In today’s episode of, the Finance For Physicians Podcast we’ll continue our deep dive into physician entrepreneurship.
Our guest is Christopher Habig, a professional that specializes in helping other physicians kickstart their direct-care practice through an innovative model he developed at his company Freedom Healthworks.
Christopher is also the host of Healthcare Americana, a podcast that hosts innovative but obscure medical professionals that put patients first, and engages in deep conversations regarding the many issues in our healthcare system.
And more importantly, how to solve them.
If you believe direct care is one of the main verticals that will change healthcare for the better and want to start your own, or you just want to create impact in your vertical – this is the episode for you!
Links:
Contact Finance for Physicians
Full Episode Transcript:
Daniel : What’s up guys? Hope you’re having a great day. As you know, we’ve been really digging into this idea of physician entrepreneurship. If you’ve listened to the last few episodes you’ll know we’ve started to kind of cover that and we’ve even talked to some people that have really gotten into physician entrepreneurship.
We’ve explored, what this might look like and really talked about, some alternatives out there. I really am convinced that physician entrepreneurship is a fantastic solution for a lot of the healthcare problems that exist. I think you guys are super smart and really know what a lot of these solutions need to look like, and the more we can get you in a position.
Making decisions and, driving the ship, which is what entrepreneurship is, the better, outcomes will be. And so I’m excited about physician entrepreneurship. In particular, I really love this subset of physician entrepreneurship, what I would call direct care or direct primary care.
That’s like a subset of direct care. And so direct care which we’ve also covered in prior shows. really just doing medicine just straight up simple with the patient. Like patient you work with the patient, patient pays you and cutting out all the other baggage of healthcare, like the insurance and the billing and the hospital systems and all that stuff.
And so, I love direct care as a solution to a lot of the mess in healthcare. And so today I’m excited because I get to share my conversation I had with Christopher Haig, and he is a consultant to direct primary care practices. His firm helps physicians to make the jump and start up their, uh, direct care practices, and they provide some of the tools to get ’em going and support them along the way as they run their practices.
And so he has a lot of ex, they work with, over a hundred physician practices and they’ve had a lot of experience with that transition. He also hosts a podcast healthcare Americana, where they talk about direct care and some of the problems in healthcare, and they talk about direct care as a solution.
And so make sure to go check that out, especially if you have interest in this particular business. And so, Christopher and I. About some of these healthcare problems that exist, and we get into talking about how direct care works in general and how it’s such a great solution. He shares how some of how he’s seen some of the physicians they work with, how they’ve been able to get over this fear of taking that big risk and how, how your peers are able to make this big jump.
And so we also talk a little bit about their services and how his company, which is the consulting company he founded and runs, is called Freedom HealthWorks. How they are able to help physicians to make this transition and manage those practices along the way. So, I think it’s gonna be interesting conversation.
It’s a topic I really am interested in and Chris has a lot of insight into. Into this, the challenges and this particular solution. And so I think it’s gonna be enjoyable for you as well. So we’re gonna jump in and hope you enjoy it. What’s up guys? Hope you’re having a great day. As you know, we’ve been really digging into this idea of physician entrepreneurship. If you’ve listened to the last few episodes you’ll know we’ve started to kind of cover that and we’ve even talked to some people that have really gotten into physician entrepreneurship.
We’ve explored, what this might look like and really talked about, some alternatives out there. I really am convinced that physician entrepreneurship is a fantastic solution for a lot of the healthcare problems that exist. I think you guys are super smart and really know what a lot of these solutions need to look like, and the more we can get you in a position.
Making decisions and, driving the ship, which is what entrepreneurship is, the better, outcomes will be. And so I’m excited about physician entrepreneurship. In particular, I really love this subset of physician entrepreneurship, what I would call direct care or direct primary care.
That’s like a subset of direct care. And so direct care which we’ve also covered in prior shows. really just doing medicine just straight up simple with the patient. Like patient you work with the patient, patient pays you and cutting out all the other baggage of healthcare, like the insurance and the billing and the hospital systems and all that stuff.
And so, I love direct care as a solution to a lot of the mess in healthcare. And so today I’m excited because I get to share my conversation I had with Christopher Haig, and he is a consultant to direct primary care practices. His firm helps physicians to make the jump and start up their, uh, direct care practices, and they provide some of the tools to get ’em going and support them along the way as they run their practices.
And so he has a lot of ex, they work with, over a hundred physician practices and they’ve had a lot of experience with that transition. He also hosts a podcast healthcare Americana, where they talk about direct care and some of the problems in healthcare, and they talk about direct care as a solution.
And so make sure to go check that out, especially if you have interest in this particular business. And so, Christopher and I. About some of these healthcare problems that exist, and we get into talking about how direct care works in general and how it’s such a great solution. He shares how some of how he’s seen some of the physicians they work with, how they’ve been able to get over this fear of taking that big risk and how, how your peers are able to make this big jump.
And so we also talk a little bit about their services and how his company, which is the consulting company he founded and runs, is called Freedom HealthWorks. How they are able to help physicians to make this transition and manage those practices along the way. So, I think it’s gonna be interesting conversation.
It’s a topic I really am interested in and Chris has a lot of insight into. Into this, the challenges and this particular solution. And so I think it’s gonna be enjoyable for you as well. So we’re gonna jump in and hope you enjoy it.
Christopher, welcome to the podcast.
Christopher Habig: Daniel, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.
Daniel : We have a ton to talk about, and I’m, super excited about our conversation today. We were catching up before and there’s just a lot of things I think that are gonna be helpful for you guys listening that, that we’re gonna cover today. So just, I’m gonna let Chris share a little bit of a background on him, but I think the thing that I’m most excited about in our conversation, Is this world of healthcare that we’re in, and a lot of these.
Problems that we see cropping up with a lot of you guys that are listening in the system is, bogging you down. I’m a real big fan, and if you guys have been listening, I’m a huge fan of entrepreneurship and I think that’s a fantastic solution to help propel you in a better direction.
But in particular, I love this idea of direct care, like within the entrepreneurship world, being a direct care physician I think is a f. Model and it helps solve a lot of these problems. And so Chris happens to have a business where he helps physicians to build their direct care practices and he hosts a podcast where they talk about all that sort of stuff.
So I think we got, like I said, I, we got a lot of good stuff to talk about. I’m excited about it. And so maybe we could jump into it and start with just a little bit about you and your business and kind of where you.
Christopher Habig: Yeah, Dana. Absolutely. I always like to say, how far back do you want me to go? I am not a physician myself. I did not go to medical school. I thought about it. I wanted to, I was that weird kid. I have a finance major, but I also did all the pre-med requirements. And so, people are like, why are you doing this to yourself?
I had way more credits than I needed with a single. And I found the sciences to be absolutely fascinating. Like, I’m that weird kid who thought organic chemistry was fascinating. Like I loved physics. Like the weird kid, right? Both my parents are physicians small town Indiana. I grew up the school bus would drop me off at my dad’s office after school every single day until I was able to, start playing sports and drive myself around.
Medicine. I like to say medicine is not just in my dna, but it is like core to my values. It was core to my experience growing up and dad was the first doctor, I think his practice started in like 19 81, 82 in a small town north of Indianapolis. He was the first primary care doctor in the town.
Everybody knew Dr. Haig. And he knew everybody else. He’s like citizen of year, like did all the football games. My mom was at a neighboring county and helped set up the first hospital program over there and just like very accomplished physicians. So around dinner table, with hectic lives going ev on everywhere.
It was actually rare that we were all together as a family, all five of us. And we talked about patience, we talked about the business side of it. These were. Owners, right? So you fast forward into where I’m in college and taking all these pre-med courses and start shadowing doctors and this like Pleasantville bubble just burst.
And I can almost remember the day in the conversation when I was talking to doctors and shadowing them and saying, yeah, I wanna go to med school. And the doctors turned it around at me and said, why the hell would you want to do that?
I’m like, well wait a. He called my parents up, be like, yeah, can you believe this?
And they’re like, well, yeah, that’s actually a lot of people’s experience. They go, Chris, we probably wouldn’t go back to medical school today if you gave us a second shot. My parents said that as independent practice owners. And I’m thinking, holy cow, reality comes at you quick. Thank God I had a finance degree to fall back on because for some reason I enjoyed markets and investments too.
Someday I will connect the dots on how that happened and everything along those lines, but I just used that story to illustrate, as an impressionable 22 year old coming outta school. I remember the day I shut my MCAT book out, be like, well, I didn’t tell, I didn’t talk to anybody who said, medicine’s a good idea.
Go to medical school, Chris. You’re gonna love it. Everybody’s like, I’m freaking miserable. I’m counting down the years until I’m out of this. I have a number in my head. Once I hit that number, see a hospital, see a medicine, I couldn’t care. And I’m like, well, this is screwed up. This is really screwed up. So get outta school.
I bounced around a couple different industries. I was, running an art gallery, art publishing. I was in single family residential real estate investment all the way through picking up different experiences. I kind of describe myself as not necessarily a Jack of all trades, master of few, I guess, but kinda like that Renaissance, like I have a lot of different interests, as you could probably tell.
And then, going back to the family side of it, I had some family members that got sick and the hospitalists were making rush decisions that would’ve killed her. And if we didn’t have, mom and dad able to step in. Second, get a second opinion and go over their heads.
I, we would’ve lost some very important people in my life. And I said, what do we do when you guys aren’t around anymore and we get sick? And they just said, don’t ever go to a hospital, and if you have to go, don’t go to a hospital alone. And so this, I just say this, like, to just build the foundation of like, who I am and how my thought, how my my ethos is kind of formed here.
We got going, we got involved in the direct care world and Freedom Health Works. Not necessarily, on purpose, but it was one of those things where we talked to so many friends and family and everybody’s just so frustrated and everybody just expects a really horrible patient experience that they didn’t wanna go see the doctor.
Doctors didn’t wanna be doctors anymore. You’re like, what is going on? This is weird. And so one day we got, this idea and it kind of hit us in a face, like a wet newspaper and a windy day. We like to say that, what if you didn’t do business with insurance companies? What if you didn’t do business with the government?
What would medicine look like at that point in time? And every doctor we interviewed said, well, I think that’s illegal. I think I’m pretty sure I have to accept. I. And we dove a little deeper and we said, why? Wait a minute. I think there’s a business idea here where, you know my business partner and I is actually my brother, so he very similar, upbringing, we can use our entrepreneurial skills, help physicians start up independent practices, free of third party payers entirely in charge.
Basically what Netflix is doing or what a gym does charge a monthly membership. Without the overhead, without, the hassles of hr, without the just runaround from trying to get reimbursed for hundreds of thousands of billing codes. What if we just simplified the business of medicine and let doctors focus on patients so that.
They can actually provide great patient experiences and people actually look forward to building a lasting, trusting relationship with their local community physician. So, long-winded story, Daniel. But what we really focus at Freedom Health Works is empowering the physician and re localizing healthcare.
Helping physicians walk into the local restaurant and recognize people, be trusted and not just be seen as somebody with a stethoscope and a white coat anymore.
Daniel : Yeah, and I know the system has got a. Problems. And I, we hear similar things from physicians we work with and talk to, and there’s a lot of frustrations and it does seem kinda weird. Like it’s just something’s wrong with the system. Like it doesn’t make sense to me. A lot of things that I hear, I’m like, that’s just not logical.
And I think change is necessary, like something’s gonna have to change. And that’s probably why I. Direct cares. It kind of goes back to the basics. But I’m curious about the system as we’re talking about the system, like, and your thoughts on this. Like, I feel like the system has caused a lot of the problems, but I’m curious about the care that physicians are providing in the system.
In particular, like, do you think that the system or the state of medicine or whatever, whatever we wanna call it, Is inhibiting physician’s ability to still continue to follow the Hippo Hippocratic Oath and their, cuz physicians, I think of as very high ethical standards and, the Hippocratic Oath is kind of like the thing that they, you know, we all agree to or they all agree to.
But it seems that, it could be that the system is now in conflict of that.
Christopher Habig: Yes and no. I don’t think you could actually talk to a physician and say, and hey, do you think when you’re giving care decisions to somebody or recommending treatment or options, do you think you’re harming them first? Do you think this is the best way to go? And they’d be like, absolutely not. I am providing the best of my ability, these treatment options.
Where I think why I said yes and no to that is because almost to a. If you asked a follow up question of, great, do you know the cost and the financial impact and the stress that you would cause by recommending these treatment patterns, these treatments to your patients, what if you recommended these treatments and medically this is the right decision, but what if your hospital bankrupted that patient or put them hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt that they are then crushed by and that affects their living?
Are you actually doing what’s right for that patient and their health? And that is a component that. That is purely on the system. I cringe when I hear, someone say that, in the United States, we spend the most on medical care and have, less than whatever it is, outcomes we have worse outcomes than blah, blah, blah.
Okay. Yes. On the money side of it, a lot of that is funny money. Let’s just understand that. But who are you gonna go see? Are you getting sick and then saying, you know what? I’m gonna fly to El Salvador because their doctors are the best, are no people are coming to United States because we have the best physicians in the best medical community.
Hands down, end of debate. It’s the business of medicine that is so screwed up. That’s where the systems really came in and messed everything up. And the doctors and nurses are on the front line, so they of course take all the arrows because we don’t have anybody else to talk to. And it’s so opaque that we can’t find answers without, being frustrated and, you know, as patients and just completely losing faith in what we perceive as our physicians and medical.
Daniel : Yeah, I think when you have, when you’re so squeezed for time and capacity and like attention to an individual, you’re gonna be prone to. Make, either make mistakes or just miss things. And I had an experience in just like a week ago at a doctor’s office where, you know, and they’re, these are good, smart doctors, like that’s not the issue.
Where it was super quick visit, it was like five minutes and it was a new young doctor and it was super awkward because he was trying to get to know me in one minute and. Trying to do this stuff that he had to do in the other four minutes. And I’m like, this is just, let’s just, I mean, I don’t know.
I don’t even know how to deal with this.
Christopher Habig: you imagine? Uh, sorry, sorry, but I’m just laughing. I’m like, could you imagine being, uh, a spectator like in that residency or in that medical school that are like, okay, here’s your breakdown. Minute number one, get to know your patient. Minute number two enter information on a computer.
And I, who would actually look at that in a straight face and be like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like here’s our seven minute visit.
Daniel : Yeah, and it was so rushed and I, he, I felt bad for him because he was rushed. And then later on the prescription that I had to get was wrong too. And I think, I mean, it wasn’t a big deal in my case and I noticed it, but like that’s kind of a big deal. And I don’t know why all that’s happened and the details of it all, but like, I think, a lot of those sorts of things are happening cuz it’s just so crunched.
It’s like when you have, a gazillion. Meetings a day and like everybody’s saying, you gotta see more people and like, gotta produce more RVs and blah, blah, blah. And then all the other check boxes you gotta check. And it’s like, man, this is making my head spin.
Christopher Habig: Lots of thoughts on that one. Lots of opinions. I’m not short on opinions and I’m short not afraid to share ’em. Yeah, our whole, the whole business of medicine right now is based on quantity. Which is fascinating to see what Covid did because in 2020 when you know, most local jurisdictions and governments shut down face-to-face interactions and forced closures on businesses, the prevailing business model was that physicians to get paid, they had to see people face-to-face.
When those offices closed, those doctors were released. They were let. So you’re looking at a business model that thrives on having a one-on-one interaction, whether do they need it or not. So there were no other ancillary revenue streams coming in there. This whole concept of reimbursement just drives me up a wall.
I don’t know why we have to be reimbursed for, smart people spending time and trying to heal people. But you can easily see, you’re like, wow, okay. This makes a lot of sense from the hospital standpoint that the more you know, I only make money, the more people you. So underlying that is incentives.
One of my favorite things to talk about, hospitals are incentivized by insurance companies to see as many people as they possibly can. When you flip the script and you’re a direct pay practice, cuz you have a limited set of panel patients, you’re seeing 20% of the patients that you did before. You are incentivized to get those people healthy and keep them healthy.
So it’s almost like a fast food model versus like a really fine dining model where fast food you’re trying to get. In and out of there as quickly as you possibly can. Quality of the food be damned in a direct pay model, you want somebody to have a pleasant experience. You want them to enjoy their meals so that they’re gonna come back and keep paying you because they value the trust and the relationship that you, and that your practice brings to their family.
Daniel : That’s a good example because, and the other part about my experience is I had to talk to somebody in the doctor’s office and she was just so grumpy. Life in general. It was just bleeding, from her that she was just frustrated with the world. And I’m like, man, that’s a tough spot to be in. And I think in that system, I mean, when you create a system like that’s kind of a, and it’s like a fast food restaurant is a good example.
Like the, a lot of the times the people working there are ah, it’s, just a job. I gotta get it done and I gotta flip the hamburger and that the hamburger’s not gonna be great, but you know, it’s fast and. It is what it is, but you know.
Christopher Habig: The favorite question I love asking anybody in the medical world is how do you define quality? Because everybody will have up on the wall that we don’t provide the most qual, the highest quality care, and the highest quality of this and this, and this. You ask the grumpy employee like, ma’am, how would you say you’re doing a good job?
How would you say you’re providing quality care? And she’d probably be like, well, I gotta see 35 people in and outta here. Well, wait a minute. That’s not what, how would I would define quality healthcare? Then you ask the doctor, Hey, what, how do you define quality healthcare? And I say, well, it’s whatever.
My chief medical officer tells me this. Okay, go to the chief medical officer. Hi, Mr. Chief Medical, Dr. Chief Medical Officer, how would you define quality? And the honest ones will tell you that it is whatever that CMS and the insurance companies tells ’em it is. And that quality, those quality metrics blow with the win my friend.
They change constantly. You go and ask, the people that you work with on the direct pay side, how they define quality. I’m betting you hear the word time in their answer. Quality of care is how much time I am able to spend with my. And that’s what sets that mindset. It’s a psychological switch between the hamster wheel quantity medicine versus direct pay quality
Daniel : Mm-hmm. Yeah I’m a big fan of it. I’ve said that about 17 times. I’m gonna say it again. Again. So, but for those of you guys that haven’t dug into it a lot, maybe we could talk, maybe we could take a step back. Like what exactly, let’s make sure we’re clear on like what exactly direct care is, like direct primary care.
You maybe have heard that, but like we’re saying direct care, so like what’s direct care? What’s direct Primary care, like direct specialty care. Like what is all this stuff we’re talking about?
Christopher Habig: it’s really. When we first started the company we started throwing out this term called classic care because it’s returning the business of medicine back to like the fifties, sixties, and seventies and beyond. And before that, so I laugh and I’m like, what we do at Freedom Health Works is we help physicians start out their own practices and then we help them run their practices with front office and back office services so that they can keep their expenses and their overhead as low as possible, run a lean operating model, and they get to focus on patient.
It’s a win-win, on both sides of the equation there. If I went back to the sixties and seventies and said, Hey, this is what I do for a living. I think they look at me like I was some kind of alien. They’re like, well, we just walked down the street to the doctor or call him and he comes, make a house call.
What are you talking about? Insurance and government involvement that doesn’t exist. Right? So it’s a very recent in. By a kind of a dictionary definition of of DPC direct primary care. It’s a model of deliv healthcare delivery where we eliminate the insurance management and provides patients with direct access to their physician.
Pure and simple. I say, imagine you still having a cable package, and for those of you out there who still do, I apologize, but you’re paying, uh, you’re paying hundreds of dollars a month for 500 channels where you watch maybe six of them. You’re saying, look. All right. My favorite show comes on at Sundays at 8:00 PM and I have to be in front of the television to watch that show.
At 8:00 PM Netflix comes along and says, Hey, I’m gonna charge you. I think it was like seven bucks, eight bucks when they first started per month. And you can watch your favorite television show anywhere, anytime, on any device whenever you want to. The pupil said, holy. The whole streaming on demand, revolution kicked off.
No longer are we beholden to calling up a doctor’s office and saying, Hey, I’m sick. When can you get me in? And they say, well, we’ll see you in three weeks. How does that help anybody? I just, I don’t get it. So the medical industry really shot itself in the foot too many times and people started to look for other options.
And that’s really where direct care thrived by building in a business model that we all. And really love from the streaming on demand recurring revenue and really membership subscription model. When we talk about direct care, sorry to answer your question there we’re getting a lot of interest from specialists who are saying, Hey, I’m really jealous of what those primary care doctors are doing.
Can I start doing something like this too? So I would say the bullseye of the target is certainly on those third party payers to bud out of care decisions and really stop complicating. The business of medicine, it’s pure and simple.
Daniel : Yeah, let’s go back to the basics. Simplify it and so specialists can, there is a model for specialists too, or I think, I think of some of the, maybe the more obvious ones, like, I don’t know, like sleep medicine seems like it would make sense cuz it’s, you’re having regular visits or I don’t know, are there different specialties that are just never gonna be able to do this?
Christopher Habig: Haven’t found one yet. I’m a firm believer that all physicians are specialists, and so when I talk about primary care, I’m talking family medicine, internal, and pediatrics. Those are usually the three specialties where people will access our healthcare world, our healthcare industry. Right. We have the growth.
Independent ambulatory surgical centers. We have cash pace surgery centers. So, we have the start and we have kinda like the end the two bookends as I put it, a lot. We’ve got the start, we’ve got the finish. Once you have surgery, there’s not a lot that can go beyond that. Even physical therapy can come downstream with it.
So we have calf surgery centers and in there, and you got anesthesiology, you got orthos, you got all kinds of, got gis, you got all kinds of things. Happy within their surgery centers beyond what I consider primary care. I mean, rheumatology, obs are prospering, dermatologists, cardiologists, gastros ENTs, podiatrists.
These are our actual specialists. These are all practices that are existing. They’re real. Right now. They’re doctors around the country doing
Daniel : Doing well.
Christopher Habig: Some of ’em might be a little bit more episodic, right? And then we build in packages saying, all right, from a cardiologist, stand. Maybe you need to come in.
It’s a six month treatment plan. We’re gonna try to cure you, which nobody ever hears from a doctor’s office these days, right? You look puzzled by saying that hospitals don’t want to cure you. They don’t wanna cure a somebody of diabetes because they stop making money off of that person if they’re no longer diabetic.
That’s their business model. Our business model is we want to get you healthy so that you stay with our practice as long as you possibly can. So going back to incentive.
I think anybody who looks at the healthcare system be like, is my doctor financially incentivized to have my best interest at heart? And if you don’t know that and they can’t get an answer, you gotta look for other options out there because you need somebody on your team who is gonna take your health seriously and not just kick you down the hall, who then is gonna kick you down the hall and they’re gonna recommend a battery of services and imaging and drugs and see what.
Daniel : Yeah, I a lot of people a lot of physicians resonate that I talk with about this. They resonate with the idea. They like the concept. I’ll ask ’em, my, one of my favorite ways to kind of enter the. Idea is to say, well, what if, if you were like completely financially independent, like if you had all the money in the world, like would you resonate with changing to this type of model or whatever.
And a lot of times that is, they give me a positive there, but then we kind of come back to the president and it gets a little scarier and scarier. As you start to add in, like all the stuff and everything so in reality it’s really scary and intimidating and then you start to doubt it and you’re like, what ifs?
Or like, you know what, if nobody comes, like, nobody’s gonna pay me. Like, nobody’s going to, what if all the patients leave? Or, I mean, there’s all these questions you ask, but how are we getting over that? How are people getting over those fears? Are the people you’re getting in touch with, like already pasted those fears?
Are they still, in the middle? Like, I’m curious about all that, because that seems to be the biggest hurdle is just the natural fears we have about taking a bigger risk.
Christopher Habig: Whenever I talk to a physician who’s thinking about this, I say, all right, let’s separate uncertainty from risk. The risk is almost nonexistent because we have a curated plan for you. It takes about 90 days to filter through our program and we provide a white glove service for you to baby step you along the way.
It’s not a leap of faith. I hear a leap of faith a lot. I’m like, you’re not just stepping off a cliff with your eyes closed. You’re stepping, one foot in front of the other going here. Is there uncertainty? Will local marketplaces support this type of a model? Well, yeah, chances are they will, because you only need a couple hundred to actually be profitable, a couple hundred patients to be profitable, where rural physicians before small towns needed two to three to 4,000 people to be profitable.
So we’re actually able to penetrate into much smaller markets, which gives us a much broader potential reach to that. I would say, answer the question a little bit more directly. There are three types of uncertainties that doctors come to us with. Market uncertainty, financial uncertainty, and operational uncertainty.
So market, who, how do I talk about this? Who’s gonna show up? Who’s gonna pay me? Cuz everybody, everybody’s on Medicaid or everybody’s on Medicare, or everybody has insurance, no one’s gonna pay cash. Well, that’s speculation. And speculation. It’s not healthy. Then you have, the financial risk. Hey, maybe I wasn’t as disciplined with my money as I should have been.
I don’t know if I can afford to start a practice. Well, we try, we have a couple different programs from that ranging from we will discount, our engagements with you to help you get up started. We’ll put you on a payment plan. We even have programs right now where we, you can do a zero cost startup where we come
Daniel : Your services,
Christopher Habig: practice.
Yeah. And so we say, all right, so we give you the tools, we’ll help you. We will help introduce you to Capital Partners, lending partners if you really need to. And then the operational risk. How do I actually run my own business? And we say, great. We’re gonna teach you everything we know about successful practices at this point.
We’re up in the 110, 120 successful practices that we’ve helped to build across the country over the last six or seven
Daniel : You got a model.
Christopher Habig: There’s a process, right? You follow our process. Unless something really unforeseen happens, you’re going to be successful. And we’ve seen that. Our track record has proven that time and time again.
So going out as somebody who wants to go out and start a new business I would tell you right now, I’d be terrified if I went out and started, like a bakery or something. I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe that’s a passion of mine, but I would call people and I would enlist help, not just go out there and say, I learned my lessons cause I made all these mistakes and it cost me thousands and thousands of dollars, but I figured it out eventually.
I wanna shortcut that. I want you to not make those mistakes, expensive mistakes and waste time and money and effort and energy,
Daniel : And the part that’s the hardest about all that for me, if I’m looking at it is like, Doctoring part, like the being the expert part, that’s like the value, most valuable part of it. And you already have that down, like that’s get it down pat. So it’s just putting the other pieces around that is, is where the challenges are in that kind of thing is less, it doesn’t take as much time.
You can have people on your team to help and there’s all sorts of workarounds to it, like you.
Christopher Habig: Yeah, absolutely. I tell people all the time, it’s like, I could go out and build myself a brand new house. I could do it. I could figure I could go to lumberyard and take months and months, learn how to wire. I could do it. Is that the best use of my time and money? No, it’s not. Am I gonna make a mistake along the way?
Yeah, probably. Am I gonna be get done and have a great sense of satisfaction? Yes.
Is it gonna take 2, 3, 4 times as long and I’m gonna put a nail through my hand or have a wall collapse on me? Maybe I’d rather not that, I’d let her not let that.
Daniel : I would get divorced if I built my own house because my wife would kill, or my wife would kill me. Maybe. Actually,
Christopher Habig: So, so there’s the personal side of it too. A lot of our clients are still employed while building he, while we are building their practice in the background. So that
on Friday, hey, that was my last day as my 90 day notice to the hospital Monday, I’m seeing patients in my brand new DPC practice cuz I didn’t have to have any inco income interruption when as I transitioned.
Daniel : Yeah, I like that. I mean, that’s a, there’s ways, so what we’re talking about, I mean, there’s ways to mitigate these risks and, make it so that it’s actually a very low risk or even, and then talking about the life satisfaction thing I would propose the question like, what is the risk of working in a system that you hate for the rest of your life? What’s the cost there? Like there’s cost of everything. And like at that, I mean, if it’s about the salary, like what’s the salary worth you? Like, is it really about the money? Like what’s the money getting you? Like if you’re living a crappy life, like what’s the, it’s kind of like you’re not in a great place there as it is.
So like we gotta make a change. In a lot of cases, I think this is the change to make. I’m really curious about the burnout and the frustrations that exist within the system. Like, are you seeing any of your direct. People having burnout and frustrations like you’re seeing in the system,
Christopher Habig: No,
Daniel : it doesn’t exist, does it
Christopher Habig: no, no. Cuz work stay. You don’t. So, one of the hallmarks of the, of these practices is that you take longer with patients. We talked earlier about, we’re laughing about it and making light of the situation that, most doctors in a hospital employment have seven to like 11 minutes.
I think the numbers fluctuate just a little bit, but it’s basically the range in person with a patient of theirs. We have clients who build in 60 minute visits, maybe 55. You give themselves a little fire break right there, but. Which means anytime a physician wa or a patient walks into that office and it’s not something quick like, Hey, I was down the street, wanted to say hi, or grab a cur egg coffee, or whatever it is, you’re gonna sit down and talk to your doctor for an hour. They’re gonna build that relationship. They’re gonna build that trust, and you are gonna see the same doctor every single time you walk in there. That helps the patient, that helps the physician so the physician has time to enter their notes and do all their charting during your visit and actually looking in the eye during it.
Daniel : Mm-hmm.
Christopher Habig: right? Like I’m sure like people’s heads just exploded when I said that. So work stays there. That’s
the
Daniel : You don’t have to take
Christopher Habig: they get to go home, they get to go home and actually go to like a little league game, actually get home and have dinner with their family. And these are real
stories that I’m.
Daniel : and they’re like, guess what? I was, or one of their friends is like, where were you at? I was at the doctor’s office. You won’t believe it. I actually didn’t have to wait in the waiting room. person at the front office was really nice and pleasant. I sat down and. 50 minute conversation with my physician who I have their cell phone number and we, I feel heard and it was fantastic and you ought to go to ’em yourself.
Christopher Habig: Bingo.
Daniel : like referrals are huge,
Christopher Habig: 75% of new patients come from word of mouth and referrals.
Daniel : right? And physicians I think are used to this like referral networks within physicians thing going on. But like direct care practices, you get all kinds of word of mouth like patient
referrals
Christopher Habig: Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. absolutely. New patients coming and joining the practices, 75% of them and that number has stayed strong since the beginning.
Daniel : Yeah. Yeah. The, one of the other questions I want to ask you. I know I have like a zillion questions. We’re just not gonna get
Christopher Habig: Fire away man. Fire away.
Daniel : I know, I know, I know. We do have to go back to work. I think, we got a few more minutes, so I wanted to, one of the. Challenges, or I guess concerns I see people having is about serving the masses or being able to serve like people that are you know, Medicaid patients or whatever.
And so like, or just low income in general, like, and then you’re telling me you need to start billing them for a service. I think that’s a common concern, valid potentially.
Christopher Habig: Yeah, we’ve I think we’ve been brainwashed as a society that says when we pay for health insurance, that is healthcare costs. We’ve printed up thousands of t-shirts over our years that says healthcare does not equal health insurance. We can’t shout that up, from the heavens high enough, loud enough, often enough.
So when people are saying, why already pay for health insurance? Why should I join your practice? That’s number one question that we get. And. Some people are just, okay, that’s great. I, what I like to do is flip that and say, if you can’t afford the a hundred dollars for this practice, like that’s fine.
Go talk to the doctor. Because all of our clients, and every single doctor I’ve met in this has some type of scholarship program where if you are truly hard up for. They will discount their fees, they will barter with you. I’ve seen people bringing in, they work for beer distributors and so they get discounts cause they bring in cases of beer around the holidays and say, Hey doc, here you go.
Here’s my three month payment. And the doctor’s
Daniel : like, the
Christopher Habig: This is
Daniel : days.
Christopher Habig: This is amazing. Right? We can do that in these practices because we do not have private insurance contracts. We do not have contracts with Medicare. Being able to, charging somebody three cases of beer for a. Would be defrauding the federal government if that person was still opted into Medicare. You cannot charge less than what Medicare reimburses to a Medicare patient. If you are participating. You just defrauded the good people of the United States. So the government actually makes it very hard to provide charity and pro bono care.
Not many people realize that. And so what I tell people all the time, like this is the only medical model. Applicable and built for every single health plan out there. We have uninsured, we have Medicaid recipients, we have Medicare recipients, we have commercial insured, we have health shares. We have, private privately insured people from the exchange.
Every single one of them joins for a different reason. The motivations are a little bit different, but the common thread between all these is that there are usually people who have had really bad experiences with healthcare. Either their parents got sick and they were caregivers, or they got sick, or their kid was sick.
I am never going back to that. I want the access. I’m gonna pay for the access. And once they have the access, then they realize, the advocacy is really what keeps me here. Having that physician on speed dial on my team as my quarterback, that is why I stick around.
Daniel : Yeah, it’s really nice. You know that part of it is hard to understand if you’re, if you’ve never experienced that. But like it’s nice on both ends. Like it’s nice to have People that you interact with, that you enjoy, that value your service. I know a ton of you listening. have had plenty of patient encounters where they, they do not value your advice at all, like none.
And that’s super frustrating and,
Drives you insane. But like when people write checks for the service, like when they’re vested and they come, it’s a different.
Christopher Habig: I had a, I had a story. I just, I, I laughed when you said that. I had a client of ours who called me up and he said we’ve been talking for a while. And he, he’s like, Chris, I’m ready. I’m ready to start. Let’s get started. I go, great. We’ll change your mind. He goes, I just walked out of an exam room with an old guy you know, elderly.
And I said, Hey, I gotta go. Like I’m already behind. I spent over, another extra 10 minutes with you. And he said, Hey, the patient actually said this to the doctor. He goes, come back here. I haven’t gotten my $10 copay outta you yet. And he called me up. He’s like, I am so sick and tired of taking care of people who do not want to be here, who don’t value their health. This isn’t healthy for them or my
Daniel : it’s also enabling them as patients, like it doesn’t help them. To do that. It’s a, that’s the part of the problem.
Christopher Habig: yeah. And I’m sure that guy, I don’t think he was technically being malicious or cared, but he had probably had a whole list of questions and anxiety and that he was worried about and he didn’t have enough time to answer all of them. And we see that time and time again, like, yeah, you got maybe one, two questions and then you’re out of there.
And
Daniel : And they leave a two star review on Google
And
Christopher Habig: Yeah. And that’s, that’s
Daniel : it
doesn’t
Christopher Habig: it’s the miracle of like the preventive visit, right? Cause I, you go back to your insurance question, people were like, well, I get to go see a doctor once a year. It’s my preventive visit. I go, don’t you dare say that anything is wrong or that you have chest pain or anything like that, because that’s no longer free.
And you’re gonna get a nasty little bill about three months later. And they’re like, what are you talking about? I go, don’t, don’t. Take my advice. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut in that free preventive visit or else it’s not gonna be free cuz it’s no longer preventive.
Daniel : Yeah. Well, I, I would, like I said, I got a million questions. I think we could go on and on. Unfortunately, I, we got a time in to this thing, so I, I want to thank you for joining me to talk about this. And I also wanted to ask like if people have like questions or like are looking for resources. Or help or just curiosity, like what are some suggestions you would have in that regard?
Christopher Habig: Our website’s a great resource. You know, we’re super transparent in what we do, so all of our services pricing are up there. Freedom healthworks.com. Thank you for mentioning our pod. Podcast. We started that about three years ago just to tell some of these stories of, we’re not getting the attention that we’re not gonna see us on the front page of the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, but there is a massive undercurrent.
So doctors that doing this, a lot of times they think, well, I’m the only person doing this or thinking this. I’m the only person who feels, let down by their employer and you’re not. There’s a huge community out there, and so that’s why we started our podcast. It’s called Healthcare America.
It’s available on all the different podcast
channels.
Daniel : Yeah, it’s a, it’s great. I’ve listened to a lot of the episodes and there’s all kinds of like, happy physicians in enjoying life and loving their practice and they, and it’s like they won’t, they don’t want to stop talking about it. A lot of the physicians don’t want to talk about their work cuz it’s kind of sucks.
But these direct care physicians are like, God, it’s hard to get ’em to stop
talking
about it.
Christopher Habig: There is a, uh, I got a funny story. I have stories. Just all kinds, but yeah, freedom Health works.com. You can go up there, learn how we can help physicians from Payment plans to help them start their businesses. I mentioned our zero cost startup. It’s our new Freedom dot concept where we will invest in your practice, give you a place to go, and you just plug right in and it’s yours.
We have a lot of different options to lower the barriers of entry into getting into this practice. Going back to what you just said here and, and I’ll shut up finally, but had an episode on there with a one of the deans of a medical. Who worked with direct care physicians and he’s like, you know what, I love this because we’re talking about how do we get preceptors in the direct care world for their students because their students are very interested in it.
And so the more people we can get, more medical students, we get interested in direct care. The help, the more we alleviate primary care physicians shortages, cuz we. Hey, primary care is a great way to earn a living and be, have a healthy lifestyle. So we have to, show people, Hey, there, here’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
He goes, he goes, Chris, I love direct care because whenever I walk into a room full of doctors, I can always tell the direct care physicians because they’re the only ones smiling.
Daniel : Oh.
Christopher Habig: I was like, that’s that’s true. It’s true. It’s what you just said, right? It’s what you just said actually, in real life.
Daniel : Huh?
Christopher Habig: Evidence, evidence.
Testimonials,
Daniel : we’ll leave, it at that. Yeah. Chris, it’s been fun. I I’ve enjoyed it and I think we’ll have to do it again sometime cuz we got there. There’s lots of territory we, we haven’t
got
into, so.
Christopher Habig: Daniel, thank you. And I appreciate what you do helping physicians of all models take care of their finances. And we definitely need more people like you too. Help smart people manage their finances, so thank you.
Daniel : Yes, sir.
