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Welcome back to the show.
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AcuSprout it's in today's episode, I'm going to cover my top five
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software systems that I utilize in my practice to streamline my
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processes and make things much easier.
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Some of them are free.
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Some of them I have.
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The paid version.
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Actually, some of them, I started off with the free version and now
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I'm on the paid version just because it's, it's just more seamless.
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But some of these, you can totally start off with the free version.
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So I just wanted to share that.
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I also want to share that you can find all of these on the tools
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page of the AcuSprout dot com.
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Right.
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And lastly I'm an affiliate for some of them.
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So if you'd like to support the show, you can go over there and
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check out the systems and products, et cetera that I have on there.
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But you don't have to, by any means, you can go and do your own research and,
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and, and click on whatever you want to.
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So anyway, but if you want to support the podcast, that's one way that you can
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help me out and keep the podcast going.
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One more thing I want to say.
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I want to say that when I, when I put out the tools and the information
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and share these things with you, I actually do it very much from the heart.
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I do it.
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Because I feel like these are some of the best systems that I've come across.
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These are really good starts for a new practitioner.
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So listen in, as I cover my favorite top five software products
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that I utilize in my practice.
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To streamline my business so that I can see more patients.
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So to start off with, I'm going to talk about One that that is a free,
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first of all, which is super helpful.
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And if you want to utilize some technical skills on the internet,
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it's a great system to use for creating social media stuff.
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It's actually makes it seamless and super easy.
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And when you get the paid version, then you can store everything.
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So you can use things multiple times.
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I'm talking about Canva canvas, an online software tool that you
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can use to create social media.
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You can create branding colors, you can create images that you
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can utilize on your website.
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You can create images that you can utilize in your newsletter.
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So what you can do basically is create templates within canvas so
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that when you do your newsletter or you Create your social media posts.
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You can keep them on brand in the, in your color scheme and just change out the
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words and it makes it super, super fast.
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You can create newsletters, you can create eBooks, you can create a
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Facebook posts as well as like your You can even do YouTube channel stuff.
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It's, it's great for every single thing that you possibly want it for.
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I use it all the time and it is pretty easy.
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I mean, I've learned more and more as I've gone through, but basically
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anytime you have a question, just like everything else that you need help with,
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you just go to YouTube and look it up.
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So Canva number one, number two.
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Let's see.
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Email, let's talk about email emails, pain in the butt, because I'm in the U
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S which most of you are here in the U S you do actually need to purchase or
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use You need to use an email service provider that is actually HIPAA compliant.
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So I have found that the best one is actually constant contact.
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I feel like.
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It's pretty seamless.
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It does what you need it to do.
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You can store things there.
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You can track your, keep your lists there.
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You can separate people there.
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You can do all sorts of automated segmenting if you want to.
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And it is pretty easy.
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. If you forget, all of these will be listed on the tools page.
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So you can reference, reference the materials there.
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But you need to take a look at, because I, I noticed, and I know this about
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most practitioners is that you just use whatever your electronic health
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records this is affiliated with.
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Now, if your electronic health records company is actually not located in the
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United States, Or even if it is, I'm not even sure about all the other ones,
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I would just know about the top couple.
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They don't use a HIPAA compliant or they don't affiliate with a
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HIPAA compliant email systems.
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So I'm just going to say for the record right now, MailChimp
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is not HIPAA compliant.
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And so if you are with a company that is affiliated with MailChimp and you're just
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moving your people over into MailChimp, I want you to know that that's about.
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So, what you can do with email marketing is if you're with an
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electronic health records company that.
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Doesn't affiliate with a, with a HIPAA compliant email provider, you can
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actually create what's called a CSV file
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and you can do that within your electronic health records.
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And basically that takes all of your patients.
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Email addresses puts them in a file, and then you just basically so easy,
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just upload that into constant contact.
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What else can I tell you about emails?
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You know, you really email is like the best way to keep in
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contact with your patients.
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And it's really, honestly, one of the easiest, oftentimes people get better and
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then they leave and they might have it.
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Minor nagging headache, and they know they need to get in, but
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they're not going to call you because they're lazy or for whatever reason.
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Or they forget that you can treat that if you get, if they get an email,
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they're reminded now a lot of you think, oh, I don't want to bug people.
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If you're sharing information and educating people and giving
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them value in your emails, then you are not bugging them.
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If you're bugging them, they will.
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Unsuccess.
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Susie, but if you're bugging them, they will unsubscribe.
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And that's great because you don't want people who don't want
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your services or aren't industry listed in your information so fine.
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It's okay.
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It's okay.
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. So anyway, that's my, my constant contact, probably one of the best.
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People in the U S that are HIPAA compliant , email provider.
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Okay.
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So let's talk about your books.
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Originally I really tried to get around this and not.
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Pay for QuickBooks, but ultimately honestly, it's the most universal.
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It's the easiest to now.
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I'm not gonna say it's easy to navigate, cause I don't think it is, but it's the
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easiest to utilize with a bookkeeper or with an accountant because most
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bookkeepers and accountants know.
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QuickBooks.
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And if you have a good bookkeeper, which here's another one, I
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have a great bookkeeper for you.
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Obviously you probably already heard horizon west.
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She's also on my website, but she's amazing.
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And she's willing to teach you and really patient really great teacher too.
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So QuickBooks online ultimately just became my go-to and I'm
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really awful at my books.
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So that's why I hired a bookkeeper and I haven't yet.
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So I just, . I just, I look at my money.
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I know where all my money is.
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I know what's going on with it.
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I just do not want to mess with it.
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. So QuickBooks online is probably the best and I can just pop up reports
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when I need them for my taxes.
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And it's just sort of the universal language of bookkeeping.
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So QuickBooks online, it's not that expensive . You can use other ones,
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you can use a spreadsheet in Google, you can do things like that, but
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any time that you're transferring information into a spreadsheet, anytime
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you're doing single item, entry type stuff like that, and transferring
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you, you it's easy to mess it up.
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So, and then you're just going to have a headache, a time headache.
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So it's just really worth it just to go with software.
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Okay.
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So let's see here.
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Electronic health records.
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Obviously you listened to my ad at the beginning, I'm sponsored by
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Jane and that's for a good reason.
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Jane, their customer service is really, really awesome and they're super helpful.
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They have lots of platforms and places where you can get help when you need help.
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And this is one of the toughest I think things to do as a new practitioner.
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You you're so motivated, so excited to get out there and practice.
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And now you've got to learn all of this software.
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Holy moly.
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It's a lot of software, a lot of tech involved in running your practice.
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So.
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The easier the system, the better I chose one that was like in the top three when I
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reviewed everything and I just wanted to poke my eye out for two years later, you
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know, like a year and a half, it was, it just, I just never used their fancy stuff.
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I just popped up a blank soap, note sheets.
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And I never used, I just rarely did the staff because I didn't
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like the way it was set up.
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And I.
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I don't even know if you could arrange the way that it was set up.
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So anyway, Jane's really customizable there's templates.
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There's stuff that other acupuncturists have done in there that they've already
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created templates that you can use.
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There's online booking there's reports.
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There's all sorts of things that you need.
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I say, when you start learning, just learn the very basics
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of what you need to get by.
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So you're not fumbling in front of patients and stuff, and then slowly
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integrate and learn more and more and more cause it's a very full,
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robust system, but also really great.
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And they offer a killer deal for new practitioners it's
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called help the help or rate.
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And basically they take $25 off of your subscription.
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So if you just get the basic plan, it's only $49 a month, and that is a steal.
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So as long as you're only seeing 10 or less patients per week,
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that is an offer that they offer to new PR new practitioners.
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Practitioners that aren't really their businesses isn't quite up and going.
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And then honestly, when you're seeing more than 10 patients a week,
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you can totally afford the plan.
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So I think that's a really great thing that they do.
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And if you're already above that, they also have a grace period of one
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month grace period, when you joined.
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So you can't have both, but you can have one.
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So Jane is really awesome and I, I wholeheartedly, I think they're great.
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Go with Jane.
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Let's see here.
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So your POS system, so your point of sale, your credit card swiper.
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If you go with Jane, they are created with Stripe.
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And so you have to run Stripe.
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If you want all of the reports to show up in there properly.
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When I had my first electronic health records, I didn't use, I
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didn't like their point of sales or.
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People or whatever their company.
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And so I ended up going with square and square is actually really cool.
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So if you don't want to electronic health record system in the beginning,
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and you're just doing paper squares, amazing because they are HIPAA compliant,
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they actually have a scheduler.
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You can swipe cards on there.
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You can enter credit card information.
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And make it easy and seamless when you're checking people out.
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And you can link that with your bank.
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So it just goes right to your bank, or you can hold stuff in savings and it looks
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like they have a bank account stuff there.
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They just keep coming up with more and more great services.
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So you can kind of use them as a holding tank or a bank until you decide
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where you want to send all your funds.
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So I really liked square, but.
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This one, you may have to go with whatever your electronic
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health records subsystem is.
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If you want to utilize the reports to the fullest extent that you can.
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So that's your option there?
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As far as email, so here's another one.
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Email has to be HIPAA compliant as well.
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I use Google.
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And I think it's Google workspace because Google workspace is for
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businesses , one of the things that I like is it looks far more professional
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because it utilizes your domain name.
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So your website address instead of gmail.com.
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I like that a lot.
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And I also use the.
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Google docs and files and everything to store reference information.
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So you can create files of say you want to teach a patient how to cook herbs.
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You can, you know, store stuff in there.
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I still research information in there because as a new practitioner,
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I used to just every time I had got something that I didn't understand,
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or I wanted to understand better from a Western perspective, as
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well as Eastern, I would pull up.
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So say I had like brain cancer.
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Patient.
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And I wanted information on that I would pull up and then I would
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link files and create stuff.
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So I didn't have to recreate that wheel again, later when I had another patient,
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I could just pull that file up and take a look at all my research and see and
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also I could make notes about what I did and what I didn't do and what I thought.
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So it's a really great resource to utilize.
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As far as herbs, you know, you're really gonna have There are so
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many options now that weren't there even a couple of years ago.
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So there are a lot of options where you can order herbs and granules, et
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cetera, straight from the company.
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So you don't have to house inventory.
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That wasn't available as much when I graduated.
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And I think it's a great service.
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I think herbs also can be more expensive that way.
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So it's really kind of what your comfort zone is.
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My favorite herbs that I utilized where I have, let's see here.
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First of all, I have.
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Extensive raw medicinally, raw herbal medicinally.
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I think I have about 70 herbs.
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And so I ordered from spring wind.
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And I love them they're just awesome.
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So I use spring wind for that.
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I haven't been doing that as much because obviously that's quite
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expensive, not everybody's compliant
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. The greater population really
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or granules within capsules.
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So I love blue poppy.
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I love blue poppy for that because blue poppy has granules.
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Basically they put them in capsules and so, and it's easy and I love their
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product and I know how my patients react to their products and it's just, I love
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blue poppy and I also love evergreens.
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Those are a couple of evergreen has more women's formulas.
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I feel like.
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So women's health formulas.
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So that's where I go for that.
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I think that's pretty good.
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I think that's a pretty good list for you guys as far as what to use.
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I built my website on Squarespace.
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I think if I could do it again, I would probably build on WordPress.
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WordPress has more integrations and just a little bit more versatility, but really
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for what you guys need a website for.
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Either one I would go with And once again, if you are trying to figure out how to
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do stuff, I have found that the best way is to find a couple people on YouTube and
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they will fly you through your questions when you're trying to develop a website.
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All right,
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that's it.
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That's the show.
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Thanks for tuning in again.
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I really appreciate you guys.
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If you.
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Like what I'm doing and appreciate the podcast and want
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to share it with other people.
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The best way to do that obviously is to tell them but you could also head on over
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to apple podcast and leave every view that actually does make a difference.
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Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.