Direct Primary Care Doctor
Kyle N Hampton, DO is a board certified physician in Family Medicine and Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy.
He was born and raised in Oregon and attended Oregon State University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a minor in Philosophy with a focus on Ethics. After graduating from OSU, he spent two years working at a nursing home and fighting wildland forest fires in the summer. Dr. Hampton attended medical school at Midwestern University – Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine. He then completed his internship and residency training in Family Medicine at Pacific Hospital of Long Beach in California.
Dr. Hampton has always enjoyed the outdoors and sports, which has helped to promote his professional medical interest of musculoskeletal health. He practices an integration of OMT with family medicine to help promote healthy body functioning. He believes in the osteopathic principles that the musculoskeletal system plays a key role in maintaining health and that the body has the natural ability to self-regulate and self-heal. These tenets also led him to add prolotherapy into his medical practice to help promote that natural healing process. He has been formally trained in various techniques of prolotherapy and offers a wide range of treatment options. A major goal of Dr. Hampton’s care is to keep you out there doing the things you enjoy.
Dr. Hampton is a member of the American Osteopathic Association, the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians, the American Osteopathic Association of Prolotherapy and Regenerative Medicine, the Colorado Medical Society, and the Northern Colorado Medical Society.
He opened Arktos Direct Care in 2018.
CONTACT:
arktosdirectcare@gmail.com
SOCIALS:
IG: @arktosdirectcare
FB: HERE
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Transcript*
Welcome to the podcast Dr. Hampton, glad to be here. It's so exciting to talk with you because you are officially the second person, the second clinic from Colorado. And I definitely know there's more out there, so thank you for joining in on the. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Colorado is kind of a nice little hub for DPC.
That's just how everybody does it here. They kind of go out on their own. So love it. Now you are located in Fort Collins, Colorado. So can you please start us off by just sharing, you know, as you made the comment about everyone going out on their own, what is your community like in terms of who lives there and in terms of, you know, what kinds of employers do you see in your area?
Yeah, no, that's a great question. Fort Collins is really an interesting place. There's a lot of, you know, it's located at the Northern end of Colorado on the front range of the Rocky mountains. So right where the great Plains meets the mountain right in share or the continental divide. It's definitely an eclectic mix of people because you have everything from working farmers and rent.
To high-tech firms, university professors, outdoor enthusiasts. And then of course it's like craft beer capital of the world. So you have all the beer aficionados too. It's home to Colorado state university, which has an amazing agricultural research and vet program. And students literally come from around the world to finish their post-grad programs here in Fort Collins.
So it gets a very mixed group of people coming. And we have tons of like the tech research firms and HP, Intel Broadcom, all those guys are here, tons of robotic firms and then tons of stuff with like the aerospace , industry as like a lot of that stuff is based in Colorado Springs, uh, with the military base there.
So, it's definitely a wide group of people. Both spectrums of like the political scale too. As many of, you know, it's formula like many craft breweries, including new Belgium many others around here, like you cannot throw stones and stuff. It's also, you know, on the foothills of the Rocky. So it's a home base for many outdoor athletes and always a big outdoor recreation scene here.
So kind of the whole town, like you can't walk around town without seeing like Cotopaxi and north face and mountain hardware stuff is just everywhere. So that's just how it goes. It's sort of a small city though, too. It only, it's a population of 170,000. So it has that small city appeal, but also all the amenities you could help for.
And then we're only an hour away from Denver. So, everything is really here in Colorado and there's a large mix of employer groups and small business owners and people who work for big industry and everything. So we see a little bit of everything. I didn't realize how diverse it was because I remember when my husband and I were looking at Fort Collins for residency.
I don't, I don't think that we remembered it being so diverse. So that's wonderful to hear, especially for people who are, you know, considering maybe opening a DPC in Colorado, it's something to check out. And so there, I want to ask, in terms of your background, you grew up in Oregon, you went to training in Arizona then to long beach.
And so I want to ask, how did you end up in Fort Collins, Colorado? Yeah, it's definitely a roundabout story. So I met my wife, uh, Dr. Eddie, Avara the other physician here during residency in long beach. And then she grew up in both Florida and California. We originally kind of thought that maybe we would stay in California after residency and then looked at what it costs and we're like, we can't do that.
And so we moved out to Jacksonville, Florida and started practicing family medicine there. That's where she grew up and her sister has a dental practice there. So her family was there. And so we moved out there. We worked at a large physician owned, uh, clinic or group of clinics and primary care in Jacksonville.
And then after about three years, Started getting the feeling like this. Isn't where we really fit in Florida. And when I grew up on the west coast, humidity was a foreign substance to me. I didn't know what the hell it was. And then the whole mosquitoes and bugs and everything that Florida has to offer with this bombs and everything.
My wife was just like, we're done. I got to move somewhere. So we kind of looked all over and like, where, where do we want wanna we have family on both coasts. And so we started looking at the middle of the country sorta to make travel easier. Like it is a direct flight, no matter where we go, if we're in the metal.
So, we sort of started looking there and then our daughter was born. And so she was just about ready to turn one when we were getting ready to move. And we sort of narrowed our search down in Colorado because the recruiter reached out to us and said, look, I have these practices that are looking for primary care doctors, if you guys want to come out.
So we came out and we interviewed all over Denver and that sort of Metro area. And liked a few of the practices. And then there was a couple that really probably wouldn't fit in there. And there was one left up in Fort Collins and interview that we had to go to. And so we came up here and fell in love with the town and we're like, man, if only they had two positions.
And so we were actually, we still talk about it. Cause we were sitting at, uh, Elon Musk's brother's restaurant, which is downtown Fort Collins. So we were sitting there talking about it and our waiter was telling us how good. The early childhood development daycare at the university was, and so we were like, all right, we're solos.
We got it. This is what we got to, like, our daughter has to go to the best type thing, you know? And so we finally convinced them to do two positions. Uh, and so it worked out. And so we moved here and long story short, she never got into the early childhood development place anyway. So apparently that's incredibly hard to get into.
Um, But everything worked out for now. Amazing. And I want to ask there in terms of you guys, you know, carved a path for yourselves to enter Fort Collins and to establish, you know, as, as doctors there, how did you end up, deciding that you were going to leave that position and open your own direct primary.
Yeah, I mean, that's tough. You know, we were working for a, uh, an FQHC, so federally qualified health clinic both of us in the same, same company with different clinics here in town. And honestly there was just a tons of frustration both on our end patients and my wife all the time. So, I'm the type of doctor who like likes to spend time with my patients and doesn't want to rush the visit or anything like that.
And with me doing adjustments and everything, we can't just fit things into a 10 minute or 15 minutes slot. And so I was always running an hour or two behind their patients were mad. They couldn't get to see me. And I was working like every day, going home and like helping put the kids to bed, make dinner, and then spend three hours doing notes or finishing up my work.
And I just didn't have time for our kids, for our family, or even like my own health. And then seeing 25 to 30 patients a day and just being behind and everything, it just got to the point that it was overwhelming. And like my wife, she was kind of going through the same thing and we were both always just frustrated and sort of always bickering at each other, just things weren't happy.
And you could just kind of tell, like, the patients were upset, we were upset and like nothing was working. And then, you know, more and more metrics would get dumped down here. So we sort of were like, well, what are we going to do? Like, do we look for different positions? Do we move? Like, what is it. We had both heard about like direct primary care concierge practices, whatever in residency and never really looked into it.
And I remember in Florida I had looked into MD VIP a little bit and I was like, I just, I don't know my own practice. I don't have the ability to buy into an MD VIP type thing. And then somewhere along the line, like I just started mentioning again, like, do you remember direct primary care? Like somewhere came up that there was an article about direct primary care or something.
And so we looked into it like, well, we could do this. Like this would really work. Like this just would fit how we want to practice. And so it just sort of happened that we started really looking at it and spent at least a year, I mean, well, over a year kind of setting things up, I'm like, can we really do this?
And yeah, we, we set up, so we could, I was going through some of my own health issues and add like a big surgery that I was looking at. And so I sort of used that as I'm like. I am taking this time off for my own health. I have to do the surgery anyway. Like I'm going to be out for two months. So, and so I helped, I set up a lot of that stuff.
And then when I went back to the clinic I told them I'm only willing to work part time. And he told him like, listen, I'm going to open this practice. I'm going to start part time. And so I did that in November. I sort of still was in our contracts with primary care. So when we first opened it, I was just doing the adjustments and regenerative medicine stuff.
Uh, and then we set a date on my 40th birthday, which was February of 2019. And I said, I'm quitting. I'm done that. So that's, that's when we could offer memberships. It was the beginning of 2019. That's amazing. And I just love that, you guys moved to this place to enjoy Fort Collins partially, and now you're able to, , take ownership of your lives because you guys are working in your own direct primary care now.
So you were working in FQHC while they were also aware that you were opening up your practice and doing regenerative, medicine, and osteopathy.
So I want to ask, is there any issue with non-competes? Are they not enforceable? Like they are in California, what's it like in college? Yeah, well, that's kind of interesting. We've never signed a non-compete, which is kind of like, we're the odd couple in medicine. Really? When we went to Florida, the, the owner of the whole clinics basically said like, Hey, if you think you can do it better across the street, fine, like I'm not going to make you guys sign a noncompete.
I mean, they paid well and they paid their staff well, and they were like, listen, if you think you're going to be with us, fine, try to compete with that. So he never made a sign. And then when we came to Colorado, it just wasn't even ask. So I don't, at the time it was. And working at the FQHC. A lot of it was like, people are gonna get loaner payment and all that sort of stuff.
So they didn't re there were other reasons to make you stay instead of an apathy. And then it has since come out that they really are not enforceable in Colorado. So you don't really see them much anymore. We never had to deal with them. And I kind of feel lucky about that. A lot of it too, like I would bring up my frustrations to administration and be like, listen, I'm trained in doing regenerative medicine.
And a lot of our patients were Medicaid, so it wasn't really painful, but I'm like, I'm willing to do this for free because this is better than trying to send them to the orthopedist or whatever that they can't see for six months. And they're Medicaid patients. So they'll push their surgery off for another year anyway.
And they still wouldn't let me, so they knew I was really frustrated and. Limit me in what I could do. And so when I told him like, I'm going to do this on the side, I, they weren't really in a position to fight me on it in a way other than they said, I couldn't, you know, part of my contract because I could not do primary care yet.
That's fair enough. We can do that. So I think they saw the right now and they kind of knew like, we kind of leave at some point and then my wife stayed because she was under the, uh, the loan repayment program. So, yeah, she, you know, she stayed for two years. Gotcha. And that's one question I had for you in terms of, you know, that, that planning to open up direct primary care.
Eventually offer primary care services. In addition to the services you already had established and then how your wife joins. So, thank you for sharing that. And it's just, it's incredible that, you know, you, like you said, you're a well-trained physician and able to offer all of these, these services. So, it's great that you or your patients now can benefit from your full scope of practice.
So when you, when you gave your notice and you were like, I'm turning 40, this is what's going to happen, period.
And you're opening Arctic district care, expanding its services. What were some of the things that you had done early on? Like you said, during your surgery, you had, you had the time to plan for your practice. What were some of the key things that you had going on that enabled you to be successful? At the.
Yeah, well, I mean, that was difficult. And honestly, like if my wife was not a full-time physician, it would have been really hard because at, uh, at the clinic here in town, it was mainly Medicaid. And in Colorado, there was a law that Medicaid patients can not pay for personal physician services. So, I mean, basically it's anti DPC for Medicaid patients only here.
And so, we knew when I was leaving, like none of my patients could follow me. So we were really starting from ground zero there. So if she was not a full-time physician, it would have been financially almost impossible to do. And then going into it too, I knew like we were going to have to mark.
Fairly heavily one for education for patients just because it's not a common thing here. There's a lot of, we get the question, like, what is, what is membership medicine? What is very primary care? So, you know, we built a website and started doing a little bit of social media stuff. And then put some ads on the radio and things like that before we even opened.
So we had a little bit of interest. And then when I came over and started doing the Riviera medicine stuff too, like obviously I had like brochures and all the information I could to give to people that, you know, kind of asked about primary care services, where they didn't have a doctor when I was seeing them for other things.
So that helped a lot. And then I feel like too, like. Being an era affiliate and get in touch with Clint Flanagan and NextEra. It helped to sort of get our foot in the door, into the model and really started seeing patients which helped a ton. And then we just got lucky with like within the first month a local daycare that has about 40 employees contacted me and said, what is this you guys are doing?
Because we can't afford to pay for insurance for all of our employees. Especially a lot of them were college students that would be with them for six months and then leave and then come back type of thing. So, so they signed up all their employees right away too, which really kind of helped get it started at the beginning.
So yeah, we went from, from zero patients on my birthday when we opened to about 60 patients within the first couple of months. So it really helped at the same time there was a lot of days, right. I sat here and did nothing, you know, like not a patient walked through the door and the phone never rang.
You know, that, that would have been really difficult if my wife wasn't still working full time and it had that income coming in because, you know, if you sit here and multiple days and you're just, the clock is ticking away, like you really started to doubt yourself. And until it takes off, it is really difficult.
So, we, you know, there was just a lot of pre-planning for that year. And. Taking a full year to really do it and get things right. And like get the logo correct. And figure out where we want to mark it and do some spots on the radio really helped. Yeah. And it's, it's so interesting that you mentioned, you know, that you were sitting there some days and no, no contact with patients with happening or potential patients.
When you had those moments, when you were, saying like, well, thank goodness.
Like we do have an income coming in. What were some of the things that helped you get through those moments? Did you reach out to other DPC doctors in your area, in the country? What, what type of advice would you give to those people who might be experiencing the silent phone? Yeah. I mean, it, at the time it was, it was hard to know what to do at first, like what is going to really work.
And I mean, literally we did the whole like ground pound campaign. Like I would walk door to door to small businesses and be like, Hey, here's our partners. We could do, like, if you're interested, give us a call. Like we went to some of the breweries and would sit there for hours waiting for, you know, a 10 minute meeting with the owner or the CEO of whatever it was.
Um, And then, you know, like being an Exterra affiliate really helped too. Cause then I would go with Clint or some of the next era folks when they would go and talk to these big employer groups. And so you would get kind of get to see, like how did they market it? How did they, what was their spiel to give, you know, in the 15 minutes that they got to talk?
And so it really helped in that regard too. To going with those meetings with Clinton things, some of those employers were like, Hey, our office is right around the corner from like, and so people would come up and talk to us then like, listen, if we sign up in the next Eric and we come see you did, that's exactly what we do.
Like yes. Send them over as fast as you can. So, we had some resources here to help us too, for sure. And then, yeah, a lot of the other DPC docs in town, our NextEra affiliates, and we all sign and work together anyway. So, you know, was within two miles of me, there's two other practices and I'm like, Hey, you guys, I don't have a, I don't have a plug letting kit.
I don't have a phlebotomy kit. Do you have one yet? Come and get it. Like that happens all the time. So, or, you know, if we need do Nuvia samples and they have them. So we definitely work hand in hand and I think. It's hard because sometimes you're like, are those my competitors? Or what did we do? So, but when you really, you look at it, like, you know, we're going to probably max out our practices 450 to 500 people.
So in a town of 170,000, like that's a drop in the bucket, so we're really not competing. It, it's definitely a synergistic and we do everything a little bit different, but educating the whole public together really helps. And before COVID happened, we would like a couple of times, some of the other practices in town, we would get together and talk to the public at times.
And then COVID happened in that I'll stop. But um, we definitely kind of worked together on some of that stuff. So yeah, that's how. That's amazing. And I love the synergy that you guys, that you are describing there. And I think about in my own community, I live in a county of 40,000 people, but if there were 20 doctors who were doing DPC here, we still wouldn't have enough coverage for the people in this county.
So I can just imagine for 170,000 now I want to ask because you've, you've mentioned next Tara and being an Exterra affiliate. So for those audience members who might not be aware, what is, what does it mean to be a NextEra affiliate? And what does that look like on an everyday basis in terms of preserving your autonomy to continue practicing at dose the way you wish to?
Yeah. So, so next area for you guys that don't know. They've been at the sort of, I don't want to say corporate DPC, but they work with large corporations to provide DPC services for the employees of those corporations. And so, they're based here in Colorado and they've been doing it for over 10 years.
So a lot of times how it works, uh, to be a NextEra affiliate is NextEra does delaying work to sign up these larger employer groups. And then us as physicians were located throughout Colorado or wherever Sarah May be. And then we see the patients on behalf of NextEra. And so, we're still fully autonomous.
They don't tell us how to practice. They don't have. To do certain things at all. You know, they, they send us a list of patients and we take care of patients. That's kind of how it works. So, it definitely like as a small DPC, it's hard to go after like a school district or some of these larger employee groups that have thousands of employees.
Like you just wouldn't work out. So, it's really beneficial and NextEra is able to do that because they have this network of, you know, 40, 50, 60 physicians around that can take, you know, 50 patients here and there if we need to. So, it's been beneficial for us. That's great. And I just, I really love this, especially coming on the tails of Dr.
Natalie Gentilly and Dr. Kiersten Lynn, who shared about their MSO in Pittsburgh, you know, collaboration to help us as Dr. Van saucy would say, you know, push this rock up hill together. It's really amazing that you guys are collectively benefiting, especially in Colorado where, you know, NextEra is very concentrated.
In terms of when you mentioned that you've been able to go with Dr. Clint Flanagan to the meetings and, you know, see how they do their 15 minutes spiel, can you give some tips as to what other people can say, if they're approaching an employer group or, you know, their daycare locally with, you know, the 40 employees that might be in their own neighborhood?
Yeah. I think the big thing with that is, uh, What the, what these bigger employees employers are looking for is what is the benefit to them. And a lot of times it's financial and that's just how it works. You know, what, what is their bottom line? And how's it affected. And the nice thing about that is like NextEra has, has done a lot of research and data on some of the larger, important groups they have on how they've saved them money over time, so they can present that.
But then a lot of it comes down to like, what is the employees experience and what is the benefit for them? And like, why should I sign up for the. Program through my employer versus just the straight insurance. And a lot of that comes down to access and, , time that we can spend with them and how easy it is to access care.
And so you know, it it's, you have to determine who you're marketing, uh, and, and what the benefit is there for them. So when, when we talk to our patients that we've seen through NextEra, like they all love the service. I mean, for them it's, it's, it's paid for, and they can come here as much as they want.
And a lot of our, uh, NextEra employers are literally a block away. So, you know, whatever they need, they just come right over to the clinic and they can get it. And you know, it's, it's easy access for them. It's really good care. And we get the comment all the time. Like I wish I had this at other jobs too, like, you know, so, so they, they definitely see it as a big benefit and a reason to stay at their position.
So, It's a good way to market towards even small employers is like, this is a retention for your employees. So it's a benefit package that you can't really get anywhere else. That's huge, especially during this pandemic when we saw so many people leaving their positions. So, wow. Now, when you talk about NextEra patients versus patients who are not affiliated with NextEra in terms of the membership, does it look the same in terms of pricing for both NextEra and non NextEra members at your practice?
Yeah, so, so all the NextEra members are. Basically their membership fees are paid to next era and the next syrup pays us a percentage. Okay. So we don't set those rates at all. So that's all set through next era. But when you look at our rates versus theirs, it's very similar. So even if, you know, someone heard about our practice through someone that they knew that was an Exterra patient the pricing is very similar.
So, uh, I believe for next year, it's right around $99 for an adult with most of their employer groups. And that's right where we are 200, a hundred dollars for an adult per month. And then there's discounts built in and if you add more members, but yeah, and that's kind of one of the nice things about it is that we're all everybody kind of in the community where we're similarly priced.
And so, you know, if someone is talking to someone. Get to their membership through NextEra. It's not like a big shock when they come here and they're like, oh my God, I heard the price difference. Yeah. So we're, we're all about the same. I think that's mutually beneficial to all of us. So there's not like this huge competition because someone's $50 cheaper and seeing like, and then in terms of choosing, uh, when, uh, next terror patient chooses a DPC or a position to go to, how, how do they find you?
Yeah, so that's sometimes it's just proximity. So like if, if an employee, uh, through a NextEra company says, yeah, I want to spend it with the DPC one. Then they ask them to choose one of the physicians and they have, I'm assuming our bio's and wherever located, all that. So a lot of it is proximity. So we're fortunate that we're a block away from one of their larger groups that has helped a lot.
And then some. Their work is not close to Fort Collins at all, but maybe they live somewhere close so they can pick either way they want. So it's really up to the patients where they picked some of that. We get from word of mouth too. So we'll have some patients or family members will switch in between.
And so, you know, it did, it's a hundred percent of the patients, so we don't have any contact or any influence over the patient until they're. So I don't even know, like, you know, there's 20 available or not. So it's just I will get an email from NextEra. Like these two people signed up for your practice type things.
Yeah. And when you talk about word of mouth, I mean, I can just imagine, you know, the idea that those employees have now, you know, who are benefiting from NextEra services. They have family members who are not benefiting from NextEra services and they'll share with them like, Hey, I have a DPC doctor for a similar rate.
You can have the exact same care that I. Right. Yeah, it does really help, uh, us on that end, for sure. So, you know, some people would never have heard of direct primary care if it wasn't through, uh, through an employment agreement through something like NextEra indefinitely helps. And then for those people who might be concerned about, Hey, you know, if I lose my employer group, uh, whether that be through a NextEra type of agreement versus, you know, just a regular employer joining your practice, do you cap the number of people that you accept from an employer group or from next.
Yeah, we, we do actually. And, and we get a set that as physicians is not like NextEra tells us how many we can have. So we we have that when we want, and it's funny, cause actually I, myself, I am, I, I cannot get in one patient. So it's just, I figured there was a percentage that I want to have as our own private patients and then it presented just NextEra.
And the fact that we're very close to the next era employer filled that up right away. So, yeah, so there, there is a little bit of a cap to that and we get to set that. So that's kind of nice and that goes back to the autonomy, our NextEra. Other than we're affiliated with them. That's about the only rule that we have.
It's like they don't step in and tell us how to practice or, or what's ordering. Thank you so much for sharing that because that's definitely a unique experience that has not been shared about on the podcast yet. So Now I want to dive into your clinic to Arcos direct care.
When you talked about, you know, the time to develop your name and your logo, I want to start with, how did you come up with your name? Well, that is kind of funny. We originally started as revived direct care and we filed for our trademarks. Went through and got the business license through Colorado and everything.
And then our lawyer got a letter, a cease and desist letter from a IVF clinic at one of the casinos in Las Vegas that was called revive, basically clinic and it revived with an IV. So when he looked into their trademark, they were trademarked in every state. So they, you know, they've had a lot of money and they decided, this is what we want to do.
This is what we're going to be called. And he said, it's not even worth fighting that you guys have an open, like the only thing you have really as the website. So we were sort of in a scrambling, what are we going to do? We had to plan to change the name. So we kind of did the brainstorming session at home for weeks.
Some names we liked, some of them, you didn't like some things we would look at and be like, oh, there's already websites. Like, you know, this has been taken. So, and then. We found some names for bear. And so Arktos means bear, which is our son's name. And so it worked out really well and it, you know, it's the, the Greek version of bear and like Arctic and Antarctic means with bears without bear.
So we also learned a little bit in that same process and it fit really well for us because, uh, me and my wife, we met in California. Our first big trip together was too big there. And then she's Persian. And one of the words for brother in Farsi is pronounced bear as well. And so we already had, we had the older sister and so we named our son bear and then it was like, you know what?
This fits perfect. And it's a name that we're not seeing anywhere online and there's no other clinics called that. And so, that's what we call it. We call it heart dose direct care and or trademarks went through and everything. So we're happy with it yet. And it's worked out really well because it has a little story to it too.
So it's always nice to be able to share it. Absolutely. That is, that is so incredible. And yeah, I definitely would say, you know, words of wisdom that I hope will hit home for a lot of people, especially if they're in those or pre-planning stages to really investigate what's out there.
What's trademarked. What's not because it really can, you know, put a rain on your parade. If you go down, you know, paying tons of money for something that you find out is not legally able to happen. So definitely words of wisdom there now in terms of your logo, I want to ask there, how did you when you came up with the name arch district care, then did you develop your logo or was that happening all around the same time?
So you could trademark your logo as well? Well, so the logo happened first and we had looked at lots of stuff. And then. Originally when I started my undergrad, it was in mechanical engineering and I have a minor in philosophy. And so the whole Vitruvian man thing with balance and DaVinci and all that just sort of fit right in my alley and what I find interesting.
And so we kind of got looking at it and we're like, it's too, like it's too busy in the actual picture of the Vitruvian man. And so we wanted to simplify it down as much as we could. And we actually went through 99 designs and paid for the whole competition thing, and we had lots of amazing submissions.
And then I started reading about logos and how businesses over time, their logos just continually get more simple as they grow up. So I'm like, all right, so we need it to be somewhat simple too. That's easy to put on a t-shirt or easy to put on a hat or a stick or whatever it is. And so, finally we saw like two or three, like fit.
Perfect. And then the one that we decided on the kind of has that specialized font to the Arktos just really caught our attention and ran with it since, and it's recognizable because. I have it on hats. T-shirts whatever my jacket, but I'll be around town. Like we were, we took our dog to the vet, uh, last weekend and I had my hat on, like the vet tech was like, what is that?
Cause I've seen that logo. And I was like, yes, somebody seen the logo. So it always feels good when you get that feedback about it too. So absolutely. And yeah, I, I definitely, you know, I love graphic design. I do it for fun, but in terms of things that are easily put on a, you know, website, a bumper sticker, uh, whatever from near or far, it really makes a difference when somebody can recognize it because there's not so many details that you can't make out what it says or what the logo.
Yeah, and we've definitely done that. We branded everything we could from like, we've done a few marathons and races and things. And so you put it on chapstick, you put it on stickers, whatever you can. And so it has to be simple for sure. So, Now I want to ask about your website because
one of the things I loved about your website is that you guys have. You know, it's like this internal SEO game going on specifically on the desktop site, where, in the columns where, you know, if somebody can envision a blog and on those side, it would be , the months and the blog entries on your website, it has, uh, advertisements for your own practice.
So like meet the doctor and Dr. Hampton has integrated OMT in his practice since 2010. And so I really loved that because you never know when a person's going to land or excuse me, you never know where a person's going to land. And so, can you share a little bit about your website strategy and how you guys ended up doing that?
Planning is I sort of forced myself to learn website design and I built the whole website ourselves and did the whole WordPress and Bob things and everything. And then part of that too, is there, there are SEO softwares that you can just put on your website and it basically tells you what to do.
So we have that, but we've also. We paid people to help with our SEO and it never was successful. And it was like, man, we're just wasting money. And what you're doing, does it make sense? Um, So I really started actually just looking at the software and like, what is the software telling me to do? And a lot of it is internal links.
Like Google will crawl your website based off the internal links you have to your own website. And so I was like, well, that's pretty easy. I can just link to our other pages. And then I kind of thought about it, like right when I'm on a website, like, cause I do this all the time. Like I researched stuff way too much, but I like to easily click to get back to other parts of the website.
So I was like, well, I need to put those links around. And then like, Hey, if I'm going to talk about something, doc you've already does, I want to link to her profile so people can see here. So, it slowly has gone into what it is now, where there are links back and forth, uh, on the website a lot. And then there are some links to external stuff.
Like we've done. Outside SEO, like with Enzo doctors and things like that where they've created landing pages that we link to and they link to our website, things like that. So it all helps the SEO for sure. So yeah, absolutely got a mutual links are definitely a way to, you know, easily get some SEO without having to pay a ton of money.
But I think that's great in terms of, you know, using software that won't cost you an arm and a leg, whereas some SEO companies can cost you a ton of money. So that's really great. Yeah. And it truly, it, it's not that scary to do yourself. Like I would say if you, you know, if you're tech savvy at all, like if you can copy and paste, you can figure out how to, how to build a website.
So, they, they make it pretty easy. It is sort of scary at first because you're like, what am I doing? How do I put this out there? But you know, as physicians, we pick up things quick and it really didn't take that long to figure it out now. Uh, sometimes I dread having to go and change things all the time.
Cause I'm like, how do I do that again? But I think it's something to at least add and learn to work on your own website a little bit for sure. And an idea there in terms of, if you are developing your website and you do have something where you're like, I'm working on this now, but I don't know one, if I'm going to come back to this or two, if I'm going to have somebody else do this is you can do, you know, a loom video or an equivalent to how you're doing your process so that you can refer to those later on.
So that's really great. And yeah, I agree. Especially with, you know, we believe in Wix and Squarespace, there's definitely, you know, for those people who are still a little leery because I totally am about WordPress. You know, there's, there's ways to ways to get confidence in the drag and drop type sites.
So that's wonderful. Yeah. And the, the, the best thing I learned about that is nothing goes out there until you publish it and put it out there. So you can mess around all you want with web pages and how things look and like, oh, I don't like this. It doesn't have publish. Yeah. So that was one thing I learned that, you know what, I can create a whole, like four or five web pages.
And if I don't like them, they don't have to go anywhere. That's awesome. Awesome. No, I want to ask you there, because with your tech, with your website design, with you developing your website I want to ask, because I did notice that in terms of when people contact your clinic it's not necessarily Arktos direct care.com as the domain. So, your email for general contact is Arcos direct care@gmail.com. So do you have that specifically because you have, you know, the, the Gmail side being checked and it's a separate inbox compared to where your patients go.
So our patients use that too. So we set that up as just a completely separate email for us. And we did that because, uh, for me, and just the way my brain works, Gmail works really well. We do have the actual Arcos right care.com domains as well, but just like an admin one, Dr. Hampton. So, for more administrative stuff, I use that.
And then the sort of phase forward one is, is the Gmail one. A lot of times it's just easier to tell people it's gmail.com too. It's easier to remember. The one thing with that is we did sort of have to add software in for encryption and security and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, if we do send patient records or anything, we encrypt everything.
So, we just use, add on softwares that work well with email on that. Gotcha. Great, great things to think about because you know, GML is so common and so if people choose to use it, those are definitely words of wisdom to think about the other nice thing about Gmail. Is it, uh, the notifications go to my phone.
So I'm like the link on our website. So if someone is asking for information, it sends me an email. So I get that immediately. So I feel like I, I can respond to things fairly quickly. Yeah. So it definitely helps on that. Whereas the, when we use the Arcos direct share.com I have to go in and actually physically check that.
So if someone left me a message there, I'm not going to immediately get a notification like I do with Gmail. Now I want to ask about your services specifically that you offer at your practice because you opened with regenerative medicine and osteopathy. And you mentioned like, and so doctors can you tell us a little bit about the branches in addition to primary care that you offer in our direct care? Yeah, so, I mean, there's, we do kind of do a lot here. I do, uh, the manipulation, so I do a lot of OMT.
And then the regenerative medicine and Dr. Vohra does aesthetic medicine alone with, with family practice and PPC stuff. So, depending on the week, I mean, it can be a 50, 50 split. It can be a hundred percent DPC or a hundred percent Regina medicine MP, I would say the one consistent is. By far the one that has booked out the most one, because it's just something that has a lot of follow up anyway, but also like some patients just seek us out for that in general.
And we with OMT a lot because, and then I price it accordingly so that it looks attractive to become a member. But a lot of our own T patients end up becoming members over time. You know, you talk to them a little about DBC here and there. And eventually they're like, you know, and I haven't been able to get in to see my doctor, like how hard is it to see you?
Like, you know, cause if they're seeing me like every two or three weeks anyway, for an adjustment pretty soon they're like, why can't I just do everything here? And they do. And the aesthetic medicine side, it works very similar to it it's a completely different clientele. What we traditionally and typically see that seek us out for direct primary care.
It's a lot more of like the younger female crowd or even like the older professional crowd that wants a physician specifically to do some of their aesthetic stuff. And then when they come in, they're like, wait, you guys do this too. Like I can get my medicines here. So then that gets people in the door and gets them looking at the memberships as well.
The other thing that it affords for us is that we can keep a smaller patient population on our DVC side because we have other income coming in too. So it's been really beneficial on that side because I'd never had. 100% feel overwhelmed with the primary care side of stuff. The membership side is that because we keep a smaller patient population.
So, yeah, so, so we kind of have our different hats we wear throughout the day and at different times, but You know, outside of the typical office hours, I would say that's where a lot of the DPC stuff happens anyway, because patients are at home from work finally, and they think of something and, you know, send us a message.
So a lot of the actual primary care. So actually I would say happens outside of typical office hours other than if they're scheduling follow-ups and physicals and things like that. So it worked well for us and we're happy to have a, the eclectic mix here for sure. And I love that. And, you know, in terms of when you do manipulation, when you do a prolotherapy, when you do aesthetics, when Dr.
Guevara does the aesthetics, I want to ask, you know, if there is an esthetician in town or a chiropractic, uh, person in town, why do patients migrate towards you guys versus going to one of their services? If they're not members of Octo struct care,
I mean, I don't want to toot our horns, but that I think there is a little bit different standard of care. Especially like with Darcie Baris side on the aesthetic side is she is very subtle in what she does and very careful. And in, in medical school she tracks ENT and head and neck surgery. So her anatomy of the face is very good.
And she's very careful about, you know, not dropping a lid or not injecting a vessel, things like that. And so, we get a, a patient population on the aesthetic side that only wants to see a physician and, or its physician spouses or. In a physician's parents or whatever that, that a doctor is saying, no, I only want you to go do this position.
And then that kind of starts building on itself because people have good results and they don't get a lot of complications. And then she does really good work and it's subtle. And it kind of grows its own word of mouth. So we've kind of tapped into that part of the community of people that are seeking out positions only in that.
And so that's worked out really well for her. And then on the adjustment side what I do as far as with the LMT gets a lot different than maybe what they've experienced at the chiropractor, or maybe even other Dios because there is not a lot of dos around here that are still doing adjustments.
And so. Finds out that we already, I was like, that's the first question? Like, do you do adjustments? And if you do, can I come see you? So some people have had experience with it before. And so it, it has turned into sort of this thing that people seek it out and then they refer other patients that may benefit from it.
Not that we intentionally did that, that we would try to separate it, separate ourselves out in that, but it's worked out well and, you know, part of our, our sort of logo or theme, whatever you want to say, our motto is the, you know, your doctor on your time, every time. And so that is something that we do pride ourselves on a physician is going to do your procedure.
And a physician's kind of do your adjustment. The physician is going to be the one looking at your labs. And so, over time, patients really appreciate that. Uh, and, and they like the little insights that we're able to give or, you know, the, the, I don't want to say standoffish care, but. Because just the way DBC works, I don't need to order, you know, the full panel of labs to check out every secret diagnosis out there.
We can work things through, through things sort of methodically and slowly, and patients really do appreciate that. So, if you don't have to send them for a CT and an MRI on day one, they tend to appreciate that for the bottom dollar. So, I think we've just, for some reason we've tapped into that community.
That that's what we're looking for. And then it just has grown on itself with word of mouth, for sure. Amazing. Do I want to ask there, in terms of, with you guys providing these multiple branches of your practice, do you have any difference in terms of malpractice to cover the services that you guys provide?
Yeah, we do. And that's, uh, I mean, luckily, uh, we worked with COPEC, which is a lot of Colorado physicians COPEC and so, it was a struggle at first to find someone who. One understood that direct primary care and the fact that we have less patients and therefore less overall risks with patients. But then also who would allow us to do some of these other procedures that maybe fall outside the scope of primary care.
So, we definitely sort of have to work through everything with our, about practice carrier and they set it up where, uh, is 50% covered for family practice and 50% covered for Durham. So, you know, she, her coverage is a little different than what mine is and luckily the, uh, manipulation falls under primary care.
So that. Too much harder. And then the, uh, the Regeneron medicine side as long as we're not sort of delving into the stem cell side of stuff, the malpractices is okay with a lot of what we do. As long as it's sort of office-based procedures, you know, if we're getting into to bone marrow biopsies, or bone marrow stem cells and things like that, then they would have an issue with that.
But luckily I don't do that and we stay away from that side intentionally a little bit. Yeah. So it was a struggle at first to find them up practice carrier. Yeah, you can do all of this and we're okay with it, but COPEC is big enough that I think they've probably seen it all. And so they found out a way to work out policy for us.
That's great. And definitely, you know, things to think about, especially for those people who are looking to include services similar to yours in terms of, especially if they're planning on DPC and getting rates for malpractice to ask those questions about coverage. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the biggest things with malpractice carriers is if you're just telling them that your primary care they're going to bill you, like you're seeing 4,000 patients, primary care where at least with us with COVID they knew what direct primary care or things concierge medicine was.
And they specifically asked us like, what is your patient population going to be? And, you know, we'll kind of adjust your rates based off of a lower patient population. So it is something to ask. Awesome. Now, in terms of products that you guys choose to use because on your website, especially, especially for.
offerings and aesthetics, you guys list particular brands that you use. So when you guys have had this experience and you're bringing it to your patients, how do you choose the products that you decide to use for your patients and in your practice? Yeah, I mean, a lot of that is research and training.
Especially on the aesthetic side, like she was trained in toxins EMN and then the the restoral are, uh, wrestling products and then Juvederm products and those, and, and now some of the new ones, like Tara and stuff. So, some of it is training and you know, what you're taught is what you're going to use type thing.
I think that goes for a lot of us. But we do research it and try to come up with like, why is this better? Or what is the benefit to our patients having this product versus something else? Whether it's safety or efficacy or sometimes it is a price point too. And then with me with like the. PRP and prolotherapy side of stuff.
Like I, I've done a lot of actual formal training through the AOA there. Some of the societies that do formal training for prolotherapy. And so some of it is you see the products there. I mean, obviously there's, there's boost there where you can learn about different products, but a lot of it, I researched on my own and in the PRP world, there are tons of products and options out there, but I wanted something that was verified that I knew what I was injecting and knew what I was using.
And so when we originally started, Enzo was not a thing. I mean, it's pretty common that people know that I use Enzo for our prepare beef products. So we originally started with M site through PRP labs because they had the data that I was looking for to back up what I was telling patients. And I felt like it was a quality product and using their kids, I could reproduce it.
I wanted to reproduce with the PRP and use them for two years. And then Andrew Pope, uh, contacted me. This product coming out and various things are verified through Kansas state university. And like the price point is good. And I found out some information on it and then I contacted pat Farley or with Enzo.
And before they even launched, I was like, give me a sample. So you give me a sample, teach me how to do this because the data that you guys are showing me, it's pretty good. And so we started using them from pretty much day one when they were on the market. And one time, like I was out there in.
In Kansas at their headquarters. And it was funny because I was picking up an order. I just happened to be pulling through on a mountain bike trip. And I was like, I'm going to stop by because I need to pick up a big shipment. And it's funny because of Corey came out, uh, one of the staff there and he's like, you've been with us a year now and you've ordered the most so far.
And so I was like, well, it's kind of good to know that, like, you know, you guys, you guys are following up and they're small enough to like, know who I was and all that sort of stuff. And so it really makes me feel good. But the nice thing is, is like with endo, particularly like I can call. Dr. Robert or I can fall pat and I have a question they're super willing to help and they love DBC and love what DPC stands for and they love to help other community as well.
So there's for that small business, that's trying to break into a huge market. And, and they do things a lot like DBC anyway. So it is really nice to work with them. And just a side note, like I had a really interesting experience with Enzo two weeks ago, where a patient that I had done PRP on, on his shoulder and his back, like two years ago called he was like, I know this is really out of the blue, but do you treat animals?
And I was like, I do not treat animals, but. Uh, Enzo started as, as working on the veterinarian side. So let me call them. And, uh, Dr. Robin was actually flying into Colorado that night and he said, have the patient call me and we'll figure it out. And so we treated his dog down at Denver the next day I was amazed.
I was like, nowhere else has happened like this. Like you can't just call up a company and be like, yeah, we'll treat them. So, yeah, that was, that was amazing to me. That's awesome. That's so awesome. And yeah, I definitely would say, you know, they, they are, so community-based in terms of like at their training sessions, they'll do services just for veterans.
Yeah. The shots for shoulder or for soldiers. Yeah. It's fantastic. And I want to ask there in terms of, you know, your own use of, and so, uh, products and ways to treat patients with prolotherapy you've, you've harnessed your services in terms of, on your marketing. Cause I, you know, I want to say you had a UFC fighter on your Instagram.
And so when you talked earlier about, you know, even breaking into your own local market, it's a little, a little bit difficult. Sometimes people don't know about DBC, but tell us about when you've been able to, you know, publicize your services through your patients, especially if they're, you know, big names in the UFC world, et cetera.
For example, how does that help your practice? Yeah, you know, I mean the, probably the most notable one is Dwayne log that we've treated a few times in our website and then social media and stuff like that. And that, you know, pat, the owner of Enzo has, he's a huge UFC fan and he knows a lot of. He called me one day and said, Hey, I have this UFC legend of lives.
Just like 40 minutes south of you. Can you treat them? And I was like, I don't know if I'm up for this pat, like tell me a little bit more what's going on. And so Dwayne came up here and we treated him and he did really well. We treated, uh, uh, Habakkuk issue on him. And he, he had been told by ortho, like you're looking at surgery and like, you're not gonna be able to, because Dwayne trains a lot of UFC fighters and he has his own training facilities down in Denver.
He was kinda told, like, you're not gonna be able to do this after surgery for a long time. And that wasn't something he wanted to hear. So pat said, Hey, like, let me send you up to Dr. Hampton. He uses our products and go up there and see what he can offer. So we treated Dwayne and he did really well with it.
And then a couple of weeks later, So Wayne was calling and be like, Hey, can you treat my other trainers that are here? And they're always dealing with chronic shoulder and knee injuries. I was like, sure, send them up. So we started treating them and then his family and everybody started coming and it sort of snowballed on itself from there.
Like people were getting really good results, uh, with the PRP and things. And so they, they started coming back and now it's turned into this thing where I see Dwayne two or three times a year and we treat whatever alien him at the time. And it does really well. And it's been marketing for us both on the Enzo side and then on our own personal side and things like that.
So, yeah, it is funny. And with the, like the, the Olympic training facilities, you know, there's a lot of comparing Colorado. Every once in a while, I'll just get a random call from one of the trainers and be like, Hey, I saw you treated and Duane, can we send you one of our athletes? Sure. I mean, sometimes it's unrealistic that like they have a race tomorrow.
Can you treat them like that? Isn't that how this works, but you know, we can treat them after for sure. So that has helped a lot, I think, which is with some of those UFC guys being such public figures are on social media all the time. And it's really helped get us into markets that probably would never know about us at all, for sure.
Up here in Fort Collins. The situation is so unique, especially how that that'll happen, but I, I just love that, you know, your. It's like we talked about on your website, you don't know where people are going to land. You never know who's going to look at your social media.
So I love that. Now I want to ask in terms of staffing, because, uh, you know, publicly on, on face, on social media, you've mentioned how you were like, I don't need stuff. I could totally do this overhead down. And that changed when Jeanette, uh, joined your practice. So can you share a little bit about your, your thoughts of behind hiring a staff member and how it ended up that Jeanette joined your practice?
We have had our eye on Janette since we've known her. She was actually Dr. for like five years. So we knew if Jeanette ever left a salute to the health clinic here that we would fire. And so, we actually, when we first opened, we had a staff member, so we hired, uh, more of just a receptionist. She was not medically based at all, but she was really good at social media.
And so, we hired someone to be here, to answer the phones when I was out, trying to sell our products to everybody else around town. And so she did a lot of answering the phone to the last social media stuff for us, and really sort of got a little bit of a foothold as far as followers and stuff around town.
And she would go to some of the small businesses and just like, okay, can we leave cards here? You know, brochures or whatever. And so, she was more of like a marketer force at that time. She was not medically trained at all. And so she was with us for. Probably like the first four to six months. And then they, her and her fiance were moving out to California.
And at the time I was like, I sort of have enough patient population right now that I don't need help. And I did fine for a year and a half, two years as, as we were growing. And part of that was during COVID anyway. So it's not like we had a bunch of people in the office or wanted to have a bunch of people in the office at one point anyway.
So, I didn't really feel like I needed a staff member at the time. Now I was doing a lot on my own and there was a lot of like, you know, finished clinic work, then go home and work on the website or work in the business, whatever it was, two of the faxes later. And so when, uh, my wife was getting ready to start coming over, she was like, you need to hire her NMA.
And Jeanette was, was going out on maternity leave for her fourth little one. And so we approached her and said, will you come over to our toast when you're offered maternity? And so we kind of plan for it that when, when she came back after maternity leave, that she would come over and help us. Uh, and like I said, we always knew she was fantastic at what she does.
She's been an Emmy for a long time, but she's also fantastic that phlebotomy she's fantastic with the patients. She speaks Spanish, which is huge in our community. So, she, like I put on. On our website are going to, if we talk about her, she was like our little Jill of all trades. And it has really helped us a ton there and taken a lot of, sort of the extraneous business stuff off of my plate, which has made it easier to take care of patients.
And then also like, you know what, it's two 30 and I want to take my son today, take one to old practice. Like I can leave. Like, you know, I don't have to worry about that because I know Jeanette has handled it. One good thing with her is She's done this long enough, and she's been an Emmy long enough that she's four steps ahead of me and Dr.
Hari and what we need. So like if a patient's coming in for prolotherapy, I didn't don't even know she's done it and I've walked in the room and like the whole kid is set up and ready to go. I'm like, well, normally this would take me an extra 45 minutes to do all this and get everything ready. So, um, it's been a huge help to us and really taken like a lot of that burden off that you don't even know that as a pertinent to you until you doll.
And so it's been huge for us, so yeah, hopefully she'll stick around forever. Awesome. And, you know, I love again with social media, just drawing attention to the fact that like you've posted, you know, her drawing blood on your Instagram. And so I really love that you're highlighting you know, everything about your practice.
So it's definitely something to consider as people are building out their own social media feeds to highlight the dry blood thing with her has been huge because now patients know. I can just stop by whenever I want. And patients love that because here in Fort Collins, it is, you know, sort of as big as we are, there's only one lab Corktown and you typically have to make appointments at lab it to get in.
So it's, it's not just like a walk and get it done. And so, you know, they just stop by anytime they want. And even if we're busy, like she handles it and then draw the blood and people love it. And we get the comment all the time. Like that was the easiest blood draw I've had. And so it's a huge benefit just on the outward appearance of, of how things work here too.
That's great. And in terms of, you know, if she needs time off, you have a PTO program set up. So could you tell us a little bit more about how you guys decided to do that and how it's been working out? Yeah, so a lot of that comes back to like software that we've looked into and use. And so we use Homebase for our um, timekeeping and How to track paid time off and track hours and all that.
And then also our payroll is all done through home base, uh, which is an app on your phone. It's on our like merchant services, uh, point of service checkout and all that. So, it makes it real easy. And so we've set it up that. Like Jeanette gets a certain amount of holidays off and time off throughout the year.
And then also sick time, but it does build up. So we've, uh, through the software, you're able to build up that she accrues it over time to a maximum, and then there's a lot of minutes for how much she can carry over or, uh, how much sick time she can carry over a year to year type thing. So, we just sort of set it up based off whatever hours she works.
She can accrue so much time to a certain point. And then I'll let her roll it up. But honestly, like if she needs to leave for anything, we let her leave. Like we treat this like a family and she needs time off. She takes time off if she wants to use your paid time off. Great. If she wants to save it up and go on a huge vacation, I don't care who the right years without her, so I can manage for a week here and there.
Yeah. So, but I think like if you are looking at hiring staff, it is, it's really important to set that up and set up those benefits for them and, and have a plan on how it's going to work, because say you're going to hire your second or your third. Like you want to have something uniform. It's easy to fall back on and say, this is the way it works.
And nobody's at a confusion on how to build up their time off or get their sick time or anything like that. So one of the things too, if anybody is looking at that type of software, like Homebase is fantastic because um, you can pay a small fee and they will build out your employee handbook and put all that stuff in writing and send it to your employees and keep track of everything.
So it is a fantastic little piece of software if you're willing to pay. Very very good advice there, especially for people who are wanting to hire staff and, you know, would not like to have one more thing on their plate, especially the employee handbook. So that's awesome. Now, in terms of, you mentioned that, you know, there, there was a time that your wife was at the FQHC doing loan repayment, and I want to focus now on the time that you guys were at where it was like, okay, now this is right for you to come join me over here at Arco.
So can you tell us about, you know, how you guys came to the decision and what made it right for you guys to have her join on when she did? Yeah. I mean, when we first looked at that on like, when she would come over, it was more like, we need to have a certain member number where we could financially make it feasible for her to come over.
And then COVID happened and. If you guys don't know anybody who works at a FQHC, like COVID brought out the worst of what an QHC can be because they had physicians in the heat, in the parking lot, testing patients, we're giving them extra shifts and more hours, no time to see patients in the no time off.
And it really sort of solidified our decision. Like she can't stay there no matter what, like she needs to leave. So, and her time was done for her loan repayment. She left him very soon after that. Almost to the point that we probably weren't at the point where we decided we shouldn't be at membership wise, but with her doing the aesthetics stuff.
And with some of the other products that we offer, as far as the, the Virginia medicine, we can, we can, we can financially float this for a little bit and make this happen. And so she kind of started because with COVID she was working from home a lot of the time if she wasn't actually at the clinic doing testing and things like that.
So, on her time off, she slowly started to sort of start doing a lot more of the aesthetic stuff that she was just doing on the weekends here and there. And that had started to grow on itself for like, all right, if you can do five of these procedures a week, like we can, we can cut some costs somewhere else and we can make this happen for awhile.
And then the fact that she was here more. Then patients were like, well, can I be a member introductive Ari. Yeah, sure. You can. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it, it just sort of happened that, that the whole COVID in the pandemic sort of forced our hand a little bit on it, but it worked out well in our case. And there was some bumpy times there, financial, and when we're like, I don't know how we're going to pay that bill this month because we don't have income coming in.
But it, it, it allowed her to be able to grow over on practice a lot easier too. And so it, it, it forced her hand, but it really helped him lot. Awesome. And when you talked about, you know, going door to door for your own services, when you opened, after you guys figured out like, oh, you know, if you did five of these procedures a week it would really help.
Did she go out to, you know, day spas and other services to say like, Hey, you know, I'm a physician who actually does provide these things. What else do you need that I could bring to your, your patient population? Yeah. So that's fortunately we live in Fort Smollens, so everybody knows everybody in town.
So a lot of our close friends and people in our neighborhood, like one owns a gym and other things like that. So, she, you know, she would work out at the gym and. And we would, we would run specials like, Hey, if you're a member of this gym, come over and we'll give you a discount. And so, we were able to kind of grow her side of the practice that way, where she didn't have to do a lot of advertising.
So a lot of it was word of mouth. And then, like I said, it is, it is truly like the smallest little town in the world because everybody knows everybody. So, like one person like that gym owner does a ton of social media stuff. And so when she was coming in here for her treatments, she would post and she would do a live video.
And so then 10 people would call and be like, I want to do achieve it. So in that, that really helped us grow like that. And then we've worked with some local. Like charity type organizations that have set up in Fort Collins with people that we know it's small business owners that we know and it's really kind of grown and stuff that way.
So, I kind of feel like we got lucky in that we knew some social media influencers, just happenstance, you know, throughout working out or whatever we did. And they were interested in the services and then they posted and blew it up for two or three weeks and then it kind of would start snowballing.
So, yeah, incredible. I want to ask because, you know, I, I feel the life of both parents being physicians. So I want to ask about how you guys, because your children are, you know, they're not, they're not able to drive themselves places. They're, they're small, small enough that, you know, it takes work to, to be their parents.
You know, so I want to ask how do you guys balance it all? Yeah, it is. I mean, it's definitely a balancing act all the time and I would, I would put a lot of that credit on my wife. Like she is the, the organizer in those work, but it's supposed to be at all times. So our kids are seven and five, so there'll be a second grade and kindergarten starting next year.
But they do violin TaeKwonDo school of rock. Horseback camp in the summer, like all sorts of stuff, they're all over the place. And so literally we have a schedule at home, like who's picking up who, where the nice thing with us, both being at the same practices that I usually come in early and start seeing patients first.
And then Dr. Hart comes usually around nine 30 or 10, and she usually leaves to pick up the kids around two. Then I will stay later. Um, And then meet everybody where we're going. So, it's definitely a juggling act all the time, but we make it work and Luckily pretty much everything that the kids do is within a 10 mile radius.
So home is kind of in the middle of that. So, you know, it's a lot of, okay, I will meet you here and pick up one kid or drop the kids off at the office for twenty-five minutes and then I'll take them where they need to be. The nice thing about it too, is like we're small enough in our patient population.
Community is small enough that like when our kids are here, people. Like, they will sit down and whatever they're drawing or whatever they're doing. Like, people love seeing our kids here at the office. So it, it is worked out. And you know, I think all parents can attest to this. You just find a way to make it happen and you end up where you need to end up and do we miss an appointment here or there sure are relate to stuff.
Sure. You know, like it happens like unexpected things will happen all the time with kids and, you know, you just kind of have to roll with it a little bit. So, yeah, I laughed because I had one visit where I was like, I'm sorry today. You know, my son was literally hanging on me and would not let me leave the house.
So I'm sorry. I'm 15 minutes late. And they were at. They were like, well, when, let me say you see pictures, like that was the response and not being mad about me being 15 minutes late. So I love that. Now I want to ask, because you guys are both , you're working in the DPC. What do you guys do for health coverage for yourselves?
Yeah, so, when she was still working at the, at the FQHC, obviously we were under her insurance. And now we have switched to to health shares. And so we, we use ion for our own family and then primary care needs. We sort of take care of things here, ourselves, if we need to, or some of the other DVC doctors in town or whatnot.
The nice thing is too, is like, we. Some of our good friends are doctors. Some are good friends are dentists. So, you know, we don't ever feel for lack of being able to take our kids wherever they need to go to see people. But for true like catastrophic coverage, we do use the health share and things like that.
Um, Feel fortunate that, that those options are out there. Because if anybody has looked at what it costs to, to be a business owner and buy your own health insurance, it's kind of staggering right now. And it just keeps going up. The other thing too, working with Zion, and if, if, if you guys haven't worked with resign at all, I really would urge you to at least contact them and get to know them a little bit because Zion is sort of an offshoot of penciler, which does large employer group health plans and health coverage, and the fact that they have both sides of it.
Now with actual insurance plans, it canned health shares, some of their Some of their brokers have gotten really creative with some of our small business owners plans on how they set it up. So like catastrophic insurance plans with an HSA plus a house Sharon. So, some of our members have really interesting setups through Zion and Pilsner that I feel like if, if they're small businesses that you guys are getting with it can be a huge advantage instead of some of those plans, because they're much cheaper than a traditional insurance plan and the coverages are, are really fairly good.
I just love that, you know, you're a DPC doctor, so you understand, , that insurance is not healthcare, but I also love that , you are coming. your own healthcare from a cost share perspective so that you can even understand where your patients are coming from even more.
So I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And we, I mean, like I've had my share of health stuff. Like I've had some skin cancers and things like that. So I, I still go see the specialist and when you pay cash, it's always cheap. I'm always amazed. Like, they'll look at me like you're paying cash. I'm like, yeah, what does it cost me cash?
I'm like, oh, well we have $150 fee. And I'm like, well, that's cheaper than what an insurance premium would have cost me. So, yeah, like the options are out there and you know, if you're just willing to look. You really don't need insurance. Uh, I do suggest that you have some sort of catastrophic care, whether it's a health share or whatever it is, but when you really talk to most of the specialty clinics around town, they have plans set up cash, pain patients, and most of them are pretty reasonable.
And if you sit down and factor in what you're saving per month, uh, from an insurance premium, and even if you put a fraction of that aside, like you have a nice little plot in case you can eat it at the end of the day. So yeah, there's, there's plenty of ways to do it. Awesome. And I want to ask now shifting the conversation a little bit with regards to Fort Collins, Fort Smollens a, you guys still have a bunch of DPCs within.
Yeah, within your, your neighborhood. So I want to ask in terms of, you know, being successful, being able to provide the services you guys wish to provide, and yet still having other DPCs, like you said, you know, two miles away from you, how do you talk to other people in terms of, if others are fearful about like, oh, you know, I, I can't survive because this DPC succeeded or these CPC failed.
How do you, how do you advise people to think about their own situation? Yeah, I mean, it's tough and I think it definitely is community dependent. Like you kind of have to feel out, uh, but your community is, is doing and what it's interested in and what the niche is going to be. I feel fortunate that we have other services that, you know, we can fall back on if we need to.
But especially on social media, like it's hard when sometimes you see someone like, oh, I've been open two months and I have 200 members. Like some of us, like, you know, it took us a year to get to a hundred. You know, a lot of practices open during COVID and growth was hard during COVID for everybody, I think.
And so, you know, work with your community, work with your chamber of commerce, whatever it is to figure out like, where are the needs? And our chamber here has been great because I mean, I'm a member of our chamber and I've gone to like some of the like BNI type groups that they have, but also I've gone to the chamber and.
Can you guys give me an idea of where the small businesses are in town that have between five and 50 employees and how can I contact them? And they're like, sure, we'll have that for you in an hour. Like they have that information. It's just, you gotta ask for it. So, you know, find out what resources are in your community and what your initial is going to be.
And just, just where, where you need to go to, to find those patients or find people that are looking because people are looking for CPC type services, for sure. Again, they just don't know where to look, so we don't know where to find them. So you have to figure out how you go and meet those patients, whether it's through your local.
Social media influencer or whether it's through chamber of commerce, whatever it is. But here in town, most of us doing in DPC, we all kind of work together and, you know, we'll bounce ideas off each other or cover each other's practices and things like that. So it is really nice. Like, you know, uh, Dr.
Cardin just started here in town and he still works with the residency clinic and still works with a teaching program. So. Just by default, he's getting the word out there because he sees all the hospital patients. So, you know, even if he gets the majority of those patients, the word has still been spread and there's plenty of patients to go around.
So you don't, I don't, at least in my mind, I don't feel like I'm ever in competition with other DPC doctors. Uh, if anything, we are in competition with the huge clinics in town. And we're sort of that the better option when patients get frustrated and like the big, the largest primary care group in town just got bought out by a national organization.
And there's already inklings that patients are not happy. So, you know, it's nice to have this core group of practices in town. Like, look here, here's a different option. Like you don't have to choose me, but at least look at one of these options.
What other resources would you recommend to others? In addition to the ones you've mentioned that could really help people, especially if they're thinking about DBC or branching out to adding services like you guys do. Yeah. I mean, I figured out what you love to do, you know, uh, you never want to be in a practice where you're not having fun and you don't feel like you can practice it when you want to practice.
So, for me, I love musculoskeletal stuff and the OMT and the regenerative medicine fit there. And so that was, that was something that I wanted to learn how to do anyway, even if I wasn't allowed to do it where I was currently practicing, but, you know, find out what works for you. And then. You know, go to whatever trainings you can go to the conferences and learn about those services, because you know, there are 150 companies that want to help you succeed.
I mean, in your success, they're going to succeed too. So, find those companies that do what you're interested in and, you know, build something that you can specialize in. And then as far as DPC, I mean, I think the resources just continuing to grow, uh, the DBCA and DPC university and all that sort of stuff now and DPC frontier and the mapper grade.
So, if you're willing to look, there's tons of stuff out there. I think a lot of it too, it's it's we fear what we don't know. You know, we don't come out of med school, learning how to run a practice or even how to set up a business license. So, you know, be willing to take it slow and learn about all that sort of stuff.
And talk to people who have done it and know what you don't know, because you know that the worst part is you do something that that's out of your scope, you know, no you're doing something wrong. So, you know, really talk to people. And I think we're fortunate here. I mean, like Clint was a huge resource when I was starting because, you know, he got us in contact with lab reps and, and with GPO organizations and all of these things that I was, I was spinning my wheels, trying to figure out, like, how does, how do people get these prices at the imaging center?
Like, I don't understand, like I talk with them and they just tell me no, or, you know, discounts on labs. And so you talk to somebody who's done it. And they're like, here, let me send you the info for this rep. And then they'll get you set up. So definitely reach out to people. Even if you don't think they're going to be a mentor.
You know, most, I would say most of us in the BBC world are willing to help other physicians move into direct primary care and to move into health and patients better. So, anytime someone contacts me, I will give them all the resources I can. And I've even had other physicians come in here and be like, I just want to shout at you for a day and see what you do, because I want to do this at some point.
Like, you know, and I think it's great that people are interested in it and are looking enough that they're like, Hey, this is, this is what we should be doing.
And if anybody ever wants to call me and chat on what we do or how we do it, like feel free to, and what's the best way for others to reach out to you after this podcast, man, I mean, you can find me on Facebook or Instagram, if you want, like send an email to Arcos direct chair and Gmail. It's perfectly fine.
Pull up our clinic and text the phone number that goes to our spruce account. So, the only thing was Bruce's you got to tell me who you are. It just pulls up a number the first time. So, um, yeah, I'm, I'm perfectly fine. If someone wants to contact me for any questions. Yeah. I feel like, you know, people have done that for me.
I owe it to the rest of the community to do it as well. So. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Dr. Hampton for joining us today. Yeah, it was fun and things morale.
*Transcript generated by AI so please forgive errors.