Direct Primary Care Doctor
Dr. Tami Singh is board-certified in both Family Medicine and Functional Medicine. She attended Ross University & received her Doctor of Medicine and undergraduate degrees from the University of South Florida. After training, she joined a multi-specialty practice in 2010, Clark and Daughtrey, a physician-owned group.
Her patient panel grew to over 4,000 patients in 7 years. She and her staff always strived for a patient’s experience in the office to be a pleasant one. However, the physician-owned practice soon merged with a large hospital, and the family feel of the office was lost. Many of the personal touches disappeared and patients felt like a number. This convinced her to seek alternative options to better care for her patients. The obstacles her patients encountered, along with her drive why she became a physician motivated her to open Aspire Health.
The DPC membership at Aspire Health allows her to devote quality time to her patients and their families, getting to know them on a more in-depth level. The close relationship she develops and the time she spends with patients are personally important to her. This is the foundation of exceptional health care. In her spare time, she enjoys volunteering at the Miami Rescue Clinic, teaching, traveling, working out, yoga, cooking, and spending time with her family and friends.
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Aspire Health Website: HERE
CONTACT:
Address: 4161 NW 5th St., Suite 101, Plantation, FL 33317, United States
Email Address: contact@aspirehealthcenter.com
Phone Number: 954 998 4468
Fax Number: 424 296 2229
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Transcript*
Direct Primary care is an innovative alternative path to insurance driven healthcare. Typically, a patient pays their doctor a low monthly membership and in return builds a lasting relationship with their doctor and has their doctor available at their fingertips. Welcome to the My DPC Story podcast, where each week you will hear the ever so relatable stories shared by physicians who have chosen.
Into practice medicine in their individual communities through the direct primary care model. I'm your host, Marielle conception family physician, D P C, owner, and former fee for service. Doctor, I hope you enjoy today's episode and come away feeling inspired about the future of patient care direct primary care.
C P C to me means practicing medicine the way I want to practice and to provide patients with a service and care like I would wanna be treated. It is allowing me to have a life taking care of myself and my needs, but just as much as taking care of my patients. I am Dr. Tammy Singh at Aspire Health. This is my D P C story.
Dr. Tammy Singh is a board certified family physician. She attended Ross University and received her doctor of medicine and undergraduate degrees from the University of South Florida. After training, she joined a multi-specialty practice in 2010, Clark and Daughtry, a physician-owned group. Her patient panel grew to over 4,000 patients in seven years.
She and her staff always strived for a patient's experience in the office to be a pleasant one. However, the physician owned practice soon merged with a large hospital. Hospital and the family feel of the office was lost. Many of the personal touches disappeared and patients felt like numbers. This convinced her to seek alternative options to better care for her patients.
The obstacles her patients encountered along with her drive as to why she became a physician, motivated her to open Aspire Health. The D P C membership at Aspire Health allows her to devote quality time to her patients and their families. Getting to know them on a more in-depth level. The close relationships she develops and the time she spends with patients are personally important to her.
This is the foundation of exceptional healthcare. In her spare time, she enjoys volunteering at the Miami Rescue Clinic, teaching, traveling, working out, yoga, cooking, and spending time with her family and friends.
To the podcast, Dr. Singh.
Thank you Marielle for inviting me.
It's such a treat to talk with you again. We last met a couple months ago at the initial pediatric D P C Mastermind, and as you and I are family doctors, and I think we were in two of three doctors there who did family medicine, when you spoke at the pediatric D P C Mastermind, it was awesome.
I loved that you were incorporated as a family medicine doctor. And I say that because I encourage family medicine, physicians, pediatricians, you know, uh, med peds, anybody who sees kids. Think about 20, 24 February is when the next pediatric D P C Mastermind is gonna be. But for those people who were not in attendance, can you start us off by sharing who is Dr.
Singh, the individual who became Dr. Singh, the D P C doctor?
Yeah. So, um, in 2017 I actually, uh, stumbled upon like the, oh, I fell in my lap, like the Facebook group. And then I went to the a f P conference in dc. And I walked in and I loved everybody there. I loved how everybody was so helpful. I had spoken to later on to Josh Umber on, I remember as the phone call, he was doing his groceries and he took the time to just talk to me.
And I just was so honored and thankful for him and everybody else on the, the websites and, you know, on, on Facebook and, and even at Ethics conference. And I walked away saying, I'm gonna do this. And I quit my job. And I ended up going to Bali for like six weeks, became a yoga instructor, did reiki, and just kind of, it submerged myself and just like figuring out me and what I want my practice to be.
And it was really life changing and I loved it. And I got back into the States at the end of the 2017 and I got my keys to my, my new place. And I was so fortunate to find a space in a plastic surgery office, and they had all the furniture. It was just me showing up and making it mine, and they gave me a year lease.
So, hey, I took a chance for a year. If I wasn't gonna make it, we wouldn't continue. And it, it was just a, a great opportunity to, to, to test out the waters. And yeah, five years later, I'm here and growing and it's, it's doing great. So I was really honored to speak at that conference because one of my goals this year was to get out of my comfort zone, comfort zone of speaking in front of crowds more.
When I started D P C in 2018, I opened my doors. The way I kind of sold myself or marketed myself was I went out and I went to different small business groups, luncheons, morning breakfast, all kinds of groups that I can go to, and I and I B N I groups. Um, I never joined one, but I would go as a visitor.
And I really learned, learned how to get my like 22nd pitch down and talk to people and, and get that out. So I was, I was good with that. I felt comfortable, but then I wanted to take it up a notch this year and actually speak. So I got outta my comfort zone and went and was able to speak. My topic was like to be or not to be D p c, and it was just like to kind of give my story again, everybody's gonna have their own story and that's why I love your title for this podcast.
It's your story. Like they say, you know, you see one D p C, you don't see them all. They're all so different. And mine is just as different. But I love sharing my story and I love mentoring. I've been so fortunate to have so many doctors get, ask for my advice. So I feel like I am, you know, after Josh did that for me, it was like my payback for other people, for him doing that for me, which I was so thankful for.
And so that's my goal. Like I, on my way home, I was speaking to another doctor. Who, um, is in another state and he wants to open and he wants to incorporate functional medicine and giving him some pointers. So I'm constantly leaving my doors open for individuals to call me, ask me questions. I do not charge.
Um, and I will never charge. And I just think that's just not, I, I was so fortunate when I found D P C that everybody just was so helpful and everything was free. It's so wonderful. And bringing the spirit of what you brought to the conference to your story here on the podcast, and I just love that. It, it makes me think about, you know, in what other areas of medicine have we experienced the, you know, that, that domino effect where somebody like yourself, you know, you went to the family practice meeting, you heard about D P C, and then all of a sudden you're opening with help along the way with inspiration in your case from Josh, you know, talking.
I love that. And you said in the grocery store, like that is legit. D p c, it's just more like, We can take calls wherever. And I love that you're, you're passing that torch on, you're creating that, more of that domino effect. And this is it. It's so, it's such a unique thing. I feel about, you know, direct primary care, like I think about family medicine.
Did, did you have somebody inspire you to even choose family medicine in the same way that you were inspired and, and encouraged to, to open up D P C? Unfortunately, no. I just loved everything. So originally when I, when I went to med school, I was like, I'm gonna be a surgeon, I'm gonna be a plastic surgeon.
And I was just shooting for like ultimate top and my dad's like, no, you're gonna be a gp. And I was like, dad, what's a gp? I'm not gonna be a gp. No, no, no. And he's like, so, and my parents are from Guyana. So it's a general practitioner and a family doctor. And so I was like, no, no, no. I'm not gonna do that. I wanna be this top surgeon, blah, blah, blah.
Well, guess what? I loved ob, I love peds. I loved er, I love all they have derm. I loved all these things. And then I found out, I was like, Hey, I can do all this in a family practice. Believe it or not, I got to do as much as I want or as little as I want. So in my last practice that I was at for six years with the multi-specialty group, I was one of the few doctors that didn't refer out to that multi-specialty group, and they kept pounding me, yeah, why aren't you referring to us?
You know, if I really didn't feel comfortable and I didn't know something, I'm going to refer. But if I could learn and I can, you know, and my patients are comfortable with me doing joint injections, biopsies, you know, any I U d, um, insertions, any of that stuff, that, and I wanted to do it and I did it. And so I was able to, and my patients trusted me.
I love that and I hope that people in the audience are really, you know, just sitting there in wherever they're, they are listening to your words saying like, yes. Like, that's exactly what I wanna do, especially for those potential people who are, you know, and, and I will, I will feed off of your name, who are aspiring to be a direct primary care doctor because, you know, when we go into family medicine especially, and primary care in general, when you're empowered to literally practice at the top of your abilities in terms of being a physician and surgeon, how awesome is that?
Right. And let me ask you there, when, when you were in your previous multi-specialty group and you were, you know, able to still, you know, have some autonomy in terms of not having to, to refer out, how did that pan out for you in terms of, you know, I think about, When I've talked with other physicians, I talked to somebody who's in fee for service, who they still are able to have 20 or 40 minute visits in their practice.
But then oftentimes we see people who are like, you know, the national average is less than 10 minutes, so that's what you get. How did it work out for you that you wanted to, you know, branch out into your own D P C given that you were still able to have some autonomy in your previous practice? When I first started that practice, it was really a great gig.
I felt coming straight out of residency. It was a physician-owned group, so you got to work as hard as you wanted and if you wanted to take two weeks off, three weeks off, a month off, you just didn't get paid. You just had to make sure somebody covered for you. So it was, it was great because it was giving you that autonomy as a physician just coming outta residency, able to make your own hours, able to set your own schedule.
But then of course what happens, hospital comes in, buys it out. So that happened and they started changing my template and they started undercoding and doing all kinds of crazy stuff with my, with my billing, which as a physician owned group, we were trained how to bill properly. So they really did like courses with us, and so I knew how to bill, and then all this hospital system is telling me I'm billing wrong.
So I knew it was a. Bogus and I was just really upset and and frustrated with the system and they were just shortening my time slots, booking three to four people in one time spot. So it was just not the way I envisioned medicine. And that's why I looked elsewhere and I kept threatening them. I'm gonna leave.
I'm gonna leave. I was one of their top producers. I was seeing 30 to 40 patients. I was taking home hundreds of charts a weekend. I was absolutely miserable at the end. So that's where I told 'em I'm done. They told me I was gonna fail, fall flat on my face and I didn't. So there
and amen. You know, like, we'll get to it, but I mean, you're, you're open, like you said, you know, it's, you open your doors in 2018, it's now 2023, you've now added another physician to your practice.
But when you, you know, I just go back to when you say you were the top producer, like it literally is a trigger. For me, you know when I hear that, because of how literally in that system of you are paid based on how many heads you can see how many, like, fill in the blank. Like it is, it is a literal production service.
Like how many, you know, nuts can you harvest outta the field today? Like, how many people can you see today? Like how did that ever become our culture? Right? Like, we know, we all know the answers to this. It's a, it's a multifaceted answer. So let me ask you there, as I alluded to, and as we heard in your intro, your practice is Aspire Health.
And so when we go into how you chose your name, did part of your desire to choose Aspire Health come from your journey down to Bali and your, you know, just taking some time for
yourself. Definitely. So I was aspiring for my, my dreams, aspiring for better health, for myself, aspiring, you know, so, so I love that word.
And I just thought it was a great fit for what I wanna do. And, you know, I always think that my family, we always talk about if we don't have help, we have nothing at all. So we always wanna aspire for good health, you know, to be healthy. So, and I'm a big preventative care type of person, so that just kind of fit nicely with me.
You know, I'm really big into yoga, into meditation, into eating healthy, fit, cooking, eating. It just fit nicely for me as a, as a preventative and, you know, aspiring to, to good health and better health. So, I really give you kudos and I love that name because it truly is representative of what people also experience as patients, I'm sure at your practice because you're able to truly have the time to back that dream of aspiring for better things for yourself, as well as your patience to fruition because of the model that you practice under.
So when we talk about you aspiring for better health and bringing, you know, your skills to the table as a physician and surgeon on your website, you have listed where you practice traditional medicine as well as functional medicine. And you are, you've been board certified by the Institute of Functional Medicine as well as clearly the, you're board certified as a family physician, um, in the western sense of things.
And so when we think about. Dr. Tammy's saying, bringing both forms of medicine to your practice, what does that mean in terms of how does that work out for patients? Uh, how do you, because I'm, I, I'm thinking here that there's a lot of overlap, but the approach to how you talk to your patients might be a little bit different, and the type of patient who's seeking one service.
Or the other, or a mixture of both can differ. So how do you go beyond your website when it says you offer functional and traditional medicine to giving care to your patients?
So when I look at functional medicine, I tell patients. So I do a lot of meeting greets. Now I'm actually, I've on June 1st, I closed my panel and I have a wait list and everybody that comes through has to do a meeting, greet with me before I decide where their appointment's gonna be.
So it's a very selective group now, and I'm getting, I'm able to at this point, which is awesome. So I asked them, you know, really, what are they looking for? Why are, have they ever done functional medicine before? But if they've said no, then I kind of go through their chronic medical issues, what they really are looking to do.
So a lot of functional medicine patients, They have chronic diseases or they have a lot of symptoms that they're going to all these doctors and all these specialists, nobody's listening or nobody's digging deeper. So I like to use the word dig deep, and Dr. Meyer Hyman, who's the founder of I F M, he likes to talk about digging deep, and the whole digging deep is really looking for the root cause.
But believe it or not, as a family physician, we were trained this way. You know, I try to teach my my students up to today. Today we had a functional, no, we had a traditional patient that had elevated blood pressure but never diagnosed with hypertension. Well, what's our algorithm to tell us, well, what are we gonna do?
Is this for primary hypertension or is this secondary? And then what are those workups? We're not gonna be that doctor that's just gonna give them a pill and say, go on your way and we're not gonna do any workup. So I was really like annoyed with them today because they've been with me for six weeks and we're going on our fifth week.
And I'm like, what's the workup? And so I really wanted them to gather that even as a functional medicine, this patient wasn't functional. We're doing traditional, but we're still digging. We wanna know why does that patient has, you know, why do they have high blood pressure? So, you know, in functional medicine, Digging deep, you know, is, is just looking at, you know, if they have diagnosed with diabetes and they wanna get off of their diabetic meds, well, why is the, why are they diabetic?
What is causing it? Is it insulin resistant? Is it adrenal issues? You know, and then patients wanna do gut testing. So this is all part of like functional medicine, hormone testing. So that's where I make the difference between how much workup I need to do is functional medicine, if it's traditional and it's my primary care stuff, my basic bread and butter that I've been taught in primary care.
And sometimes it does overlap. So they want more of a whole holistic approach. So say they're having pain, instead of giving them ibuprofen, I'm gonna say, oh, here you can take omegas and turmeric and magnesium. You know, so it's just kind of, it does overlap though. But if I'm not doing extensive workup, I just keep them as traditional.
They'll pay a lower price, and we just recommend some holistic outcomes or routes of things. And
I'm glad you mentioned your pricing because clearly just as you're talking, I think about how functional medicine and the digging deep portion can definitely have a longer time component to it. So when it comes to your strategy as to how you set up your services, did you open in 2018 with, you know, the two options, uh, for patients?
And if, if not, how did you pivot to then have your pricing reflect the time that you're investing into each person's care plan? Yeah, that's a great question because the individual I spoke to on my way home to educate him about functional medicine, he was telling me that his colleagues in the area are charging a thousand dollars a month for a membership, which I said I will never charge that.
That's a ripoff. I'm sorry. Am I worth it? Yes, I am, but I want it to be more affordable for my patients. That's a whole concept to me on D P C is to be affordable for patients, for me to practice medicine the way I wanna practice. But again, affordability and you know, just really being able to afford me and be able to help them.
That's what I wanna do at the end of the day. So I'm not gonna be a ridiculous price because then you get ridiculous requests from patients too. So you have to be reasonable. So when I started, I was not functional medicine certified. I was just kind of. Touching little bits and pieces of it. I was doing Ayurvedic medicine.
I was doing, you know, functional medicine. I was doing just, again, little bits and pieces of things. So I would incorporate it into my traditional prices, which were very low. They weren't as high as they are now. And again, they're not high, they're reasonable. But I started very low, like my kids' pricing. I started, um, in 2018 at $29, and then I went up.
So I was very, very reasonable when I started, because at the end of the day, nobody knew me In this area that I moved to. I was a brand new doctor four hours away. That's where I was living before for seven years. And so I moved to a brand new spot. Nobody knows me and I wanted to attract people, and I wanted people to sign up, and I wanted to show them what I can do.
And then once I started getting good reviews, patients trusted me, believed in me. I gave them that service that they expected or wanted. I start moving up my prices. And so I would only move it up at the beginning. I only moved it up to new patients up until four years Now, last year was the first year that I went straight clean sweep for everybody, and I raised everybody's prices.
And believe it or not, I didn't lose anybody because of it. So patients, you know, appreciate me. They, they respect me and they, they were able, they stayed, which was really nice.
And I love that you mentioned that because that is absolutely something that we don't necessarily think about when we're coming from a large organization, when you know, there's, everybody's a doctor, even though there's non-physician providers, you know, on the websites if everybody's a doctor.
And so I say that because, you know, locally there's huge systems where like it'll say, you know, like a non-physician provider is, you know, the, the doctor, blah, blah, blah. And, and I, I harp on that because when people are afraid of D P C for whatever reason, one of the things that you mentioned there is so important for people to keep in mind is that your patients wanted you, Dr.
Singh, that's what we see in direct primary care, is the patients want. The care from the physicians that they are getting. They're not wanting the care from whoever will see them at the urgent care. They're wanting the personalized care that's affordable and accessible that you provided Aspire Health.
And so I hope that provides some, some fuel for people who might be like, oh, nobody, nobody wants me as a doctor, they and I, I don't bring a lot to the table. Your words are absolutely shoving that fear or that doubt, or even that, that thought of the question into the corner because four years later your patients, I'm sure have realized like, well, there's care and then there's Dr. Singh's care.
So that's incredible. Now, let me ask you, because you were moving four hours away from your previous practice, did that have anything to do with non-competes? No, it didn't. It was just, I always wanted to move back closer to my family. Nice. Um, in South Florida and I was like on the west coast, so I wanted to move back to the east coast of, of Florida.
And so that, that was the reason. Gotcha.
And let me ask you, over time, since you have opened, you've become certified in functional medicine and you've incorporated both the offering of traditional and functional, and again, you know, the, the combination of both of them, what does your practice population look like?
Are more of your patients interested in one form versus the other?
Yeah, so definitely they're interested in more functional medicine now. Everybody on my wait list I think, but two are functional medicine. I still get my pediatric patients and I don't wanna give them away, but, and I feel horrible saying no.
So I'm really trying to find a way to fit them in, but not overwork myself and, you know, so, so it's, it's just a teeter tuttle kind of. Battle back and forth with myself. But like I missed this question that you had asked me before about functional medicine though. Now that I'm five years later, my price model for functional medicine has changed and also the way I I schedule them is changed where used to do everybody would get an hour physical functional medicine gets two hour, so they get a two hour spot.
Obviously, emotionally, physically, myself as a physician for two hours, it's draining. So I schedule them a certain time of the month. I scheduled them, you know, and again, that's so nice about D P C. You can do the way you wanna do it and figure it out as you go and you know, decide, hey, I only wanna do one a week or two a week, or, you know, whatever you wanna do.
It's really nicely. And I've been able to schedule that first visit. If they don't wanna be a member or they wanna be a member, everybody has to do that first visit. And it's two hours long and it's a set price and it's on my website. And then after that, the membership, it's a little higher price than the traditional model, and that's also on the website.
Awesome. And let me ask you there, because as you mentioned that, and we talked about the, you were the one of the top producers at your last job when you opened your practice. And even now, you know, because you're more full than you were when you opened. Just thinking about it now, like do you ever have any moments of like, I'm not even working Or are you not having those moments cause you're working differently?
Yeah, I'm never having those moments anymore. Fortunate or unfortunate, it's just like I still do a lot of other things on the side. Just I do something called executive health exams. It's very, very lucrative and I highly recommend any D P c if they have the opportunity, they reached out to me. So I do that one day a week, half a day, just like a few patients, uh, in, in like a morning, but, Technically I only do three days of clinic and the other two days, I'm, I, I don't do anything.
I do virtual. I consider it. It's really nice. And then I have other, like, I'm a consultant and I, you know, go to Miami at a me medical admission and I teach. And so, so it's just gives me so much flexibility. But I do a lot. I, but that's my personality. I love to do. I don't like to sit. Um, so I think I would drive myself crazy if I just sat around and I said, oh my God, I have nothing to do.
Yeah. But I love that. And, you know, I, I didn't mean to throw you a loop there, but I, I love it as a trick question because it's like you and I are working literally as we're recording your podcast, you know, and it's like for every single moment of your life, you were being valued. And it is amazing. Like you don't have to work in terms of how you defined it before being burned out hundreds of charts on the weekend at home, I mean, like, I love though that, you know, like you are doing the things that you love to do, but you also have the time to do the things that you love to do, who make yourself, you or, or who help make yourself you in addition to taking care of the patients.
And so like, I, I really think that again, it goes back to how you aspired for better health. Like I'm guessing that you weren't able to do all of the things that you do and love now when you were working, quote unquote in that traditional system.
Yeah. I, um, try to teach my medical students that medicine doesn't have to look like that cookie cutter model that we say it has to look, it doesn't have to be outpatient or inpatient.
There's so many other avenues that you can do medicine. And I love teaching them that and kind of showing them, like even today I went to a chamber meeting and I was like, Hey. And I told my students, I was like, Hey, come along. You'll probably never get to sit in on one of these. It's super chill, relax.
But you'll see how you can market yourself if you ever wanna go into business. So it's just, Kind of different, different things that you never thought you would do, but you do and DPC
and you're thriving. Like, I, I love this. And you know, when, this is sort of feeding into, you know, your bringing on another position at your practice, but when it comes to what you've learned in terms of best workflows, you've mentioned some great gems.
Like you only schedule functional medicine patients for two hours now, not one hour certain times of the, of the, of the week, of the month. And that you fit your patients in terms of like, you have a certain number of patients that allow you to practice on the days that you wish to practice when you are teaching.
Other people about, you know, their own self-worth dispositions when you're telling medical students that like you could actually market yourself. I mean that's, that's so empowering, I feel, and it's something that I know nobody ever said to me in medical school. But when you think about how to develop a practice as you have to be able to have medical students and patients, and now a new physician, how do you envision and fine tune workflows for your practice and your patients?
So when I first opened doors in 2018, I had zero staff. My mom who has no medical knowledge, well, she does have a little, she used to do insurance claims. She used to be a super supervisor for insurance claims, so she has some knowledge about claims and billing, but we don't do any of that. So she didn't need to do anything or no, anything about that.
But anyways, back to my mom. So she was my front desk. She would answer the calls or I would forward it to her house to to her cell phone, and she'd be at home and she'd pick up all the calls and she would write messages down for me. And at the end of the day, I would go through it. So she was like my receptionist and I had no staff.
And I did everything from faxing to triaging, to, you know, all the vitals, the blood work, EKGs, everything. And I am so happy and fortunate and thankful that I did that because I learned everybody's job. I learned everything from me doing inventory to supplies and purchasing, and. Every single thing. I learned how to do it and that gives me, I feel a benefit When I, when started to hire, so the only person I really trusted with, with my billing and things like that was obviously my mom.
So I was tired of hounding patients whenever they didn't pay and I wasn't going more than, you know, if you didn't pay at the end of the month, that's it. I'm not rolling over another month and another month and another month. So I got her on board to help with that. She started then taking over more and more and more responsibilities from the phones.
So now she's a master five years in it. And so she's been nothing but a blessing and super happy and thankful. I've been trying to fire her, but she's not going anywhere. But so, so we are keeping her around. But my other staff members, I've been able to get a virtual assistance and then I was able to get.
In office staff, and it's really nice, kind of, I, I figure out my flow as I go. At the end of the day, it's like you don't, you're not following anybody else's, you know, their flow, everything. Everybody has to kind of figure it out for themselves. You can, you know, take advice of other people, but honestly, mine, I figured it out on my own.
What works for me, what doesn't work for me. And it's, yeah. And, and I go from there and we're constantly changing things. I mean, I started implementing monthly staff meetings and mm-hmm. You know, and we're getting, you know, throwing around ideas and so yeah. It's constantly changing. It's really great for people to hear that though, because, you know, as we talk about workflows and efficiency, again, it's different than the workflows and efficiency that we had in, in fee for service, but, The fact that it's fluid is so empowering.
Again, you know, it's just, this is your practice. You do whatever the heck you want. And like you said, if you've seen your D P C, you've seen Aspire Health and not the way Aspire Health does things and not other people's, not the way other people do things. So when you brought medical students in into the fold, when along your timeline did you start doing that?
And how did you start bringing them on initially? And what does it look like now when they're, you know, quote unquote rotating with you? Yeah, so the path of medical students actually came about when I started looking into like getting my business model going in 2017. So when I came back, I think when I came back from Bali, I was like, Hey, I just don't wanna sit around and do nothing.
I wanna still do medicine while I'm getting all this business paperwork stuff together. So I went and I reached out to the Miami Rescue Mission, which is a homeless shelter clinic, and I was like, Hey, I would love to come and volunteer. And they're like, oh, we have medical students, we have PA students, we have MA students, so you'll be teaching them while you go.
And I was like, oh great. So then I was doing that weekly. Then when I opened my practice, when I started getting a little busy, maybe like six months into it, I started, okay, I can't do it weekly, driving to Miami, cuz I live in Fort Lauderdale. So I ended up changing it to monthly and then covid hit and I, everything shut down.
And so I was like, okay, fine, 2020. I think 20 20, 20 21, 20 21. I think things kind of resumed and they actually brought me back and they're like, Hey, we got a grant, we can pay you now. And I was like, oh, great. I, I don't mind getting paid while I love doing something. So I ended up teaching the medical students and then that's where Ross, university of the school I went to was part affiliated with it.
So they're like, oh, we can send you medical students in your office. I was like, oh, great. Then I found out f i u wanted to send me students, Nova wanted to send me students. So I got all these third, fourth years even first years. Nova does four first years now, which is amazing. So they're coming into my office and I made my, it used to be my yoga reiki room and after Covid I stopped doing that and I made it into student room.
And I have about four students at a time and they do their rotations and believe it or not, they help me with my notes. And at the end of the day, like today, I have one note left. We saw maybe about eight patients in the office, which was a busy day. But we, and we did a few phone calls, but they do the assessment and plan.
They go over the, the chief complaint. So they really learn how to do their notes at the end. And in my notes, I actually, my assessment plan, I copy my assessment and plan and I send it to my patient. So it's like a little guideline for the patient to, there's gonna be links, there's gonna be recommendations.
So it's something that's what they used to tell me in my last practice. Oh, I don't have anything to, to follow your instructions. So I'd be writing it on paper constantly for them in my last practice. So this way now I email it to 'em, they love it. And again, the students are learning so much and they love it.
So that's how I kind of incorporate the students. But I also teach them at the, the homeless shelter. So it's really nice to see a different dynamics that they can come to with me there as well. And they can see those patients while they see, you know, the members in my office too. Love, love, love this.
And again, it's just you're doing all of these things. You're getting paid all the time by your practice patients, but also, you know, you're able to branch out and offer your services to, to people who are also so excited to have you as part of their team. So I love that. And I just, I really love when you talk, we're talking about how the medical students are really being empowered to basically learn how to function as a resident.
I mean, I think about, uh, you mentioning the whole, like used to write them down. I had, I had, uh, carbon copy paper that I had requested just so that like, I would have, I would write the things down hand the patient, their copy, and then I would put, like, I would have my notes as to what I told the patient on the carbon copy.
But that's so awesome that you're totally. Again, going back to that inspiring other people to aspire for better careers, you're really continuing that with every medical student that you expose, every medical student you expose to D P C, which is incredible and it's something that I wish more and more people who are in training have the opportunity to do.
When you were in conversations with Ross and even the local medical schools, was there anything in particular that you found extra, extra useful for people who are looking for medical students to come to their offices? Was there anything helpful that you learned in conversations with these universities to say like, Hey, this would be a great practice for the students to come to versus a traditional fee for service practice?
Yeah, so since we see a lower volume in the office, it really, and, and our appointment times are longer, it really helps the students learn. So like any, once I feel like, you know, after a few weeks I catch on and I feel their, their capabilities and kind of know how they can do a history and trust them and their physical exam skills and stuff and like that.
I actually let them go into my acute patients and they'll do the history. They will do their physical, they will come out to me. So pretty much. Like a resident just, you know, reporting to me. And then we will go in together and we'll talk to the patient. They will actually tell the patient our plan. I will do my hi my physical again with the patient.
And so it's really, I, I really sell it like that. And it doesn't really need to be sold because when a, when a preceptor, you know, like from a school hears this, or a director from a school hears this, they're like, oh my god, this, if more students can get their hands on, you know, a preceptor like you, they'll be so fortunate.
So all my students have only spoken very highly of their experience and, you know, be, when they come into my office, I ask them, text me what you're looking to get out of this rotation. What is your top three things you want to get out of this? Um, this is, it's really important for me to see how passionate they are and what they want so I can help kind of fulfill their needs at the end and, and make hit their goals.
That's awesome. And over time, as students were saying, your top three things, let me ask you there, what was the common theme that you heard back from those students?
So they definitely wanted more hands-on with patients. They wanted to learn, you know, better clinical skills to do an exam on patients, as well as taking good histories.
So, and then figuring out their plan. So, which all three things were able to, you know, give them time to do in a D P C practice, which is great. So I would highly recommend other D p C practices reaching out to schools to get students. And again, they, they help in so many ways. I mean, there's, there's some days, you know, definitely they're helping with my notes, but you know, at the end of the day they're actually making calls sometimes to patients that they're following up.
So in six weeks they have their own patients. And we may wanna follow up, Hey, we started this patient on new drug. Call them, see how they're doing, write your note about it. You know, so, so it's really nice for them to see that, you know, continuity of care, you know, what a primary care office delivers and, and I know just, you know, from having like first year residents for example, because I haven't had medical students come to big Trem D yet, but when I think about you just constantly getting feedback over the years about like what people love about the practice, did that start your wheels turning in terms of like, oh wow.
Like I love that they're getting this out of the practice, like, In terms of, uh, uh, the culture of Aspire Health, this is definitely like in alignment with, you know, what I've always dreamed this practice could do, and did that at all impact how you choose people to come on as staffed to your practice?
Yes, I like to teach my staff, put yourself in that patient's shoes.
You know, treat your patient like they're your family member. So I really try to, you know, if something happens where somebody calls and something is said or, or I, I really try to switch it around, well, how would you feel if this, this was you calling asking this question? What would you want to be done?
So I really try to switch the roles and really teach my, my staff members, treat our patients the way we wanna be treated. That's my number one motto, and I instill that constantly with my staff members. And, you know, definitely that's how, you know, Dr. Porter, my colleague that started with me last year that joined me, she approached me, she went to her, I think acupuncturist and was talking about, you know, looking for another job and opening up to more holistic ideas.
And she actually reached out to me. And so I think it was like two years that she reached out to me, I was like, I'm not ready yet, but, Come back and, and I think we had lunch or something and we talked and she came into the practice and, and then it took a few months and it was just something slow that got there cuz I was not ready to be like, okay, I'm done seeing patients or I'm closing my panel.
But it was getting there and I knew I had to kind of let go and not hold on so strong and, and and, you know, offer somebody else, um, with like-minded, you know, like-mindedness to, to kind of join. And so it was really nice when she did come on and patients love her and she's learning about functional medicine now.
So I'm able to kind of push some patients off to functional medicine with her. But again, her pricing is different. We're gonna keep her at the traditional pricing cuz she's not certified yet. And, you know, keep the pricing just more reasonable for patients if they're willing to, to take on somebody that's not certified versus somebody that's certified.
So, um, that's how kind of we're juggling things right now.
I love that. And you know, I just incorporating what you've shared about the medical students as well as Dr. Porter coming on, and like, I think about one you said like your practice is different today as it compared to when it opened. Like that's, that's a good thing.
But I think about sometimes when people jump into D P C because of whatever reason, you know, they're fired, they're, you know, job is eliminated, whatever the, the, or they're just dying to get out. And some people don't necessarily think about the culture. And so I think that that is awesome that, you know, you're, you're getting constant feedback that you are achieving the culture that you want to, and now you have people in alignment with your practice culture itself.
So let me ask you there, as you talked about, you know, you weren't ready yet, what was going on in your mind in terms of what changed when you said, okay, yes, I'm ready now. And thankfully that, that's awesome that, you know, there was somebody. Who was like, Hey, Dr. Singh, I'm right here. Is like, but how, how did you go past the point of like, I'm not ready yet to, all right, let's, let's do it, Dr. Porter. Well, I didn't wanna miss this opportunity because not many just reading the Facebook groups, people are asking for doctors, for providers, you know, to join groups. And it's like it's taking years and so, or or finding the right person and they're not finding the right person. So it's like, Well, I didn't want, I felt like, again, she had a great reputation at the hospital.
She's a hospitalist, you know, she's a medical director for the hospitalist group, so she's doing amazing things and she has a holistic mindset with, unfortunately, some of us MD trained, we don't, we're so focused on, you know, W believe it or not, a lot of holistic things are evidence-based medicine. You know, there is some, some, some, a lot of research behind it and stuff.
So, so she was open to it. So I really, I really appreciated that and loved her mindset and I was just like, I need to kind of take a chance on this. Just like I took a chance on D P C and I have to stop being greedy with all my patients cuz I want a life and I want to have a balance and I need to, you know, be able to let go as much as my patients wanna see me, me, me, I have to, you know, I, I wanna let go and I want them to see in another provider and they, them to believe in her and, and build her up and, you know, keep moving like that.
Cuz again, I, I wanna, I wanna just stick to my little panel and start growing others and helping them out. That's my goal. And I hope that, you know, those medical students who have rotated with you already are like, I can't wait to be part of Aspire Health someday, so that's awesome. When it comes to other staff, you have three virtual staff members on board as well, and then like you mentioned, your mom.
When you decided to bring on your virtual staff, did you bring them on all at once and how did you come to that decision to bring people into your office virtually?
So the first virtual assistant I brought on has been, it's been I think about two years now, two and a half years. And he was particularly for medical records, Inputting labs from all different lab sites that I use and coming up with like the agreements and you know, doing the paperwork and all the back office stuff.
So he was really for that, not really interacting much with the patient over the years. He's now, like before my phone appointments, he's. Texting the patients, asking them to, you know, send their medications and their supplements as well as their weight. So we could have that before my appointment. But so happened his wife, he asked me for a job for her, and so they are actually in the Philippines.
So I said, okay, well let me think about it. And I got her resume and I, and they're both the nurses, they have bachelor's in nursing, they've been working at a hospital. They're very knowledgeable with the medical, you know, medical field. And so I spoke to her, English was very good, and I said, you know, I really want to avoid, like, my mindset of Aspire is to come into the Serene office where it's just like, um, you know, like Zen music and just like a whole spa feel and it's like that.
But I didn't want phones ringing, so I ended up having her to be the front person for phones. So she became the receptionist. No calls or being, You know, there's no no ringing of phones in the office unless it's like lunchtime because she's on lunch break and my in-office staff is taking the calls, but there's no phone calls.
The staff in the office can really focus on the patients in the office, and that's like my ultimate like goal and that's what I push for. And I tell the patients that. So sometimes they get frustrated with my virtual assistant because, you know, again, it's a language barrier at times, but it's some getting used to.
And the patients, you know, 99.9% are fine with it. And I tell them at the end of the day, if you don't wanna talk to her, Just let her know that, have so-and-so Call her back, call them back, and they do it. There's like maybe two or three patients that are just a little hard to please. But other than that, she's doing a great job.
Um, so actually she ended up leaving. We hired somebody else cause she had ended up staying home with her kids. She had another baby and great things happening for her. So we hired somebody else and she's doing that. So she does all my enrollments, all my scheduling for, you know, uh, meeting greets. Uh, so she takes on those responsibilities.
So it's really nice the whole virtual assistants. I really, really appreciate them and love them. You know, when I go on vacation, they are definitely working for me, making sure I'm handling my acute problems medication refills. So they are like my number one and my in-office staff just can focus on in-office doing their labs, taking care of, you know, in-office patients and whatever tasks that they have.
I love it and I think that it's really important that you mentioned, you know, what tasks you have your virtual staff doing, because that's a common question that we see, you know, on the Facebook groups is like, what do you. Give your virtual assistant to do, and it's like, oh, there's a lot of stuff that you do.
There's a lot. Yeah. The, the question can definitely be like, what do you not give them to do? Because, you know, again, at Aspire Health, you are literally valued for practicing at the top level of your abilities and training. And so when it comes to like, if you wanna do everything great that if that, you know, fulfills your desire to do D P C and that's in alignment with your culture.
Amen. But, you know, I am, I am so grateful for our virtual assistant Dolan, also who's in the Philippines. And I, I will say this because when you have a really awesome va, like, you know, you, your, your practice and our practice, I'm sure you have patients coming in and they're like, oh, where's like, in our case, like, where's Dom?
Someday my goal is to fly Dom out here and be like, we're gonna have a meat dom party. So I'm sure you know it's the same with yours because it, it's, it's awesome that it is very, very doable and it's, it's being done in lots of places where you can have someone who's might not be physically there who literally embodies the culture of your practice.
So I think that's so awesome that you mentioned, you know, the answers to that whole question of like, what, what do you have your virtual assistant do? Let me ask you there, in terms of, you mentioned the people who are in office for your, your clinic, did they come in five days a week or they, because with you working the three days a week, and then Dr. Porter, whatever her schedule is, do you have staff in office at all times or how does that work to be able to, you know, have the staff provide services for your patients when they need to in office?
So definitely they're in office. The three days that I'm seeing patients, Dr. Porter only right now, she, she still works at her hospitalist position, so she comes in twice a month and, um, she actually sees patients on the other days.
She'll handle, you know, her virtual or, you know, phone calls with our pa with her patients. So it's, it's really, I, and I don't like to be in the office when she's in the office because our office space is only 1200 square feet, so it's a bit small. Um, especially when I'm in there. I have four medical students.
I have two staff members and myself. So it's gets, and then sometimes my office manager comes in only once a week on Wednesdays, so it gets a little crowded in a small 1200 square feet. So we're actually moving, we're moving to a double size space. It was supposed to be finished this summer, but. Of course contracting stuff is, is taking a little longer than I would like it to be.
So, but luckily we still have a home and so we'll be moving probably the end of the year, more like the fall. So it's gonna be double the size, brand new. So I'm super excited for our larger office space and hopefully Dr. Porter and I can work at the same time. But in regards to staff hours, it's about maybe 30 to 36 hours a week.
They're not really hitting. Some weeks they might hit 40, but not, not really likely. That's great.
And I love that, you know, like how many hours they're working. Right. Cuz I feel that when we just show up for work and we don't own the business, it's like we don't have any grasp of what other people are doing in terms of working hours.
Right. So I, I think that, that's so awesome that, you know, that, I mean, it's, it's just a, it's a little detail, but it's so important because as a business owner that equals, you know, That, that feeds into your business plan and the, the way that a business is run. Because like if you have, in your case, like medical students, if you, if I, I think for example, like if a patient, if a clinic had staff doing the same things that medical students were doing and the medical students were not doing that, like how to balance like, okay, we need to change the workflow so that the staff member that is employed is doing different services.
So there's not an, you know, an overlap or a adu, a duplicitous use of time there. When you talk about space, because when we talked in person at and when you, when you talked at the pediatric DBC mastermind space is definitely something that you talked about. And so, you know, you showed pictures of your space and you told us a little bit about how you were like, You found this gem of a, um, surgeon's office with space just for a year.
What tips do you have for other people who are looking for space? Given that, you know, you, you've had a space, you're, you're experiencing the contracting, you know, uh, delays, so to speak, but what tips do you have for other people who are looking to start out in a space? And to potentially grow in another space.
I highly recommend, you know, just like all D p C docs may tell you, is to keep your overhead low. So my ideal space was gonna be closer to, for East Fort Lauderdale, which is like the fancier area that was by the water and the beach and all this other stuff, cuz that's where I wanted to live. But realistically, I got a spot in a place called Plantation that I've never heard of.
But the building is beautiful. It's an absolutely buil beautiful building. So you walk in and there's a waterfall and they really, it's a plastic surgery building, so it's a beautiful building. And I was a very, very fortunate to find a space that was like $2,500 for rent, which was super cheap with furniture, with cleaning, with security, with all my utilities.
And you know, like, you can't find this like it was. Just not, not doable. I was looking at $3,000 a month for, uh, zero furniture, empty room, you know, had to use an elevator to go upstairs, you know, go, go up to the like fifth floor. So it was just, Again, find a space. You know, if I didn't find that, I would've definitely found just a little one room in somebody else's office or a chiropractor, acupuncture or something that you can find a room and start there until you build.
Because again, you wanna keep your overhead low. I highly recommend that if you start off with this lavish expenses and you know you're just not going to, again, you may succeed, but I don't recommend it. But again, everybody's, you know, different and everybody may give different recommendations, but I found out that keeping my overhead low, not hiring staff, doing everything, my myself, not going crazy with medications and equipment in that first year really helped me pay myself back in that first year.
That's awesome. And you know, I think that, You are on point when it comes to your experience and even in your area seeing the differences to like, what, what $500 can get you, you know, $2,500 versus $500 more. And the the differences are, are huge in terms of how much of an investment would that have been to buy the furniture, you know, like get the table.
Yes. And I, I will encourage people to look at, you know, Dr. Singh's website because on the, in the bottom there, um, on her website there's pictures of the exam room and you know, the, the clinic space and it's, it's gorgeous. I, and I know that you're moving into a new space, but I, I give you kudos again cuz it, you've really achieved, you know, I, I, I see peace in your photos, so I love that you've, you've had your clinic and body what you want without having to worry about extra things like, Security and cleaning and utilities and whatnot.
I think that's awesome. Um, it makes me think about living in the Midwest when all that stuff was included in med school and I was like, they don't include electricity out in California for rent. So yeah, I love it. Now when it comes to the, the, when I mention your website, I wanna, I wanna go there and talk about your logo as well as the design on your website.
So can you tell us about Aspire Health's logo for people who might not yet have checked out your website? What does it look like and how did you come to choose that as your logo? It was just me
Googling and searching and drawing and coming up with that and seeing, I love it. Yeah. I love it. And, you know, that's an honest answer right there.
And that, that is, I think, really helpful for people to, to hear because it's like, and, and I, we'll get into your website, but it's like, I had this conversation with Dr. Una and I, it was something that Dr. Catrice Brooks had shared in her podcast. She said like, do it dirty. And I love that. And I, I mentioned that when I was talking with Dr. Una because it's like, you can wait until that, you know, whatever it is, your dream is perfect or you can just do it dirty like Dr. Catrice Brooks said, and just start, man, just start. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. If your logo changes into something else later, it changes into something else later. So I love that you're just like, I Googled it, did some drawing, that's my logo, and now my practice is here and it's 2023.
Like that's amazing. And I hope that it helps people who are like, oh, but I've spent, you know, like so many hours thinking about what is my logo, what is my name, how do I design it, how do I stand out? It's like, you can do that, but you can also stop and remember that again, the patients are wanting you as the physician, not your logo.
Like, I don't dunno, anyone who said I signed up because their logo was amazing. Yes,
exactly. Yeah, no, I, and I hired Fiverr to help me give me ideas too. So with them and me and just kind of feeling doodling.
Love it. And how about your website? Do you run your website and manage it, or did you hire somebody to create and run your web, your website?
Yeah, so this is a new improved website. It just was launched this year and so it's been five years since we'd started the first one. And the guy that did it, it's a family. It's my, like my aunts best friends, somebody, somebody son. And so he totally helped me out, gave me a great price for it, like it's a side gig for him.
He, um, Does websites for like this big development company. And so I was so fortunate to, to land him and he worked with me. So, so like meticulous. He's so meticulous and so detailed oriented, which is part of my personality. So I loved, and, and he took pictures and his pictures are what we've used for my website with me in it and my brother.
And, you know, it, it was, it was just, he was just so great. But yeah, we just revamped it and I take care of it now and make some minor changes here and there, but he's the one who designed it and did everything and, and he really encouraged me to put my Google reviews up. I used to do something called Google Ads and I was like, I'm not getting anybody.
This is just a waste of time. I'm paying $200 a month. There's so much money. And he's like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? So he is like, okay, when we revamp it, we're gonna do Google reviews. You're gonna pay for it. But it's really beneficial and I really, really love that. On the website also, I took from another D P C doc, oh man, I forgot her name.
I wanted to give her a shout out, but she had these meeting greets on her webpage. Naomi Gammel? Yes, Naomi. Okay. Yes. And so she had the Callen LY meeting greets on her website. And I love that idea because patients keep calling and just, you know, so much traffic on phone calls where my staff could don't, you know, they don't have to even be bothered and the patients can just go on and just do a meeting greet.
So I started doing that and she was great and helpful. And again, I was really happy to go to the D P C Peds conference to learn about more about pediatric works. Because believe it or not, in my prior practice, I was only seeing adolescents. So I did that for seven years. I wasn't even doing peds right out of residency.
So when I started D P C, I was super scared of like, oh my God, I forgot all my peds. And I was looking back at some of my, my messages on the Facebook d p c groups. And I remember in 2017 I like messaged saying, oh my gosh, I haven't seen peds since, you know, residency. What can I use to like, give me an update?
And they're like, oh, it's like riding a bike. You know, you would never forget how to take care of a pediatric patient. And yes, I love them now, and they're my favorite patients.
I, I will agree with you there. I'm like, My husband will probably kill me for saying this, but like, I, I, I, I totally, this happened.
I was like, oh, I want another baby. Cuz like, I see the little, the little newborns and like, I want all the babies. And my husband literally said, not with me. And so it's terrible, but it's like the, you know, not, not just for that, but it's like, I, I think that like, especially I can, I can see how that could be your, your answer given that your name of your clinic is Aspire Health, because the little ones have so many aspirations in life that they don't even know that they have yet.
Right. Like, so I think that that's one thing that I love about DPC too and pediatrics especially, is because like, like this mom with the, the baby that I'm envisioning. She's like, well, this is how people should see doctors. Like, you know? Yeah. I think about Lauren Hughes, who's in Kansas City, and like she has pictures of when she's, you know, her patients have posted pictures of how she's doing exams on the floor.
Like the way my clinic is set up, you know, they don't, the, the kids don't have to go into the exam room where the doctor's offices, they just like can hang out in the, the waiting room slash kids play area because that's intentional. That's like you're, the kids do not have to learn that medicine is a cattle call model from day one.
They do not have to do that. And pediatric D P C especially is so important for people to know and learn that culture early. That they're teaching pediatric d p c offerings equals kids get high quality care without having to stress about getting ahold of their doctor. And as we know, you know, kids don't get sick from eight to five on a Monday through Friday.
I mean, patients don't either. So I I'm with you though. It was so important to, to go to that conference as a, as a person who sees kids, because, you know, they talked about not only like NOI talked about running a practice in her home, but also talking about Dr. Rink talked about endocrinology and growth in kids like that affects every one of us who sees kids.
Yeah. We were like, is this a normal growth pattern or not? And how do you evaluate it? There's so many gems. And so this is where I love the individuality of all the conferences, but Dr. Deanna Barry, Dr. Rachel Coleman and Dr. Drew Hertz really put on a stellar, stellar, stellar conference that, again, I'm dropping this February, 2024 look out.
I have voted do it out in Anaheim cuz I wanna go to, to Disneyland again. But look out for where it will be. Cause it's so important, you know, to, to constantly think about things that we're doing under the D p C model versus like, you know, just following algorithms like you said, you know, thinking about it as to how we can expand what is standard of care into the world of D P C.
So, going back again to your website. When it comes to your website, one of the things that I, I loved, and I haven't seen this since Dr. Amy Ostrich's website, is that you have on the bottom of your website, and again, I, I I ask you this cause I don't know where the. If it was you or the person who redid your, revamped your website, but you have the DPC Alliance logo, you have, uh, Institute for Functional Medicine, afp, as well as, uh, Florida AFP's logos.
What was the reasoning behind putting those particular logos on your website?
So I just wanted, you know, anybody that was visiting my site, they knew who I was affiliated with, who I stood behind, who I supported. And so these were, you know, certain groups that I'm a part of that I believe in and I support.
And yeah, so that's, that's why I wanted to list them there. I thought it was important for, for representing me and, and my page.
I love it. And one more thing that I noticed on your website is Dr. Porter goes by Dr. Porter, but Dr. Tammy Singh goes by Dr. Tammy. So tell me about when you introduce yourself on your website to potential patients as Dr. Tammy. Why Dr. Tammy versus Dr. Singh?
No, I kind of use it interchangeable, so maybe it was put there and I need to change it, but, but, um, yeah, it's, it's really interchangeable. I, patients ask me all the time, I feel like I've gotten certain patients that it kind of rubs me a little wrong that them calling me by my first name without asking me or, and just feeling like it's more of like a, and, and I like that they feel like I'm your, they're friend, but I'm your doctor.
And so, you know, if they ask me, can I call you Dr. Tammy? Sure. Can I call you Dr. S? Sure. Like, I really don't really care either way. It is just interchangeable. I had a, an attending in the ER who I said, Dr. So-and-so. He's like, oh, no, no, that's my dad. I'm just Ben. So again, it's part of your story and your culture, how you work with your patients.
Right. And so I love that. So I wanna go back to, you know, Dr. Tammy Singh and Aspire Health in the future. What does the future hold? You know, you've, you've talked about Dr. Porter and you've talked about the medical students, but what do you aspire to have happen in the future at Aspire Health?
So definitely moving to our bigger space.
I also want to add another family physician cuz I realize, you know, a lot of my pediatric patients, I'm trying to close my panel, but because Dr. Porter does not see peds, I don't want to send them elsewhere. You know, the parents are calling me really wanting to get in with me, you know, either because of their friends or they saw my reviews or whatever and I feel horrible, you know?
And then parents are having newborns. Um, I had a newborn that was born on Saturday that, you know, they were already enrolled. So I couldn't say no, and I just had to find them a spot. So I, I, it's, it's just hard for me to say no, and I'm trying to learn better, but I would really like to have another family physician.
I would really like to have somebody else that does, that's certified in functional medicine. And I'd really like to take on more administration roles and, and, you know, be able to take care of my patients, but then also just work more administrative, um, kind of overseeing it all.
And now in closing, you mentioned that in addition to your, your clinical practice, you do things like consulting.
So just, you know, ending out this interview with talking about valuing yourself as an individual and as a physician, how did you get into consulting and what happens if someone says, like, you know, oh yeah, you can, you can help us. And we're not gonna pay you. What, what do you, I, you know, for the people who aren't watching the YouTube, Dr. Singh is shaking her head, but how do you, how did you get to this point? Like, again, I, I, this is a loaded question, but how did you get to this point where you're valuing yourself and your time that is valued by other people? Has a price, just like a plumber has a price to their services, or a dentist has a price to their services.
Yeah, so I've been learning a lot about boundaries over the last five years and my boundaries. So consulting actually just fell in my lap on LinkedIn. I've gotten some individuals that reached out to me and said they wanted to do startup business for membership models, and that was it. And I'm just on as needed basis on my time.
They ask me, when's convenient for me, they have to set a meeting and I'm getting paid per hour. So, you know, it's, it's something nice that can just kind of fall in your lap. And the same thing about the e H E exams just kind of fell in my lap. They reached out to me and my staff does 90% of the work and I do 10%.
And it's a, it's a great opportunity if you're looking just for other incomes. So this is all just bonus.
And it's so important, I feel for diversifying, you know, the way that you bring money to put food on the table and you fund your, your practice and your, you know, professional and personal desires.
Because anything can can change and, you know, patients churn and D P C a lot less than they do in fee for service. But in terms of diversification, it also, you know, is another way for you to value and to get paid for valuing yourself and your expertise. And all of us are experts when it comes to, you know, I, I, somebody asked me this, and I think about this when I say all of us are experts.
We went to doctor school and then we went to doctor residency, and then most of us worked in a, an actual attending position. That's a lot of hours. I mean, we're talking thousands of hours just to graduate doctor's school. And then, you know, you go beyond that. You are an expert if you go to medical school, period.
So don't ever forget that. And thank you so much, Dr. Singh, for joining us today and sharing your
story. Thank you, Maria.
Next week a special treat. Look forward to hearing from Dr. Amber Becken Hower of the Healthy Human D P C in Blair and Ashland, Nebraska. If you've enjoyed the podcast and you haven't yet done so, subscribe today and share the episode with a physician you may know. Who needs to hear about D P C? Leave a five star review on Apple Podcast and on Spotify now as well as it helps others to find all these DPC stories.
Lastly, be sure to follow us on social media. If you're wanting to continue learning more about DPC in the meantime, check out DPC news.com. Until next week, this is Marielle conception.
*Transcript generated by AI so please forgive errors.