Direct Primary Care Doctor
Dr. Jade E. Norris, MD aka “Dr. Jade,” is a Board Certified Family Medicine Physician and Las Vegas native. She is a devoted Christian, wife, and mother. She focuses on wellness and prevention using the principles of Lifestyle Medicine and her “NSPIRED Health Method” to assist her patients in preventing and reversing chronic diseases.
Dr. Jade completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She obtained her Medical Doctorate Degree from Southern Illinois University and completed her Family Medicine Residency Training in Southern California at Loma Linda University Medical Center.
Dr. Jade has promoted wellness nationally in magazines, radio, television, and social media. She has years of experience working in the fitness and pharmaceutical industry and has created numerous community-based programs in Nevada and Illinois and is the author of the children’s empowerment books, “You Can Call Me Queen” and “You Can Call Me King.”
Dr. Jade has a special interest in fitness, dance, healthy cooking, and mentoring and empowering young girls and teens of color. Her mission is to promote health for the entire family, all ages and generations. Her mantra is: “Health, it’s a LIFESTYLE!”
She opened Nspire Primary Care in March 2022.
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Other featured DPC Docs who have started right out of Residency:
Episode 5: Dr. Christina Mutch & Dr. Jake Mutch of Defiant DPC - Williamsburg, VA (Family Medicine)
Episode 15: Dr. Deepti Mundkur of My Happy Doctor - San Diego, CA (Internal Medicine)
Episode 8: Dr. Lauren Hughes of Bloom Pediatrics and Lactation - Kansas City, KS (Pediatrics)
Episode 51: A Year In Review - Celebrating One Year of DPC! Featuring Drs. Hughes, Mundkur, Mutch & Mutch
Episode 86: Dr. Erica Young (She/Her) of Relief DPC - Whitemarsh Island, GA
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CONTACT:
Website for Nspire Primary Care
Personal website for Dr. Jade HERE
SOCIALS:
Dr. Jade's YouTube channel HERE
IG: Nspire Primary Care HERE: @nspireprimarycare; Dr. Jade's Personal IG HERE: @drjademd
Dr. Jade Shows Off Her Space and How Onboarding Is Done At Nspire Primary Care
A Testimonial About Dr. Jade
Dr. Jade Explains What Quality Primary Care Means
Dr. Jade RADIO SHOW LIVE
1st Weds of each month - 10am PST!
Watch the Episode Here:
Listen to the Episode Here:
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TRANSCRIPT*
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Jade.
Thank you so much for having me Mary, super excited to be here today.
Is such a pleasure to be talking with you because I've been following your journey for over a year now, and you are open, you are open, it's no longer, pre-enrollment, you are accepting patients lifetime. And your practice is growing.
And, our audience is filled with people who are, open to your experience because of the fact that you were planning your DPC while still in residency. So I wanted to start there in terms of, your journey. Can you please paint a picture as to what life was like for you when you learned about
DPC?
Yes, absolutely. So during it was during my second year of residency, I was just having a chit chat between rotations with one of my attendings. And she was just asking me, you know, well, what do you wanna do after residency? What kind of job do you wanna get? And so I was explaining to her what I was really interested in.
And I was like, I don't know exactly what I wanna do, but I know I wanna be a community doctor and really involved with my patients and have a great relationship with them. But it's really important for me to have, you know, lots of time with my family too. And so I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
And she was like, well, it sounds like you're interested in something like direct primary care. Wow. I had never heard of that before. And so from there I went home and researched, it, looked it up and I was. Yes, this is what I'm talking about. And I'm already like a natural entrepreneur by spirit. So I was, I just, from there immersed myself into all things.
DPC started, you know, joining the Facebook groups, the DPC docs, DPC women. Um, it was great because at that time the pandemic was happening. So all of the conferences were virtual. So I was able to attend for free as a resident for the last two years. And I was just a sponge started following different DPC docs that did it straight from residency, which was super important to me, you know, listening to this podcast, reading different books, YouTube had the old conferences mm-hmm
So I just immersed myself into all things DPC, during residency. So that was like the first exposure. And from there, it was just, you know, convincing my husband, like, are you down with us doing this? This is what I wanna do.
I love that. So questions that have popped into my head while you've been talking, When you were that sponge, when you were taking it all in and crafting and dreaming and planning your own practice, you talk about DPC physicians who had gone directly from residency. So for those people who are like, Ooh, I need to hear more of , those journeys who are some of those resources that you can
point them to.
That's great. So Paul Thomas was huge in my journey. Um, I loved his books, you know, startup, DPC, And, um, let's see Christina and Jake much with defiance DPC. So I started following them. They went straight from residency. And then I know, I feel like you had a talk on your podcast with some of the first year.
It was like a glimpse of different DPC docs in their first year. That was super helpful. So I started following all of them. So those were the two that I would like directly message and communicate with. And they were kind of like unofficial mentors on my journey.
wonderful. And definitely those episodes can be found.
The ones that Dr. Jay is referring to, Dr. Paul Thomas, I believe was the second interview in Dr. Christina and Jake Mutch were somewhere between five and 10. And then the one year reunion, highlighted Dr. Lauren Hughes, another physician who had a pediatrician who had come out of residency, and Dr.
Dipti Monor who, also was in that reunion podcast and I'll link all of those to your blog. So if people are looking and reading more about you and your story, they can find those, episodes as well. Perfect. The next question I had is you mentioned your husband, so, you know, it. Especially for, our partners who might not be as entrepreneurial as the people that we are choosing to, go into this business model.
What was the discussion like, or what were the discussions like and what kinds of questions did he have, um, , and other members of your family to make sure that it was in, in alignment with what you wanted and it would be able to financially, achieve your goals
as well.
Yes. So it took a little time for my husband to understand it just like most people, when they hear about DPC at the first, the first time, they're like, what is this? How does it work? Is it successful? Is this stable? And you know, it it's a whole thing because my husband, I met him my second year of med school.
So he went through my whole med school journey with me and all of, you know, the tests and the strenuous, you know, efforts and ups and downs of that. And he went through residency with me. So it's a huge ask to say, okay, instead of me signing on the dotted line and just having this solid income, and now we can, you know, just start our lives right off into the sunset.
No, I'd like to be an entrepreneur and we have a newborn, you know, so that's a huge ask. And so, but he trusts me and he. My judgment and it took him listening and learning as well. Sometimes I would be listening to my DPC story podcast in the car mm-hmm and we would both be in the car.
And I, you know, there were certain ones where I'd be like, oh, this one, you know, talks about a wife that has young kids and how the husband was involved. Listen to this one. So I would share resources with him too, that I thought would help him understand where he fit in this journey too. And eventually he got more excited about it than me.
Like, as it got closer, I got nervous and he's like, oh no, we got this. So it was great that, you know, eventually he was like, no, this is the right fit for our family.
Yeah. And I just love that. And you highlight how powerful your story as well as the other physicians who have been featured, how, how powerful the story is.
Especially other people's stories other physicians, other physicians, partners going down this DPC rabbit hole, especially in those days where the questions are, you know, really, really making sure that it's gonna work financially, emotionally, that it's checking off, all of the boxes that, we start thinking of when the salary is not guaranteed.
Right? So now let me ask you another question because of what you said, you said that your, , that your mentor was the one who mentioned DPC and, you know, it makes me think of somebody like Dr. Natalie Gentilly, who also had a mentor who mentioned it to her, but. When we think about affecting the pipeline, affecting residents and medical students before they graduate before they're just signing on to those golden handcuffs, how do you envision us making an impact when it comes to physicians and training?
Because not everybody has a mentor who is saying, Hey, what do you want to do? And Hey, you should think about DPC because it's an alignment with what you are telling me. You want to.
That's a great question because it wasn't even built into our curriculum. Right? Mm-hmm this was just a random chat on the side.
And so to me, having direct primary care as an option that is talked about discuss offered as a rotation, mm-hmm, an optional rotation or path within the curriculum is so important because if we're only taught that. Options after are to be a hospitalist or to, you know, have go to the urgent care or to go in the clinic.
If those are the only three options that we're taught about, then those are all we think that is possible. And we're also taught still, even in this day in time that you can't have a private practice, which now we know is not true. Yeah. You know, you can't do it because in the hospitals have bought it up.
And that is still the story that is being taught to residents, which is not true. So that's why it's so important to just really figure out a way to integrate it. Have us talk. If you are able to talk at local med schools and residencies, that's important as DPC docs to put ourselves out there to be a rotation, say, Hey, your med students and residents can come to our clinic.
Things like that.
I love that. And I definitely challenge everyone, you know, to reach out to your own residency programs, no matter how long it's been since you matriculated there, but like for you Loma Linda was your residency and. Just in LA, , in August of this year, the resident summit and medical students summit happens in California.
and if your state has a statewide version of a medical student resident forum, or reaching out to your own residency, I definitely think that that is a way to help spread the word, because you're right. And it's so sad to hear that you having just finished residency are still saying these things that we know unfortunately are true in that. Not everybody knows yet that DPC is an option for them.
Absolutely.
So you learned about DPC your second year of residency, and then when did you actively start planning to open?
So, pretty much when I learned about DPC is once my husband was on board, I knew that that's what I was going to do after residency. So then everything I did and how I approached my rotations all was different.
Like how can I acquire these skills from this rotation for my future practice? So that was where my mindset was. And then I became basically a business minor by night and. During night feedings and in the car. So I would listen to finance podcast, business podcasts, and YouTube channels and read books. So I could really learn more about numbers, marketing, sales, profit, and loss statements, all these other aspects that I never had to think about, especially if I was just gonna be an employed doc.
Right. So I started doing that stuff in my spare time. I say spare time, you know, at the joke really, but during night feedings and in the car were like a lot of my, my learning time. And so that was a huge component. Like, okay, what do I, what do I need to learn? What skills do I need to acquire?
And what else do I need to set up? Mm-hmm while opening my DPC, which urgent care made sense for me as well.
Gotcha. And then in terms of, the fact that inspire primary care is in Las Vegas, your hometown, did you plan everything from California to open in Las Vegas or had you been open to practicing in California as
well?
No, we knew we were coming back to Las Vegas, so that was always the plan when my husband and I would come and visit the family on weekends and things like that, we would kind of be scoping out, you know, the outside of office spaces. Mm-hmm and okay, well, what side of town are we gonna be on? So Las Vegas was always the plan for us.
When you had decided, Las Vegas was gonna be it, you were scoping out the real estate, did you have a lawyer to help along your journey?
I did not. So that was a big part of my question. I did a lot of research in the DPC docs group, as far as do you need an attorney? Do you not need an attorney? There was a lot of a debate about that. You know, you can have them look over your forms or you cannot. So I chose not to officially get an attorney.
What I did instead I did hear Atlas was super helpful. And Dr. Josh umber, he mentioned that, you know, we could reach out to his dad mm-hmm and he's a lawyer, and he could do the free consulting. He's not your lawyer, but he can take a look over all your contracts. And he did that for me. He answered a lot of my legal questions, even my Nevada specific questions.
Sure. And he took a look at my contracts and gave me some feedback. So I used, because I was really doing like the low overhead startup model. I used that as a resource and that has worked well for me.
Gotcha. And for people who are planning to open in Nevada specifically, do you have any, you know, things to think about that they should keep in mind as they're planning,
DPC.
I don't think I really came across too many Nevada specific things. I, you know, there's certain, of course getting registered with your county and more, so things like that, like some sign up things that are gonna be state specific, but, and even dispensing we're able to dispense, but you have to get a apply for a separate Nevada pharmacy through the Nevada state pharmacy license.
You have to sign up for. Dispensing license. So there's little things like that that you notice. And I chose not to dispense, so I didn't even have to do that, but I did learn that that was something separate that Nevada does. Mm-hmm
no, it's, it's all, you know, stuff that people might not know. , as they're listening to your, your story and, , even when it comes to the county, that's actually a really good tip that you drop there because,
it depends on where your county is at. Some counties require you to, , have a county license and others don't some enforce it, others don't. And so definitely, talking to other DPC physicians around you, talking to the greater community definitely will help, make sure that you're as ready as possible before opening.
So on that note, I wanna ask, when you were, In those early days when you were, not yet open, what are some of the easiest decisions that came to you? , in terms of, keeping
overhead low. Sure. So I'm definitely an, a naturally artistic and creative person.
So the things that involved being creative came easy for me. Sure. Like thinking of the name and sketching out the logo and, you know, thinking and imagining, okay, what do I want my space to look like? And what do I want my practice to feel like those type of things came easy for me? What kind of culture do I wanna develop?
What do I want my flow to be? So those type of things, where I just had to like imagine and create those came easy. And then on the flip side, things that were more challenging were like learning about the numbers, learning about marketing and budgeting and projections and profit and loss statements, those things I had to to learn.
And I'm still learning.
Gotcha. And , I just wanna drop a note here. Dr. Jade's space is, is portrayed in a YouTube video where she walks, you through her clinic and it's amazing. You can really get the sense for the space, the sense for the, comfort that you've designed into your space and the efficiency of how you use this space.
So that YouTube, video is on Dr. Jade's channel as well as on her blog post, , at my DBC story.com. So definitely check that out. And when you talk about the P and L statement, the financials, did you, pick up from other people and develop templates that you then plugged into as you opened?
Or how did you, from the first dollar that you spent, track things on your financials?
That's a great question. So first of all, I'm obsessed with shark tank and I watch everything on there. I learn from other entrepreneurs and I learn about. These other successful billionaires millionaires, talk about knowing your numbers.
So that was my first incentive. Like, okay, well, what do they mean by this? And what do they mean by that? And then I'm Googling these terms. Right? Sure. And so I like to say I go to YouTube university because then I, I looked on YouTube, like how to do a profit and loss statement. And then I followed the steps, open up my Excel sheet.
Follow the steps. Now I did decide to hire a, uh, bookkeeper. So I do have an annual bookkeeper. All I will have to do is submit my, uh, basically I keep all my business on my business credit and debit card. And then at the end of the year, I just submit that to her. But it's also important to know you were asking about the state regulations in our state.
We have to do our taxation, like our sales tax. We have to report that monthly. Oh. So because I have to do that monthly, I had to still keep my own profit and loss statement. So I learned how to do that part, but I wanted to make sure it, everything was crisp and accurate for tax season. So I did still choose to hire a bookkeeper.
At the end of the year. She does a annual plan where I just submit everything at the end of the year, super easy. And so then everything will be just ready to hand off to my tax guy. Gotcha.
And do you have to have a retail license for, you know, any products that you might sell, in Nevada.
No, you would just have to report it and then they tax you.
Gotcha. So there's not a separate license that I know of. No.
Gotcha. And then for tech, are you using QuickBooks because the, uh, your bookkeeper integrates with that? Or what are you using for tech
So I'm just using in Excel. They have their own templates on profit and loss statements.
So I just chose one of those and follow the steps on how to do that, just to track my own monthly. But from there, my bookkeeper, I believe she does use QuickBooks. And so she'll do the rest. I really didn't wanna have to be involved in that aspect. And that's the great thing about DPC. You figure out what you want to carry on and learn how to do and what skills you wanna acquire.
And then you figure out, okay, which ones really should be outsourced. And for me, bookkeeping was one of those ones. I was like, let's outsource that one.
I love that. And yeah, it, it really, again, you know, I cannot get enough of how autonomous people are when they're sharing things. Like in your case, the creative things came easy for you and that's what brings you joy.
So I love that. And then in terms of when you were opening and then you opened, what are some of the things that you realized that yes, you totally needed these things and what are the things that you realized that you were like, I have this and I did not
need that.
That's a great question. So it's, it's so funny. It's the simple things that you really need. Like, I really needed my up to date, you know, so I could do my doctor. Be able to look at my AFP articles, just for the doctor part mm-hmm I needed my stethoscope and I've slunched on, you know, the one with the amplified sound.
Okay. Alright. And then I needed a bed, which I found a great one off of, uh, the Facebook marketplace really cheap for a couple hundred bucks. And then we revamped it and bought like the vinyl. So, and then I put some wallpaper on the side to make it designed. So we like did a HDTV project on that and it looks super expensive and it's not so little things like that.
Like a table, a room, my laptop. And of course people, some people do like a hundred percent from home, but I knew I wanted a physical space. So mm-hmm, a small space. That's beautiful and welcoming. And my EMR, of course my laptop, those were really the things I needed to start and the things I realized I didn't really need, I fully stocked up everything for all of my procedures and.
I haven't really only, I've only needed to do a few procedures, really simple procedures. So I have this fully stocked, like procedure closet that is beautiful and sitting there. So I didn't necessarily have to invest in that right away, but I just wasn't sure. I wasn't sure if my first set of members would need all these procedures or not, but now I know that mine didn't.
Gotcha. And, but it's so true, you know, you don't know who's going to join your practice and I, I totally understand that. And I'm in the same way. I don't like being unprepared when it comes to procedures. So I, I totally get that. Now in terms of. The two weeks leading up to opening and then opening day, I wanna highlight that portion in particular, because it's so recent for you. I remember, I was like crazy staying up till 3:00 AM every single night for as long, like almost every day for two weeks bleeding up to my opening because I was like, I have so much to get done.
What did it look like for you?
So for me it was more so everything was set up. It was nice because my space, I was able to acquire. We opened February 1st, but my lease started unofficially January. They let me do like half the month lease for January, just so we could have a month to set up the space.
Mm-hmm so I had everything set up. It was really simple and low stress in that regard, it was more so just getting my mindset right. And being like, you're ready. You can handle this. You're ready to give it your, all you, it doesn't matter that you don't have necessarily everything together. You are ready to give it your all for your patients.
You're ready to give them the best experience possible. And that makes you ready. So just most more so the self talk and just being like, you just do it scared. So that was more so what was happening as it started to open, definitely had the back and forth. The one moment I'm like, oh, I got this and I'm ready.
And then the next moment I'm like, what am I doing? Why didn't I just get a job? so, yeah.
Gotcha. And let me ask you about your socials because you've definitely have gotten a, a very strong presence on social media. Um, and when it comes to your practice, did you, you know, have your socials already planned out for, you know, the first quarter, um, how do you operate your socials and has it changed since you opened.
Yes. That is a great question because I have the social media journey. It's been just like anything else you learn and you get better. So when I first started doing social media and like growing my brand, I do my personal social media brand. And then I do the practice and. For the social media. I learned the document.
Don't create method works really well. When I first started, I was like writing down a list of topics and being like, okay, what should I talk about? And writing those down and then trying to create content. Sure. So that's the creating and I felt like there was a disconnect because when you do that, you automatically do the things you think people wanna hear about mm-hmm
But then I learned you just, as people ask me questions, like your life is the content. So as people ask me questions, as I do meet and greets and any questions people ask I'm joting those down that is content. And then I'm like, if one person has the question, other people have the question and that content now, now that I'm doing it, that.
That connects so much better. And it's easier because I don't have to think about it and plan it out. I'm just like, oh, they asked a question. That's a IG reel. Oh, they asked a question. That's a IG live. They asked a question, that's a YouTube video. So now it's like so much more fun because I'm excited about when people ask me questions, cuz I'm like, yes, give me the content.
Love that. Love that. And this is something that I picked up from Dr. Unah on entre MD, but physicians by default our content creators, because as she highlights, we write notes about our patients after our visits. All the time, like that's exactly that is content right there. And, you know, without sharing HIPAA, uh, information, taking that and taking, like you said, the questions that one person asks are the questions that other people are gonna, um, ask you as well.
So why not harness that ability to teach someone on a topic or to, share resources and save that so you can share it with others. So I
love. Yeah, and I will add Maria when it comes to the practice Instagram though, I knew it was a huge component. The, the teaching aspect of what DPC is, was so important.
Sure. So I made a huge push to really be active for the practice. The first three to six months before opening mm-hmm with just educational content, what is direct primary care? What's a membership practice. Why don't you need insurance in the primary care office, all these things. So I would not have to continue to tell people, no, we don't set the insurance.
I still have to answer that question. However, now I have this whole library of content where people on opening day understand, okay, she's doing things different. Mm-hmm and she explains it in all these different videos. So that was huge upon my pre-enrollment push was a lot of educating about DPC.
Gotcha.
And when you talk about pre-enrollment, if you're okay with sharing, , how many people did you have pre-enrolled in your practice before opening
day? That's a great question, because I would hear from other docs that don't get ex not that you shouldn't get excited about your pre-enrollment, but don't necessarily think that all of those people will join.
Yeah. And that is what happened for me. So I think I had about 50 pre-enrollment and I was super excited about that and I believe about 10 of them joined mm-hmm and that was kind of on par of what I heard percentage wise. So I was prepared for that real reality, and I wasn't upset about it or anything, but that was the truth.
And a lot of people pre-enrolled and still didn't realize it wasn't an insurance based practice. Sure. So that was a huge component of it. When I would reach out and say, Hey, are you ready? And they're like, oh, I, I realize you're doing membership. So no, nevermind. And that's okay. But the people that joined.
My people, they were my ideal patients, which is super exciting.
That's awesome. And when you say ideal, you're definitely, you know, well trained and excited on all of your socials about lifestyle medicine. So, um, when you talk about that ideal patient, can you describe who that person is?
Yes. So lots of business books talk about having your avatar in your mind.
They talk about even naming them. My avatar has a name, Sean. And so my avatar is, you know, a woman who's probably in her twenties to fifties. She's probably either a mom or just the active woman. She may be a little outta shape or just trying to stay fit. She's really busy, controlling and doing a lot of things.
Um, you know, wherever she goes for healthcare, her husband and family are gonna go and she wants to be healthy. And to have a doctor that doesn't just give her a pill, that's kind of like my ideal patient mm-hmm . Now of course I have male patients. Of course I have kids that are my patients, but when I'm doing my marketing, I'm really speaking to Shawn, my, my imaginary avatar.
I love that. And, when you talk about Shawn, I wanna ask. As people have joined your practice. Have you found out where the lead generation
came from? Yes, that is the first question I ask, which I think is super important when I sit down, I'm like, you know, I wanna get to know you.
How did you hear about the practice? That's the first thing I ask super important. I write it down in the note and I keep track of how people, because that's how you want to continue to grow your marketing. What is actually, you know, catching the fish as I like to think about it. Right? So, um, Instagram is by far what people say the most.
And now I have a local radio show, um, in town on one of our popular radio stations. I do it once a month, the first Wednesday of every month. And so that is my second most, um, highest way that people say they have heard about my practice. So definitely Instagram has been hitting out of the park for me, personally.
Wonderful. And in terms of, you know, Your Instagram, in terms of the radio show, people finding you, how many new patient visits do you have set up in your schedule on a weekly
basis? So I don't limit, or my practice in that way. I use Calendly for my scheduling. And so I just have the schedule where they can book up to an hour and I have it color coded if it's a new visit, a follow up visit or a meet and greet.
So I can have as many new patients as possible. And I have it space where I have a 20 to 30 minute gap between, so I'm never like on top of each other. So I, I don't limit how many patient new patients per day or per week. I'm averaging right now about two to three new patients a week, which is a great, uh, a nice pace for me in this stage of my business.
Absolutely.
When you talk about your schedule, you mentioned how you do have some shifts at urgent care.
So how is that incorporated into your, into your daily schedule so that you can take care of your patients as well as work
at the urgent. Yes. So I knew that because my starting place is in a new city, straight from residency, I would truly be starting from zero. Right. Mm-hmm I didn't have that automatic funnel built in.
So for me, I knew urgent care part-time would be a part of my business strategy for the first one to two years, depending on our growth. So I have all those projections in my business plan. So how I have it is I do my practice on Mondays, Wednesdays and a half day on Fridays, because I want my Fridays to have fun, so that with my family.
So that's how I have it built out. I plan for that to be my schedule indefinitely for my business. And for now I do Tuesdays and Thursdays at urgent care. Two Saturdays a month. So that's a total of eight to 10 shifts per month. And that way I have the solid set income and I don't have to be pressured for my practice to grow fast.
I can just focus on quality members who truly value this and want me to be their physician long term. So I'm not having this push to grab from anywhere who will join. And so I'm finding that it's a nice progression in my practice without the pressure of no one's calling, or I only had three people on board this week.
And so that's been working really well for me and my family.
I love that.
Early on in your journey, you had, you had your first little one, and then during your end of residency slash opening DPC, you had your second little one. So how are you, balancing it all.
Yes. And just to give your listeners an idea.
I had my daughter Ava when I was a intern, so my first year of residency. And then, so she was two, she's almost three. Now that we opened, we opened in February. I had my second daughter Aaliyah, um, right before new year. So December 20, 21. So she's now five months and I had her in at the end of December.
And then we opened February 1st. Okay. So I'm over around the town looking for spaces nine months pregnant. Delivering while planning the opening and then I'm opening right after having a baby that's less than two months old. So that's my timeline. Right? That's what it looked like for me. And was it challenging?
Yes. Did I have to figure out how it could work for me? Yes. So it's possible. And so when it came to choosing the number of patients originally, or the number of members from my practice at first, that was more of a numbers game, right? Mm-hmm you look at what your potential or your ideal income would be for your family.
You know, you consider you minus all the taxes and the overhead and expenses, and you come up with this magic number of what your members would be. And then I also calculated in if I hired staff, like at ma what that would deduct and how many, you know, so that helps me to. How many members in, at what price for my rate, for my membership.
Right. And now, and that was originally when I was thinking of a Monday through Friday practice with me and an ma and possibly in the future, hiring a doc to my practice and maybe in the future, having multiple locations in my city. That was my original thought when I was saying 600 members. But now, and this is what I love about DPC, because you have that flexibility to change and morph for your business over time.
Now that I'm open and accepting members, and I have this Monday, Wednesday, Friday, half day schedule, I have now decided that I wanna keep that indefinitely. And so I will now be doing a goal of four to four 50 members. I'll indefinitely keep Monday, Wednesday, Friday when I no longer do Tuesday, Thursday, urgent care, they can still contact me, text me on those days.
Right. Um, and I, I really love the micropractice model. I love your fireside chat on micropractice that opened up a whole new window for me. And now my goal is to just eventually hire a VA and that's it. And have it be me and my family. And. What you would consider a part-time schedule, but with that full-time income as well.
So that is an option and that is an option that is better for my lifestyle. And I'm excited about that. So it'll probably move more, 400 to four 50 members.
Amazing. And you know, you, you highlight something that can happen even as early as day one is the pivoting, you know, the workflow doesn't work, gotta change it.
Uh, I don't know how I can handle this to my patients. I gotta change how they're being funneled into the clinic or, you know, do I pause on marketing or do I amp up marketing, whatever it is, but you highlight, um, so well that, yes, you have the ability to pivot because no one is owning this business except for you.
So I love that.
Yes.
And in terms of the micropractice. , what are the things that set you up for being able to practice under this idea and this focused goal of having a micropractice like you're explaining with yourself and your VA potentially in the future.
My space is a big part of that. So first of all, I was reading things like the lean startup. So I knew that keeping my overhead low was super important for me and my desired way to open my business. And so when I was looking for spaces, I was looking for things that would accommodate that. And I found this space, coincidentally, through a Facebook group, a healthcare Facebook group, and there was a therapist on there who opened a brand.
Fully built out wellness center. And she was looking for different healthcare providers for the different five rooms. And there were two rooms left and one of them was perfect for what I needed for my space. And I love this office so much and yes, check out the YouTube video on the tour, but I love it so much because it's modern, it's chic, it's updated, it's warm, but you get there.
And the lobby is beautiful, but there's a locked door and there's six light switches and it has a sign right there. And it tells you which business to just hit the light switch. Mine is light switch number six, but I also have a note that they can just send me a text too. Mm-hmm and when I see the light switch or get a text, I come out, walk out and I'm there and I bring them back.
So not having. Uh, a office that accommodates, you know, for you to not need a secretary is great. Or for me to not, you know, have to lock my door because reps wanna stop by it already is built in for that. And then of course, with DBC in general, they can text me. They can email me. I don't go to my office unless I have an in-person appointment scheduled.
Otherwise I'm taking videos and texts from home, which is awesome. So it's a really great practice and everything is automated. That's another key thing I wanna share with your, um, audience is just the power of automations, Calendly, automates everything for my scheduling, you know, they're able to choose if they want in person video or phone call visits.
Everything is of course, integrated to my EMR. Everything is easy to enroll through my website. It's a seamless automation. They get an automatic email with the next steps. So I'm really just here to answer questions. Really I'm hiring a BA in the future. So I don't have to answer the phone and say, no, we don't accept insurance and all of that.
So it's great.
Awesome. And you know, on that, when you mention the, the phone calls, there's a lot of chatter about like, oh, I just don't ever answer the phone. Or I say like, if you want me text me or leave a voicemail, what's your opinion on, you know, what works for your community as to having a VA and having a person actively answer the phone versus a, leave a voicemail or text us at this number.
I think this is personal preference. And I think this goes into the feel of what you want, what you desire and what works for your lifestyle. So what I have decided works for me is I use Google voice for my business. That's my business number. It comes to my cell phone and of course my EMR has it integrated with where all my patients come to my cell phone under a different number.
Right. Mm-hmm and those text messages come under a different number. So when people call me on the Google voice, I already know that they're calling from. Uh, you know, they're calling as an inquiry and in this season I have the time and the energy and I it's my baby. Right. It's in its infant stages. So I want to answer and I want to say, hi, this is Dr.
Jade with inspired primary care. What questions do you have? And people are shocked because I want them to get that initial feel of, oh my God, this is totally different in this phase. Right? So, and then I will be able to train my VA in the future to approach those phone calls. Like I do it, but I wanna do it first to hone in on these are the frequently asked questions so that I can build that out for a VA in the future.
So I love answering those Google voice calls in this season because I have the time, right. And I chose not to do a phone tree or anything for that. Now for my members, it was very important to train them on the right way. I don't know if train is the right word, but to teach them in the right ways to communicate with me.
And so what I created was a member's only card. When they join at their onboarding appointment, they get this nice little business card for members that has all the ways to contact me. And it has a QR code on the back for their follow up appointments. And they get a text message with the link as well, but it just really streamlines everything it says for non-urgent things, text Dr.
Jade or email Dr. Jade at this number and at this email for urgent things, if it's after hours or on the weekend. And I give them the example, like you've cut yourself open and you need me to sew you up. Mm-hmm okay. Great. Call me. and if I don't answer, leave a voicemail, I'll call you back. And then for emergent things, call 9 1 1.
If you have crushing chest pain, call 9 1 1. So now they understand when to text me how fast to expect some, a, a response back. And it's great.
And have you seen, especially, you know, from day one to now a few months in, um, have you seen the patient. Question that, and not necessarily, uh, reach out to you in the proper way.
And now they're like, oh, we totally have this. How soon did you see your patients? Take that card and then truly embrace that card. And now they're following the boundaries or they're respecting the boundaries.
So the card came about because people were getting confused on how to contact me.
So that was a pivot to, and of course I presented as, as I wanna enhance your experience, that also brought about me doing a member's only newsletter. So I use MailChimp and I, you know, have a MailChimp that is just for, my non-members and have a non-member pool. And then within MailChimp, you're able to tag people that are members, anybody who books through my Calendarly automatically gets added to my newsletter.
So it's awesome how you built that newsletter, but I'm able to send out a member's only newsletter. And I do that basically as things come up, I let them know when I'm on vacation. I let them know any updates about the practice. And I have that reminder on the different ways to reach out. And so, um, as I was seeing that people were unsure, like calling me for a refill that in the next newsletter I'm putting in there, do you need a refill?
Send me a text, send me a email. So just those type of things. And then they're like, oh, I'm supposed to text or email. Yep.
And the members only card. How did you come up with that idea?
I came up with the idea for the members only card because I had members.
Every appointment at the end of the appointment, they would ask me, can you send me the link again for how to schedule my appointments? And I didn't mind resending it to them, but I was like, I think there's a way I can streamline this. Of course, I told them, Hey, try to save the link to your, to your notes so that you always have the link.
But then with the members only newsletter, I always have a button for that follow up appointment, but then I, again, as they were unsure, if they should text or call or email or, or what's the best way to reach out, I figured, let me streamline this with a card and QR codes or everything right now in this season.
So I said, how cool with that on the back to have a follow up appointment, here's your QR code? So they can just scan it with their phone and then it goes straight to my calendar. So that's been really great and they love it. They love like having that most people have their wallet with them, so they have their little card in the wallet.
So it's been cool. So it came out of people being unsure with which method, because there's so many methods with DPC that you can contact your doctor. Under which scenario should I use, which method? So it's streamlined, everything. Love that.
And then when you mentioned how a person will schedule ly and it is, automatically putting their information into your MailChimp, how is that integrated?
Do you use Zapier? Do you use Pavley? What do you use or is it automatic for MailChimp?
That's an automatic MailChimp feature. You, when I created Calendly, it had a button where you could integrate to MailChimp and I click that and now it does it
love it, love it. And then in terms of. The your practice and the patients now who have joined your practice, one of the videos also included on your blog, uh, is a patient testimonial that I love.
I love, like I was not ready to see that. And then it popped up on my feet and I watched, and I was like, that's gold. And so I love, this person, they are sharing their story about how they found you. And that story is your marketing tool, for your community. So, please share what event was that, that you met this person at and how has it worked out since, they learned about your practice and became a member?
Yes, it's great. Because Vegas is my hometown, but I've been gone for over a decade. So I'm like a new person back in my hometown. It was really important for me to relearn my community. So I really started following different Las Vegas, social groups, black Las Vegas groups on Instagram, and really trying to show up and support their causes.
And what I have found is social sharing is amazing. All of those type of organizations were crucial in sharing out about the opening of my practice. So one of the local organizations that has lots of, um, meet and greets for professionals, like after our meet and greets, they were having a women's event.
It, well, it wasn't just for women, but they were highlighting women own businesses. Mm-hmm . And so I just went to this event to support it. It was at a local lounge. And, um, luckily, you know, for me, the host of the event was nice enough to have me stand up and was like, oh, I just also in the audience is Dr.
Jay. She just opened a practice wave Dr. Jay, if you need quality, primary care, talk to her after. So. That's gold. Right? That's amazing. So then after women were coming and I was just, it, it comes from genuine. I really am an introvert, so I don't like networking, but I've learned to just really be excited about getting to know what resources are in the community, how I can build, you know, value in my membership and how I can support others.
And so it's just this mutual thing. So I, I met one of the women at the event. She actually happened to be a nurse practitioner who owns her own primary care practice, but wanted her, she needed her own primary doctor. So that was amazing. And she has a huge social media following and she just, I didn't ask, after her onboarding appointment, she in her car, she made this huge video about her experience, how amazing it is, how others should join and tagged me.
And so I asked her, Hey, do you mind if I turn this into a YouTube video and share it on my Instagram? And she said, oh, please do. And there you go. That again, you're documenting, not creating.
Amazing amazing. And, again, check out that YouTube video because the, the power of your patient stories is so there's nothing like it.
So, um, you know, think about that as you're talking to those patients who are walking billboards for your practice and, um, see how you can harness that. And for other members, do you now ask people like, Hey, you know, can you leave us a Google review?
If they've had an incredible visit with you, how do you, um, encourage people to also leave feedback for your
practice? I love this question. Maryelle because I feel like this is a huge step that a lot of people aren't tapping into and it's so crucial because our world runs off of Google reviews. Right?
And so how I do it is at the end of my appointments, every appointment at the end of my new appointments and follow up appointments. Again, it's automated, you know, I say, thank you so much for your visit. It has a little template. I've actually shared it on our DPC docs group. Um, but I have a little template that automat automatically sends to them and it's basically thanking them for their visit.
I let them know that they'll get like their after visit summary soon in their email. And if you, you know, enjoyed your experience at our practice, please share it on our Google review page. And just about, uh, many members have just, you know, they want to, um, tell people how great it is if you ask. And we don't ask so often many of us don't and so that's a automated feature.
And that's been great with just getting feedback after, and it happens. I have it timed where it automatically sends 10 minutes after their visit. Nice. Very
cool. And thank you for sharing that because yeah, the, when we are growing by word of mouth in our communities, , having that Google street cred is really great.
And you know, this is actually a tip that Dr. Dipty Monor gave me, but,
you can put, pictures and videos you can do it, you can use it as a social platform in and of itself, for affecting your community. So thank you for mentioning that. Yes. Now, I wanna ask about procedures because procedures are included in your, in the membership.
And so I wanna ask there, because, you know, with inflation, with um, ability to get lidocaine being harder, what made you decide that procedures would be included with the membership?
Yes. So this goes back to looking at your numbers and your projections and your profit and loss statement and all of that, because for me, I want to build as much value in my membership as possible, but the numbers also have to make sense. So. I figured out for my practice, that free procedures would work.
And I decided for my practice that I did not wanna dispense. So I feel like you can change those things over time. And I feel like as my business continues to grow, if I start to see on my monthly profit and loss statements, that I'm, for example, losing money because of procedures, then I can pivot to saying, Hey, now, you know, due to inflation, our procedures will you'll.
We will have just covering the cost of supplies. You know, that's an option to pivot towards that in the future, if needed. But in this season, again, my members are not, overutilizing my procedures and I love doing procedures. So a lot of times I'm like, do you need a joint injection? Do you, do you need anything?
And they're like, no, I'm good. You know, I'm I'm because I'm a wellness focused physician. I find myself. Acquiring patients that want a more holistic approach to things and more lifestyle medicine approach. So they're really low utilizers on procedures so far. So I, I feel like it's just an added bonus to save them that type of money.
Awesome. When we talk about you embracing your creative side, you are a serial entrepreneur, and I love that about you.
You are, um, you are an author, you are a wellness coach and you even have your, your mantra. Health, it's a lifestyle. So can you share a little bit about your other entrepreneurial adventures in being a, being an author and being a
wellness coach.
Yes. So I love to create, and these projects kind of come to me through a need in my own life or in the experience of people who are asking me questions. So for example, I never really, I knew I wanted to write books in the future, but I didn't necessarily ever think about being a children's book author until I had my daughter.
And when I had Ava, I was looking for diverse books with diverse characters in them that had like a really empowering message about you can do and be anything. Uh, and I couldn't necessarily find the specific type of book I was looking for. I bought lots of books on Amazon and they were either, you know, diverse characters, but didn't have the message or had the message, but weren't diverse.
And so I decided, okay, well, I'm gonna look on YouTube. How do I, how do I write a children's book? Have a background in writing poetry. So I, you know, the words, God gave me the words to it, and then it was more so just the logistics. Okay. Well, how do I become a self-published author? And so I figured that out.
And so that was how my empowerment children's book series started. And once I wrote you can call me queen for Ava and for all the other little girls who needed that type of message. I started having these boy moms reach out to me. And my husband also encouraged me to say like, Hey, boys need a book like this too, which led to you can call me king.
And now it's become, you know, people are asking me again, I have this, um, email list and they're emailing me and asking, Hey, when's the next book of the series coming out? So now it's an empowerment book series and we're working on the third children's book. So that just came about through just from the need for my own daughter.
And now it's so rewarding to see how that is growing, um, into its own movement. And then wellness coaching is just lifestyle medicine. And basically my passion in medicine. It's helping to prevent and reverse chronic disease. That is why I do what I do, especially in like all of our med school lectures. I would hear about how people of color, especially black people were like the highest on almost all chronic diseases.
And I learned so much about lifestyle and preventive medicine and it wasn't being utilized and talked about enough. So wellness coaching came about from that passion.
In terms of the lifestyle medicine that you provide, because those people are your Shawnees, the people who are wanting a more holistic approach, like you said, do you charge any extra for different levels of care.
If somebody wants to, you know, talk more about lifestyle medicine in depth beyond their regular member type
visit, that's a great question. So I have a unique background before starting going into med school. I worked as. Group fitness coach and personal trainer mm-hmm in undergrad. And then after that, I worked as a pharmacy technician and then after that, you know, medical school.
So I have this background of these different, um, industries that showed me different methods of health transformation, different ways to approach health transformations. And so I created what I call my inspired health method, and it's basically using the principles of lifestyle medicine, but just in a pneumonic that really makes it simple and easy.
And I include my wellness coaching and creating your personalized, inspired health method in my membership. So wellness coaching is included for my members and it's also a separate business for me, where I do wellness coaching. I do it as individual one hour appointments, and I recommend for people to see me monthly.
And, but they have the freedom to see me as often as they would like. So it's a separate business for non-members and it's virtual. So I can do it from anywhere. And it's built into my membership for inspired primary care members.
Love that. It's so smart in terms of diversifying the ways that money is made, as well as your ability to continue to be creative and to continue, doing what you love.
So now in closing, I wanna ask for those people who are finding themselves in your shoes, I'm a medical student, I'm a resident, and I wanna do DPC.
What other words of advice would you give them as they, as they go into their DPC
journey? So the advice I would give them is to know that it's possible to know that there are people doing this straight from residency that are crushing it and to get in contact with them. You can contact me to follow them on social media.
The DPC community is so, um, welcoming and willing to coach you and give you pearls of wisdom along the way. That's definitely been my experience. So the first thing is to know that it's possible and that it's being done. I think that's the first major thing I would tell med students and residents and, to just also, if they can go to the DPC conferences, I don't know if they'll be virtual anymore, but that was also huge for me to just see the community and to join the Facebook groups is huge because you automatically have the community at your fingertips and using that search function within those groups to any question that pops in your head to search it, it's been asked before and then just learning.
Well
that, and you mentioned reaching out to you. So I wanna ask here, how do people contact you after this
interview? Yes, so I am very active on Instagram, especially I'm on YouTube TikTok, Facebook, you know, I've enveloped myself in all of that, but I'm really active on Instagram. So at Dr. J M D D R J a D E M D and ed inspire primary care, we still inspire without the eye in the front, um, at both of those places, answering questions very often.
And then on my website, ed inspire primary care.com on the contact page. That form comes straight to my email, to my phone. So people can also contact me through that as well. Amazing.
Thank you so much, Dr. Jade for joining us
today. Thank you for having me.
*Transcript generated by AI, so please forgive errors.