Episode #23: Being Authentic

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00) Welcome to the simplified integration podcast. This is episode number 23 being authentic.

Speaker 2: (00:08) Leonardo da Vinci once said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication and I agree. You see the problem with the way that most consulting groups approach medical integration is anything but simple. In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's expensive, it's complicated and quite frankly it's exhausting. Enough is enough. There are far too many amazing integrated clinics that are struggling. Well, I'm on a mission to change that. What I've come to find from over five years working with integrative practices is that simplicity really is the secret. The old saying of less is more is true. Through a streamlined approach, I was able to create multiple successful seven-figure integrated clinics and now I'm going to show you how you can do the same. Join me as I share with you the secrets to successful medical integration and practice growth. Join me on a journey to greater sophistication through innovation. I'm Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to the simplified integration podcast.

Speaker 1: (01:06) Welcome back. This is episode number 23 being authentic. It's great to have you back here, doc. So if you listen to my podcast, I may sound a little bit different today. That's because I'm not in my normal podcast studio. I'm recording this during the, the Corona virus epidemic. And we're actually here at our Lake house in Lake lure in North Carolina. This is one of my favorite places in the entire world. Uh, we have a little pontoon boat, um, that we come out and cruise around the Lake on and relax. And I thought this would be an awesome place to have my podcast studio this week. So I usually record my podcast in like in blocks, so I'll record like four or five at a time. And so I'm out here today recording. I'm recording my podcasts and it's just a, I'm not here to avoid the virus. I'm just here because this is a really, um, cool place to relax and, uh, and get through this really, um, crazy and obnoxious time right now in history.

Speaker 1: (01:58) And, uh, yeah, so I wanted to, I wanted to share this, uh, this spot with you guys. So if you're listening to this on audio, you're obviously not going to see what I'm seeing. But please check out my YouTube video. I have all my podcasts on YouTube. I'd love for you to check out, um, to, to subscribe to that. Uh, number one, you'll get updates as soon as we release new podcast episodes. But also you can see this amazing place. If you guys are ever in the Northwestern North Carolina area, please look me up. If you want to come visit, I'd be happy to give you a tour of, uh, my hometown, uh, where I live, not my hometown, but where I live. I'm, uh, this is one of my favorite places in the world. I'd be happy to show you around anytime. So I want to talk to you today about the, um, the topic of being authentic.

Speaker 1: (02:41) And when I, when I was first in practice, I was an idiot and I didn't really know how to communicate chiropractic that well. And so what I would do is like I would, when I w I was like desperate for patients, so we ran a mostly cash based practice. And so we ate what we in practice and we were, my wife and I started off from scratch. We had as zero patient base. We just opened this office. I'm borrowed money from my family to get this practice going. And so I really wanted to get it going as quickly as possible. And I did all right. We were successful. But in the beginning my desperation came off. It was pretty obvious, I think to patients because, um, as I think sometimes people tend to do if you want something you can sometimes, and I did this, I, I overstated the, the expected results.

Speaker 1: (03:30) So when patients would ask me, like, they would come in with scoliosis or a back problem, I would be so emphatic like, yeah, I can help you and I can fix your scoliosis and I can definitely help you with your back pain. I'm going to fix you back up to a hundred percent, no problem. And, uh, what I learned and I realized was that my skills weren't actually that good. I was a decent adjuster and chiropractor, but I wasn't always getting my patients 100% better despite the fact that I was telling them that. And I, you know, I wasn't like, and I wasn't converting as many patients as I thought I would do to my, in my inflated confidence. And what I found as I got more mature and more self aware as I got through practice is that the more brutally honest I was with patients, the higher my conversions were and the better I did as a chiropractor for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 1: (04:19) So I didn't have that. Like once I finally gotten, uh, established in practice and didn't have to worry about paying rent and paying overhead and all that stuff, and I sort of chilled out a little bit and became more relaxed on it, that my desperation didn't come off, it wasn't as obvious. And I really, uh, I started to, to, um, to practice being my authentic self, whatever that means. I was more truthful in my communication with patients. I was more truthful in what I expected in terms of outcomes. And I think patients really keyed in on that. And as I went through practice as my, my, my, uh, authenticity grew up, my confidence grew. I was able to convert patients a lot easier with a lot less skepticism, a lot less patients quitting care. Because here's the deal. It's like patients didn't expect me to perform miracles.

Speaker 1: (05:06) They expected me to help them, but they didn't always expect me to get them a hundred percent better. My scoliosis, patients didn't expect me to completely straighten out their spine to the point where they didn't have scoliosis anymore. Um, and so, uh, so what I'm saying is that like, let me apply this to regenerative medicine because what I'm seeing right now in regenerative medicine is this is doctor is doing the same thing that I did early on in practice. And what I mean by that is when a patient comes in, they're saying, Oh, you've got phase three degeneration in your back. If you have this STEM cell injection, this is going to fix your back completely. You won't have to have surgery. And you'll feel good for another, for the rest of your life. This will outlive you. Or do you have a bad knee? You take an X Ray and they have very little joint space left in their knee and you tell the patient, yep, this is going to regrow the cartilage in your knee.

Speaker 1: (05:55) You'll be able to avoid surgery and you'll be able to go back to your normal daily activities just like you'd never had any knee problems to begin with. So that's what I mean by like overstating claims and not being authentic. Now some doctors do that because they just, they don't know what to expect with regenerative medicine. And so they're expecting those, those kinds of outcomes. But that's not realistic. And, um, and I, I tended to do that initially when I first started regenerative medicine as well because I was modeling this off of somebody else who did that and it just wasn't true. And, um, I, I've shared this story with you before on a podcast, but I'll share it again cause I think it's so relevant. Um, we had a patient come in and she was very overweight. She was in a motorized scooter and she had horrible, horrible bone on bone degeneration in both knees.

Speaker 1: (06:41) It was so bad that she couldn't, she couldn't stand up to do dishes. She couldn't do any chores around the house. She felt miserable 24, seven even when she slept and she was putting a lot of, she was upset because she was putting a lot of this stress on her husband who was also elderly. And she felt really bad about that and she was in a really bad spot and her knees were awful. And I remember taking next raise of her knees and I said, listen, uh, I don't think regenerative medicine is going to help you. I think you really need to have knee surgery and have your knees replaced. And she's like, well, that's what my doctor told me. But the problem is I can't have knee surgery. Um, the doctor is because of the medications I'm on. I'm a huge health risk and I can't have surgery, so I have no options.

Speaker 1: (07:25) And I said, well, listen, this is not like, this is not an ideal option for you. Um, I don't think it's going to work. And she said, well, if I had the injections, how much would it help? And I said, at a, at a maximum, I think it'll help you 5%. And she started crying and she said, well, she goes, you know, I, I think I want to, I want to do this. And I said, well, why are you crying? And he said, well, I can't afford it. She's a sub. And it was for both to have both of her knees done. It was like 7,200 bucks. And I said, well, I understand that's a lot of money. And that's, that's why I'm saying I don't think you should do this, cause you're not gonna get most, you get 5% benefit, but it's gonna cost you 7,200 bucks.

Speaker 1: (08:07) And she goes, well, I still want to do it. She said, it will be a financial stress, but if, if it'll give me a fraction, if it make you feel just a little bit better, I'm in. And so very cautiously, like I talked, they'll say for half an hour like trying to talk her out of it and she wasn't having it. And so I'm like, I'm trying to push her away from it. And she's like, no, no, no, I want it. And um, and so we ended up doing it and you were very transparent with her and like, look, we are not expecting great results. So she came in like three months later for her for her reevaluation and she came in and I'm like, ah, like, like she's gonna yell at me cause he didn't get any results. And when she came in the room, I came in the room and she, she teared up and I said, well, how are you doing?

Speaker 1: (08:45) And she started crying and I'm like, Oh no, this is going to be a really uncomfortable conversation. And she said, you know what? She goes, I'm so happy I did this. And I said, well, tell me about it. You know, you're obviously still in your motorized wheelchair, like what's happened? And she goes, she goes, you said at Mozu I would get 5% better. I'd say I'm 10% better, but that 10% is absolutely saved my life. She said, I don't feel like I want to go to sleep and die anymore. I can, I can do some chores around the house. I'm not in constant excruciating pain so I'm still in pain but it's not unbearable. And she goes, if I hadn't done this injection in my knees, I don't know where I'd be right now. And she goes, thank you. Thank you, thank you for allowing me to do this. And you know, I think, um, and that was, you know, that is by far my most memorable regenerative medicine story. Not because we had like this fantastic clinical outcome because reality, it wasn't like it didn't help her that much, but for her that much was the world. It meant everything to her. And I remember like, like tearing up in the room with her cause it made such a difference in her life and I was really happy for her. I'm going to pause this for a minute cause there's a boat, a boat going by.

Speaker 1: (09:56) I hope you can, I don't know if you can hear this over the, over the boat engine, but, um, my point in saying this is, is that you don't have to overstate the benefits of a therapy to get a patient to commit to care. That was a mistake I made for years. But the minute I started being truthful, authentic, and brutally honest, is the moment when my stats went up. My office grew, we were, you know, profitable. And so you don't have to, like, you don't have to be like this snake oil salesman to sell regenerative medicine. And I, I, I know a lot of doctors do it that way because they were taught that way or they think you have to do it that way. And I'm here to tell you, you can run a successful chiropractic business, regenerative medicine, business, weight loss, business, functional medicine business just by being brutally honest.

Speaker 1: (10:42) Patients want that. They expect it. You know, as a healthcare provider, you should be doing that. We have an ethical responsibility to be honest to our patients, uh, without having to, you know, be connected to the outcome, the financial outcome of it. So I just want to share that story with you, um, simply because like I wasn't always truthful and honest, um, in the way I practice because I thought I had to be that way. I thought I had to oversell and under deliver even though it, uh, intuitively, intellectually I knew that that was not right. But out of, you know, out of a sense of desperation for being in practice, being new in practice, I thought that that would help me somehow. And I just realized over time that that was not helpful. It was actually quite hurtful, uh, hurtful to not only my patients but me.

Speaker 1: (11:25) And so that this is me being very vulnerable. And I, I, you know, I hope by sharing this story that you can learn from it as well. So if you're thinking about tackling integration or STEM cell therapy, regenerative medicine, I just would urge you to be honest with your patients and that will, um, that will, uh, pay dividends in a lot of different ways that you may not expect. And so I hope you can take this with 'em. Um, just knowing that I've learned from learn from a lot hardship and trial and error. And so I hope, uh, I hope that you know that you can run a regenerative medicine clinic that is not in, um, in contrast to your ethics, your morals in the way that you should practice. So, um, I hope you found this, this lesson, my story valuable to you. Um, if you have any questions about integration or how a regenerative medicine works, shoot me an email@infoatintegrationsecrets.com. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast. That way you'll get an email notification every time a new podcast episode comes out. But thanks for listening. Thanks for joining me right now during this coronavirus epidemic. Hope you check out my YouTube channel so you can see this awesome place I get to do my podcast record, my podcast on. So a doc. Hope you're having a great day. God bless. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.

Speaker 2: (12:40) Hey, innovators. Thanks for listening to the simplified integration podcast. Fact that you're listening tells me that you're like me, someone who loves simplicity, and the truth is those who embrace simplicity are some of the greatest innovators. So hope you got a ton of value from what we covered on today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share with other docs that you feel could benefit from greater sophistication through simplification and innovation. If you've got specific questions that you'd like answered on this podcast or you've got specific topics that you'd like me to discuss, just shoot me an email at info@integrationsecrets.com that's info@integrationsecrets.com.