult with Specialists as a Direct Primary Care Doctor

How to Consult with Specialists as a Direct Primary Care Doctor

This is a big one for folks taking the plunge into Direct Primary Care - how do you as a Direct Primary Care doctor consult with specialists? Because you’re not “in-network”, how do you get patients the care they need outside of your office?

There are a number of ways to go about this and I’ll tackle three of them in this blog below. This blog post was prompted by a community question:

Message: Dr. Thomas,
I am about to start a DPC clinic. I completed family medicine in 2005 and am tired of the headache and hurdles of traditional primary care. One of the biggest things holding me back is how to refer to specialist? In one of your videos--you mentioned using a specialist service(for difficult ekg reading, endocrinology..etc). What was the name of that service?
Also--how do you deal with preventive stuff---like colonoscopy? stress test--if needed?

Any help in this category is greatly appreciated.

I am glad you got away from the insurance companies. I own a medical and day spa and will incorporate the monthly fee to cover facial/massage on the months the members do not need medical care.

Thanks again,

Option #1: Use the time that you have

Because you’re a Direct Primary Care doctor, you now have more time to read up on diagnoses and more time to guide your patients through the care that they need. By leveraging the increased time that you have, you can take care of more problems in your office and therefore have to refer less often.

Option #2: Develop close relationships with specialists in your community

If you are able to develop close relationships with specialists in your community, especially the private and non-hospital-affiliated specialists in your town, you can discuss cash prices for your patients.

I try to keep in close contact with my physician colleagues, and that’s part of the reason why I attend Wayne State University School of Medicine alumni networking events. Many of the opportunities that you find to lower the cost of care for your patients will come from your network.

For example, by working with a local gastroenterologist in our region that owns a free-standing endoscopy suite, we were able to get cash prices for Esophagogastroduodenoscopies and Colonoscopies. They are roughly $1,000 each, which pays $400 for the facility, $300 for the Gastroenterologist to perform the procedure, and $300 for the Anesthesiologist.

Another example is Cardiology. We worked with a local cardiologist to get pricing on common tests that we need for our patients. Specifically, the Echocardiogram is $199, an Exercise Stress Test is $99, and a Holter Monitor is $99. These are very reasonable prices and they help us make better decisions for our patients.

Additionally, you can request visit prices/appointment prices from the specialists in your community.

Option #3: Leverage an online or e-Consult platform

As a Direct Primary Care doctor, you have the option to consult with specialists via online or e-Consult platforms. The platform that I, and many DPC doctors, use is Rubicon. Rubicon allows you to write up a consult and include PDF files or image files - EKGs, skin lesion photos, pathology reports, lab tests - and send this information to the consultant/medical specialist of your choice. The Rubicon platform has over 100 specialists and sub-specialists from Cardiology (Electrophysiology, Pediatric, Heart Failure, Lipid Disorder) to Endocrinology, Plastic Surgery, Transgender Health, and Women’s Health. The spectrum of consultants is quite broad here and the responses are very often thoughtful and helpful.

This is a great service and I enjoy using it, but be aware that you are liable for any decisions that you make for your patients based on using this service. Finally, if malpractice litigation was brought against you or Rubicon for an outcome related to using this service, you would be responsible for not only your only legal costs, but the legal costs related to Rubicon’s involvement. Caveat Emptor, read the Indemnification clause from Rubicon’s Contract:

14.      INDEMNIFICATION; LIMITATION OF LIABILITY:

14.1.    General Indemnity: RMD and CUSTOMER will each indemnify, defend and hold harmless the other and its officers, directors, employees, agents and Specialists from and against any and all direct third party claims, costs or expenses (including reasonable out-of-pocket attorneys’ fees), and payment of damages awarded by a court of competent jurisdiction in a non-appealable final judgment or agreed to in settlement (“Claims”), resulting from the gross negligence or willful misconduct of the indemnifying party; provided, that the indemnified party promptly notifies the indemnifying party of the Claim, gives the indemnifying party sole control over the defense and settlement of the Claim, and reasonably assists the indemnifying party in the defense of the Claim at the indemnifying party’s expense, provided such settlement provides for a full release of all Claims against the indemnifying party and its affiliates. For clarity, CUSTOMER’s indemnification obligation will include indemnification for the gross negligence or willful misconduct of all of the Users and Drafters.

Yeesh.

Thanks for reading, thank you for the question, and let me know what topic you’d like me to tackle next!

-Dr. Paul Thomas with StartUpDPC

How Personal Branding can help you grow your Direct Primary Care Practice

Intro

Tonight, I went live with the Direct Primary Care Alliance and talked about how personal branding can grow your Direct Primary Care practice. This is a huge topic, and I tried to tackle as much as possible in under an hour!

Currently, I’m working on my second course on this subject, Personal Branding for Direct Primary Care Doctors. If you haven’t seen our first course on Building a Sales Funnel, check it out here.

Why it’s important to Build a Personal Brand as a Direct Primary Care Physician.

Why is it important to build a personal brand as a Direct Primary Care Physician? Simply, building a personal brand is a great way to attract new patients to your practice. People/your potential customers spend a lot of time on Facebook. Instagram, and LinkedIn and these can be places where you can show your authentic self, where you can demonstrate your caring and compassion, where you can develop genuine relationships with people through social media.

Building a personal brand is all about communicating your character to your community or to your target audience. You can share about your successes and failures, your hopes and dreams, what you believe in, and why you decided to start a Direct Primary Care practice.

When you do these things, when you share about yourself in an honest and transparent way, your story and your character will start to resonate with people in your audience. They will identify with you and start to trust you for the person that you are, the caring, compassionate, and authentic physician in their community.

When you are a primary care doctor, you’re asking people to trust you with their most important resources: their health. By communicating your character, your ethos, and your values through these social media platforms, you can start to build that foundation of trust.