Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey innovators. This is dr. Andrew Wells. Welcome to this simplified integration podcast. This is number episode number 34 is your coach coaching. Leonardo de 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. I'm on a mission to change that when I've come to find from over five years, working with integrative practices is that simplicity really is the secret deal 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: (01:10)
Hey doc, great to have you on the podcast today. So I'm not a huge sports fan, but the one thing I like about sports, like whether it's professional baseball, basketball, football, soccer, is that it's extremely democratic in the fact that if you're, if you do well in the sport, you stick around and you make a lot of money. If you don't do well, you're out really quickly. So it doesn't matter what your education is. It doesn't matter what your, the color of your skin is, your religion, your personal beliefs, either you perform or you get the heck out. And I love that about sports. It's just, it's very black and white. And, um, and I just think that that is the appeal to me about sports is that it's set up that way. Now, I had an interesting call with a doctor, uh, two days ago, and he, we were talking about integration and we're talking about the concept of paying consulting groups, upfront fees.

Speaker 1: (02:05)
And this episode sort of dovetails with my last episode and how I really urge doctors not to pay big upfront fees. There's a lot of reasons for that, but he, um, the doctor, I was speaking to over the phone, integrated through one of the big integration companies, pay them a bunch of money. And he said within two months he was like two or three months. I think he had learned everything that he could learn from this integration company and was left to figure out a lot of the details on his own. And he's done okay with integration. He's still integrated. It's been six years. And he did. Okay. So now, uh, he said one of his friends called him and was also interested in integration and he was also going to go through the same company and he said, listen, you're gonna, you know, you're going to pay them a lot of money up front, but within five months, you're going to learn everything that you can learn from this group.

Speaker 1: (02:50)
And they're not gonna be able to teach you anything else. It's very basic. So a lot of the advanced skills and the advanced knowledge, you're not going to get. And so their friends, Oh, okay. Whatever. And, and sure enough, the guy integrated through the same company, this guy got the call from his friend and said, you know what? You're right. Five months in. I can't learn anything else from this group. Now the problem with this is that. And I talked about this on the last podcast episode, is that the problem with paying consulting groups upfront is there is no motivation for them to teach you how to get to the next level or to teach you some of the nuances and advanced administrative and management and leadership skills that you need to really make an integration office work. And when you have the problem is also when you have 300, 400, 600 different clients, who's teaching the doctor, how to I run an integrated practice.

Speaker 1: (03:43)
I can almost guarantee you, it's not somebody who's ever run a successful integrative practice. And that's the problem. So when you jumped on board with these companies, oftentimes you're given a manual that spells out like how to run an office. But oftentimes you have to read in between the lines and this like, sort of templated way to integrate. Doesn't always work for everybody. And the reality is as unique need a coach, you need a, a man like a consultant or a management group to walk you through. Not just how to start the company, but how to build it and scale it effectively. And that's what doc like most doctors are expecting. They're going to get when they integrate, but they just never get. And so when it comes to integration that easy part, this is what I really like. I really try to instill in doctors and, and most doctors believe it.

Speaker 1: (04:32)
When I, when I, when I say this and I say it multiple times to doctors, the easy part is getting started. It doesn't take a lot of work to set up a medical entity, to find a medical doctor, to find a nurse practitioner, to get credentialed. In fact, you hire people to do those things for you. It doesn't cost a lot. That's where most integration companies get you. They, they give you like the therapies to bill. They help get you set up. That is the easy work. It doesn't take a lot of knowledge and skill to do that. The hard work starts once you're open. What happens when a new patient walks through the door? What therapies do you offer? How do you build care plans? How do you bill insurance, compliantly, what therapies should you be offering? How should you do your advertising? So there's all kinds of nuances and skills that you have to learn.

Speaker 1: (05:21)
Like how do you train a front desk staff to do their job effectively? How do you train a case manager? How do you eventually step out of your role as the provider and run an office as an owner and a business manager? That's the stuff that takes months, two years to learn. You can't learn it in a couple of months. So where most doctors run into a wall as they they're integrated and they have the services they want to offer, but they can't figure out how to make it run effectively. They can't make it learn how to make it run cost efficiently. So maybe they're barely, barely making a profit or just breaking even. And if you're integrating and you're just breaking, even like, it's a lot of work to do that. So it's not even worth it. Uh, Mo a lot of doctors, I recommend not even integrating because they have a false expectation of what integrations all about.

Speaker 1: (06:02)
But what I'm trying to say is that running a successful office takes years to develop effectively. So if you think you're going to learn it in six months and be a pro at it and make a ton of money, it's a lot harder than you may think. And so my question is, and who is coaching you through that process? Do you have somebody that you can call or text or email that will answer the phone and be able to walk you through that process based on experience. And so just like in sports, like if you're, if you're a coach, isn't doing their job, they're going to get fired. If they don't produce a winning team, they get fired and they get replaced. So what happens when your office isn't thriving? Can you fire your management company? Can you get your money back? Chances are you can't, which is again, why I say don't pay big upfront consulting fees, because if your office isn't running the way you're expecting it to you, can't really fire the consulting group when they've, you've already paid them the full amount of money that they're asking for.

Speaker 1: (06:58)
And so the way we've structured our business is like a true, almost like a sports company. So we get paid as coaches and consultants based on how well your office produces. So if you have a really successful office and it's screaming and doing really well and profitable, like we win in that and we make a lot of money doing it, doing, uh, doing that. However, if your office flops or you're not making money and it's not successful, then we don't make money on that. It's a, it's a failure for us as well. So we've set up our consulting business, uh, so that we have skin in the game. Right. Then the nice thing about that is it's, it's almost like a true partnership where we're not, we don't own the office, but we're in it with you. So it's in our best interest to make sure that we're coaching you and developing you and developing your team and your staff and giving you smart strategies, things that have worked for us and other offices that we've worked with.

Speaker 1: (07:49)
And so we're in the same boat and we, our job is to coach you through that. So there are a lot of benefits to that, which means that we have to be accessible. So I'm known as the doctor, like if you text me at 10 o'clock at night, if I'm still awake, I'll text you back that night to give you answers to questions that you have, uh, when you first launch your business in most cases, uh, we're there, when you physically in your office helping coach you and your team through the launch and startup phase of your practice. Uh, so we actually show up on your front door and get into the nitty gritty details of your office and how to launch successfully. Uh, we're on the phone with you. We do zoom calls, uh, we're very accessible. So we have the, you know, we have the binder of information on here's, how to integrate your office.

Speaker 1: (08:32)
But the most important part is that you have access to doctors who are in the trenches, who know the pitfalls and the failures, and also know the successes and what it takes to run an office like that. So we've, we've structured our business, just like, again, like a sports team, we're incentive if you win. And so if you don't do well, we don't do well either. So we think that's the way to operate a consulting and a management group. That's how we've set up our business. It wasn't always that way. I used to charge upfront fees because I just thought that was the way that you do it, because that's the way that other companies did it. Uh, but I realized that it's a lot smarter to do it, um, uh, uh, to have skin in the game. So that's my take on coaching. Um, I hope, uh, you know, if this is something that resonates with you and make sense to you, and if it's something that if integration is something that you're considering, uh, I'd love to talk with you, give me a call.

Speaker 1: (09:24)
Uh, you can, uh, you can email me@awatsimplifiedintegration.com. That's a w@simplifiedintegration.com. And I'd love to have a chat with you about either fixing your integrated company, your integrated office, or if you're new to integration, I'd love to walk you through the, the steps and the processes and how to get started. So, thanks for joining me today on a simplified integration podcast. I hope you have a fantastic day and we'll see you on the next episode. 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.