In this inspiring episode, we delve into the unique journey of Dr. Anastasia Boyer, she is an osteopathic family medicine physician at FreedomDoc Zionsville. She transitioned from working in a traditional healthcare system where she had a long commute and demanding hours to opening her own private practice using the Direct Primary Care (DPC) model. Dr. Boyer shares her fears, challenges, and the eventual joy of establishing an independent healthcare practice, shedding light on the surprising business aspects that many healthcare professionals don’t anticipate.
We talked about:
– The need for modest lifestyle post-residency
– The courage to venture into the entrepreneurial side of healthcare
– The role of organizations like Freedom Health Works in aiding private practice setup
– The impact of a comfortable work environment on preventing burnout
– The satisfaction derived from having time and autonomy in patient care
This episode is an empowering guide for healthcare professionals considering making a similar leap of faith. Tune in to discover how the journey to starting your practice can be both challenging and incredibly rewarding.
Links:
Connect with Dr. Boyer on her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anastasia-boyer-d-o-122897a5/
Connect with me on my LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielwrenne/
Contact Finance for Physicians
To schedule a call with one of our awesome planners, book HERE.
Full Episode Transcript:
Daniel Wrenne: What’s up guys? Hope we’re having a great day. I had two things I wanted to throw out today. First thing, very much appreciate the reviews that you guys have been leaving. If you haven’t done so already and you’re enjoying the show, I would love it if you could leave a review. It’s very much appreciated.
That helps us to get the word out. It also is motivational for me. It keeps me going appreciate that again and keep ’em coming. Second thing, I’m a partner in a planning firm, ran financial planning. I’ve mentioned this before. And we’re gonna be doing something a little bit new that I wanted to throw out there.
So we have always had an introductory call that’s no cost for any of you guys that aren’t working with us, where we talk about, our services and that sort of thing. So we’re gonna be flipping it. A little bit for you guys for listeners of this show. Basically we’ve really enjoyed those of you guys that we’re, we’ve been able to interact with.
Some of you we’re working with, some of you, we’ve just had, calls and either way it’s been enjoyable. So what we’re gonna be doing is changing the agenda, a little bit of those calls. So basically we’re gonna make it. About you. So really, whatever you want to talk about in that 30 minute slice of time is gonna be the goal.
So maybe you have some big stuff coming and you’re, you want to talk through some potential scenarios like going into practice or buying a house. Or maybe you’d like a second set of eyes on some, something like a tax return. That’s a good example of something like a tax return. If you’re working with us you know this already, but we can often find lots of value just in a quick glance of a tax return.
or maybe you have some investment stuff that you want a second set of eyes on, whatever it might be. Those are the types of things we can look at. Specific stuff that are, that’s on your mind and talk through that. We’re not gonna be able to give advice in that 30 minute slice of time.
In fact, if someone’s trying to give you advice like real quick like that, I would be cautious of it, even if they were willing to give you advice. Just like this podcast, like, I wouldn’t take advice from somebody podcasting randomly on the internet. it’s important to do your homework and do your due diligence and build a relationship.
Personally before you’re taking advice, cuz you know, you, you need to understand each other. So that’s important to point out. That doesn’t mean there won’t be value. The goal in this meeting is to provide as much value as possible in that slice of time and really give you a little bit of a taste of what it’s like to work with a CFP that really specializes in working with physicians.
So if you have interest in taking. That sort of meaning will link to the show notes the scheduler link for that, meeting. And when you go to schedule it, make sure to where it asks you, where you found us. Make sure to put finance for physician’s podcasts so that we know to adjust the agenda a bit and cover it this way.
Okay. So if you’ve been listening for a while, you know, I’ve really been into this whole. New way of practicing medicine called direct care. and so I’ve interviewed multiple physicians that have started their own practices and are really thriving in this new model. I’ve talked to several consultants that are f specialized in helping these types of practices to really thrive.
I’ve even talked to a few Complimentary businesses that have spurred up to kind of help support this new way of doing medicine. And I think it’s interesting from my view, to see how much these physicians working in this new model are really just loving it. Like they, they absolutely love it and they’re thriving professionally.
While many colleagues of their colleagues and you listening are struggling, feeling the opposite, maybe like the traditional system of healthcare seems to be just like pushing people the other direction towards, burnout. You’ve heard a lot about that too. And so I think it’s safe to say at least me personally, I’m completely sold on this being a fantastic model and really a great solution to help to fix healthcare and reduce burnout in the profession.
Now the business model, the direct care business model has seen some pretty good growth. But if you look at the overall profession, it’s still like a tiny fraction of physicians out there. So I think there is a ton of room for growth but there seems to be some really big hurdles out there. For, for you guys listening, like if you’re physicians, I, a lot of people are interested in it, but like it’s pretty intimidating and I think those big hurdles.
Really, the biggest one typically is financial. Like this whole I gotta start a business and take on a big financial risk and give up the guaranteed salaries and all that comes with that. And I don’t have financial experience and knowledge. So that’s, that can be super scary and intimidating to the point where you really don’t ever do it.
But I don’t think that in itself is a reason to stop you as this. Industry or subset of the profession is developing. We’re starting to see some like alternatives that are like workarounds to this. So my guest today is Dr. Anna Boyer and she is a good example of one of those particular workarounds.
She has had the opportunity to recently start her own d p C practice. In, Zionsville in Indiana. she’s only been open in her practice for four months now. But really the only reason she was able to make the jump was because she partnered with a company. That kind of facilitates this whole thing for direct care practices the company’s called Freedom Health Wear, freedom Health Works.
their program they call, freedom Doc, but basically they help physicians to start up their own direct care practices and take a lot of that risk. And business financial responsibility off the plate of the physician to allow them to go in and, focus more on seeing the patients and, not be so paralyzed by this massive risk.
we, in our conversation today, we discuss her story and how she got into medicine in the first place. We talk about her experience starting into practice in the traditional system of healthcare and some of the struggles she started to have with balancing providing quality care to her patients, while also spending quality time with her family.
She shares how she realized that this direct care model would allow her to spend more time with patients and ultimately provide them the type of. Care that she had always envisioned providing. But even knowing this information, she still really struggled with this whole big risk this idea of making the big jump and the knowledge gap that it existed and to the point where she was probably never going to do it.
But she was fortunate in that she found this program that was, that basically helped her to have the confidence to make the jump. And once she did her homework and realized, that the program was legit and had a track record and, Wasn’t just like a catch or something. She shares how she was able to really jump in and and now fast forward four months from now, or four, four months from the start, she’s been able to exceed the growth projections and, and it is very happy.
I think this’ll come across in, in, when you hear her, she’s just generally very happy. So we had a great conversation. I’m excited to share it with you today. And so let’s jump into that now.
Daniel Wrenne: Anna, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Good to see you again. I am, uh, excited. You have A lot of cool things going on. And, and you have, and you’re in the background of your practice that Yes, you’re running now. And that’s cool to see, for those of you guys that are watching the video.
but I’m looking forward to talking a little bit about your business, your practice, what you’ve got going on there, um, digging into that. But maybe a good starting point before we go into that would be if you could share maybe just a little bit about like your story, like how did, I’m curious, like how did you.
Why did you go into medicine? What was your path to start? Maybe a little bit about training and then how you got to this point where you have a practice.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Okay. Well that’s kind of a long story, but I’ll try to keep it brief. It’s all good. We got time. I’ve always really just wanted to be a doctor.
That’s since I was three years old. That’s what I was telling my parents I wanted to be. Wow. One, one time I like briefly entertained the idea of becoming an ice cream truck driver because I thought that you could eat all the ice cream, but you shouldn’t really eat all your profits. So other than that, doctor was the plan, just from the beginning.
I, it probably sounds like cliche, but I did genuinely want to be a doctor to help people and serve my community. So that’s always been the plan all along. And I’m one of the boring traditional med students. I went, college at IU Bloomington, studied chemistry in Spanish there, and then I went to an osteopathic medical school.
Called the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Louisburg, West Virginia. So, spend a lot of time there. Just kind of around the grounds is very pretty, volunteering, that kind of thing. So, and then after. Residency I moved back home to Indiana where I grew up. Crawfordsville, Indiana is a small town, kind of west central of Indianapolis, and I’m a National Health Service course scholar, so they like thankfully wonderfully paid for my meds.
School. And in turn I did four years of service in an underserved community and I was like shocked to find out Crawfordsville, my hometown qualified. So that was awesome. I got to practice for four years there and then I got married and we bought a house and we have a big blended family with six kids and we ended up finding our.
What we hope is our forever home out in the east side of Indianapolis. So I never really had intentions of leaving my my old clinic because this is where I grew up. I love my patients. It was a hard choice, but the commute was really kind of the deciding factor. It sometimes would be as much as an hour and a half or two hours each way.
And so I was spending my whole day driving and. Four of my kids are younger. They’re 2, 4, 6, and eight, and so I wouldn’t get home till bedtime and I felt like I was missing out, so, mm-hmm. I’d always been interested in kind of the direct primary care concierge model because you get so much time with your patients and I got an email from Freedom Help Works and Freedom Doc.
That said they were opening a clinic in Zionsville, and Zionsville is only about 30 minutes from where I live now, and it’s very close to where I lived when I was working in Crawfordsville. Mm-hmm. So I, it just seemed like the perfect match and everything just felt into place.
Daniel Wrenne: So you were working in a, Clinic and it was a commute, long commute and pretty long hours.
Mm-hmm. And you have kiddos and I know how I have three, I don’t have six, but I have three. And I know how bedtime is chaotic, but also important mm-hmm. To be around and ideally even more than that. And so what other Pressures were you dealing with like around, I’m thinking back to like you’re in that practice.
Was there other things that were causing you concern about the way that things were going at work or at home or the balance or. What kind of led you up to this point of like, even considering an email from someone about an opportunity?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Mm-hmm. Well, I, like I said, I loved the clinic I was at. It was great.
It was a lot busier than direct primary care is because, In the typical insurance model, you really have to see a certain number of patients per day to, to break even and to meet your metrics so that the clinic makes a profit. And it was just very busy. Typically doctors see anywhere from maybe like 16 to almost 30 patients in an eight hour day.
And. that usually ends up being maybe like 15 minute appointments, 30 minutes if you’re lucky. A lot of times you’ll end up double booking, trying to squeeze patients in. You know, you’re sick, but you can’t come in in the morning. We wanna make it work for patients the best we can, but if you’re already in a 15 minute slot and you double book it, you end up running really behind.
It’s just frustrating for patients. Yep. That they have to wait on you. And really like, I do genuinely love to get to know my patients like on a much deeper level than just what are your medical problems, what are your medicines? You take your surgery, your family history. I wanna know like what is home like for you?
Where did you grow up? What do you like to do for fun? Because all of those things have a important impact in our health and our wellness and our healthcare plans. Mm-hmm. Together. And really in the 15 minute visits, especially in the traditional model it’s really hard to get enough accomplished to build that rapport with the patient where they trust you enough to kind of open up and tell their full story.
They’re, open up more about mental health or about how things are at home. Are they safe at home? In 15 minutes, you don’t usually have time to address much of that, but in direct primary care, because we limit the patient panel to much, much smaller I, my average appointments are an hour new patients I book 90 minutes.
I wanna make sure that I don’t leave any. Stone unturned to say that I am evaluating your medical problems from all aspects. What are like the social factors, environmental factors, spiritual factors that impact your health? Like why aren’t you at. Where you wanna be wellness wise? Is it stress? Is it your schedule?
And those are things that I now have time to work on with patients. So it really was multifactorial decision to change from the traditional insurance model in a federally qualified health center to direct primary care. A lot of it was home life balance. Spending a lot of time commuting, a lot of time at home, charting on weekends and evenings.
And also wanting that quality time with the patients. Being able to have the time to investigate alternative treatment options for them. Make sure they’re getting be very best care I can provide.
Daniel Wrenne: Not the 15 minute rushed, somebody’s waiting outside and. And then if you, they need, I’m sure every once in a while you would’ve, people that were like pretty, there’s a problem that came out.
And usually it’s like that very last minute of the 15 minute visit, they’re like, oh, by the way, and then, mm-hmm. And then all of a sudden you’re like, oh no, I need to talk to you, continue talking to you about this. But then I have like six people in the waiting room and mm-hmm. Absolutely compound
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: and.
Yeah, and then it stresses the patient because they can tell you’re rushed. It stresses the nursing staff and then everyone waiting in the waiting room. It’s just kind of a snowball effect.
Daniel Wrenne: Did you feel like it was not how you had envisioned practicing medicine in any way? that setting at times or?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Well, I guess when I dreamed of being a doctor back in the day, you know, you get the vision from Scrubs or Grey’s Anatomy or whatever like I didn’t know all of the minutiae that goes into it, but the charting and the insurance. Quality metrics and checking the boxes just right and writing your notes a certain way so insurance will approve, that CT scan, that medicine, that physical therapy order, things like that.
It’s sad, but we. Spend at least half our time charting really, I would say as, as much or more time than we spend with the patient. We probably spend charting on them and then also answering like other, Telephone notes and things like that where we have to just, you’re on your computer a lot more than I thought.
and I always kind of envisioned being a doctor as like the old style kind of, you, you took care of everything. The family doctor, you know, delivered the babies and did the surgeries and knew the patients and visited them in the hospital and like,
Daniel Wrenne: knew their first names and like, knew, said hi to ’em at the grocery store and yeah.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: And like barter, you know, for chickens instead of. Yeah. Or moonshine in West Virginia. No, I was kidding. Right? Um, and then home, like home visits and just really knowing the whole family and having that close personal relationship, individualized care that you really can’t get anywhere else besides the direct primary care world.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, I that’s what I think of as like the. Practice of the old days, like, small town doctor has, few hundred patients and they know ’em all by first name and they have their relationship and, I’ve heard people say different numbers, but like say you have to have.
2000 patients or more in that setting, and I don’t think it’s possible to have a relationship that’s close with that many people. I’ve seen some studies on it actually. I think there’s been some studies that say like 150 to 300 to like Mac capacity of number of relationships. Like, not just like names on a sheet of paper, but like you actually know the people relationships for any one person.
To have. And in that traditional model, it seems like that’s just impossible. And even just the time component, like you have to have, you have to give yourself the time to build up the relationship too. And then, The relationship too is trust will breed trust, and then the trust allows you to, deliver better care.
People have to trust you. They hold everything back when they don’t trust you. Absolutely. I mean, people hold stuff at back anyway. They just don’t feel comfortable until they trust you. And that’s important in healthcare, I would imagine. I mean, you need to know these things and they Yeah, but people are uncomfortable.
It’s kinda like money. We talk about money, people mm-hmm. Are uncomfortable talking about money. Uh, Oftentimes same sort of thing with healthcare. But that’s why trust is so important. was that, something that basically making it difficult to provide the best patient care possible in that model?
Was it getting in the way of like, I. I imagine it was based on our conversation so far, but I just kind of you know, make sure that’s what I’m hearing is like, was it getting in the way of providing care?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: I would say that in the traditional model, it’s really more of a superficial level. So you’re still addressing all of their medical problems, their medicines, their labs. more so treating like the physical body, but as an osteopath, We believe that wellness is in mind, body, and spirit.
Mm-hmm. And a lot of times you don’t really get to that mind, spirit part when you are only with someone for 15 minutes because you haven’t built that trust. And I mean, that’s, I. Fundamental for them to be able to open up to you. So I, I think that there are amazing doctors in both models for sure.
Yeah. That provide excellent care. It’s just really time and trust and rapport is, that’s why people trusted their doctors that, you know, did home visits and, knew their dog’s name and. Had been taking care of them for 20 years. Because they knew them completely, almost like a friend.
and that’s really how I want my patients to feel with me. That it’s not some scary, sterile exam room that we are, kind of like friends sitting down having a cup of coffee together. We have an hour to chat. Tell me what’s going on in your life. What are your goals? Where can we go from here so that you feel you’re, well, you are at your vision of healthiest.
Daniel Wrenne: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think people have different definitions of quality healthcare or quality experience or whatever. So Everybody is welcome to their own view on that too. I mean, there’s the minimum level standard and then there’s some people have like, maybe expect even more attention than in time and relationship than even just hour long visits.
But everybody, is gonna have their different flavor of that. so you were, had the, a little bit of frustration in your view of healthcare. You kind of saw it a little bit differently and you decided to. Make the shift was it like, boom, I’m making a shift? Was it like, I’m frustrated, I’m out, I’m gonna consider opportunities, I’m in.
Boom. Easy peasy. Or was it, I imagine it was probably not so simple.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: It wasn’t very simple. I felt the strong emotional connection to my last clinic. It’s where I grew up. I knew my patients personally as friends growing up. I didn’t want them to feel like I was abandoning them for a different place.
But really my family Is the most important thing to me, and they always will come first. And so I wanted an opportunity where I could have that home life balance. And really with direct primary care, I. I, I tell my patients I wanna take care of you like you’re my own family. And I didn’t feel like that was possible in the traditional model, but now I have time to really get to know my patients and I do, I think of them.
Okay. If you were my sister, What kind of care would I want you to get? And that’s what I try to offer them. it wasn’t a quick decision necessarily. It’s been something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, ever since residency in. Lewisburg, they have the Greenbrier Resort there. They have that concierge medicine style.
I just never knew how I could start up my own practice because they don’t teach you any business at all in med school. Nothing. They don’t even teach you how to bill, so it’s like, I would have no clue where to start to order medical supplies or how do you determine what E H R you wanna use the electronic health record, or how do you find Lab Core Quest, to do your blood work?
I would’ve no idea. So I just was blessed with the opportunity with Freedom Health Works and Freedom Doc, where they can manage the entire business side, and I just get to practice medicine. How I love to practice.
Daniel Wrenne: So, you were a little intimidated with the learning all the financial business stuff.
And what about the risk part? Was it scary? The idea of starting a business yourself a hundred percent on your own.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, absolutely. I even told our c e o in my interview for this like, job technically I’m, a small business because it’s an L L C, but they managed the financial part of it.
I told him, I was like, this is my livelihood. This is how I feed my kids and put a roof over their heads like I’m afraid. Like what happens? Is this gonna work? And he said, same thing. This is my livelihood too. This is how right. I take care of my family. I’m not here to take advantage of you.
We want doctors to be happy. Patience to be happy, and it’s just a good balance for everyone. And really coming out of med school, most doctors have a significant amount of debt. It can range from, like, I was super blessed to get the scholarship through the National Health Service core The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine is one of the most expensive schools in the country.
Out of state tuition is $49,000 a year. I mean, a lot of people come out with half a million dollars and yeah, just student loans not counting their college loans. So with that like insurmountable debt plus a, a mortgage and a car and all of those things, really, you have no savings. To typically fall back on, to live off of while you start your own practice.
So it is super intimidating and I think it’s the number one challenge why people are afraid to jump from the traditional model and start their own practice and kind of not look back.
Daniel Wrenne: the financial part is the most intimidating part you think for most people. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I can see that, and it makes a lot of sense. And I think I hear that a lot from people. It’s like, you know, whatever business, risk, not even business. I mean, any risk people are intimidated by. taking big risks. but I think we’re seeing a lot within healthcare, a lot of physicians are so frustrated with it that it’s like that in itself is a risk, like continuing to work in a environment that’s in conflict with your values.
Mm-hmm. That in itself is a huge. Risk and you kind of have to weigh all those things. You were able to find kind of a setup that is a little bit of a hybrid. Maybe we’ll talk about that a little bit more as well. But like, so making the jump completely on your own was, felt very intimidating to the point where you’re like, ah, I don’t think I want
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: to.
I never would’ve done it on my own completely without someone that has business background, legal background. Yeah. Because there’s just so many things that you can miss without. Mm-hmm. Someone helping you that has that financial business background. Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. So the setup you’re in now, so were able to connect with them and they were able to be kind of a backstop to you to make this whole thing kind of work together.
Mm-hmm. Make it happen without so much taking all this risk and having to learn all the financial stuff and business stuff and, and that sort of thing. When you heard that idea proposed, were you like, what’s the catch like, or were you skeptical at all?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, I was, I felt exactly like, well, what’s the catch?
You know, like, this seems too good to be true. Yeah. You know, what am I missing here? And, but no, it isn’t too good to be true. It’s like, this is how it is. It’s awesome. And
Daniel Wrenne: although that’s, that’s how a lot of hospitals promote it. I mean, that’s kind of what the hospital is, is like you just go see patients.
We handle all the business stuff.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, it’s salary. Sure. Yeah. But it’s, you don’t have that risk of that initial investment for private practice. So I understand that that was what was keeping me, you know, in the typical model as well. Something that I just heard about with my med school, which I think is great, is they have a new program where It’s a five year track instead of a four year track.
And at the end of the five years you also get your mba. And I think that that’s a really great opportunity for doctors so that this isn’t such a scary option. And more people mm-hmm. Can have the same balance that I was fortunate enough to get.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. The other thing too is you guys are super smart. So like, y’all are like all, all the smartest kids in the class, like.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: We’re book smart, but not necessarily like life smart. So, but book
Daniel Wrenne: smart, you can learn life smart from the books. Like the books can teach you the life smart to, you know, to some extent and mm-hmm. So, you know, being able to, consume educational material quickly and. That’s pretty valuable. And a lot of this business stuff is, I mean, it’s not rocket science.
It’s, it’s probably easier than medicine in some ways. So, but it is intimidating when you don’t, when you’re going in not knowing anything. so was it, I’m curious about your setup, like you didn’t have to take near as much risk because they’re backing you up to some extent. I know you started your own practice officially, like you’re owning a practice but you, they’re backing you up and making it a little bit more.
Of a lower risk deal. So in your words, how, I mean, can you explain that more a little bit for us? Like Yeah, how is that working? What does that even mean?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, so it is kind of like a hybrid, like you said before, it’s not like I went out, got a business loan and figured out how to open a clinic completely on my own, invested the.
Hundred thousand dollars or whatever it takes to open a practice. My business partners, freedom Health Works, freedom Doc, they took the business loan and they got it all set up because that’s their specialty. They, they found the. The building, they found LabCorp. They made sure that we have the ehr.
Mm-hmm. All the tiny details that we need. And basically, so they took that financial risk themselves and we partner so that they give me like a. Stipend enough to live off of until the clinic grows. And then once the clinic starts making a profit, we share the profit 50 50. So it’s a little bit of a hybrid in that sense, but it took off the burden of needing that huge amount of money.
To just invest into a practice and also while the practice is growing, it’s a good 18 months, two years before you make a profit. And so you have to also live on savings. And so it’s not just that capital that you need. To invest in the practice, you also need to have something to fall back on to live on, live on, because you’re not gonna be making a profit for a long time.
So, I, I have full confidence in, in Freedom Doc and Freedom Health Works. We’re in a great location and I love the community and I really know that it’ll be successful because it makes patients happy and it makes doctors happy too. So it’s a great balance.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. That, that I always, normally, I would normally tell someone, To plan for like a year of no income starting any business.
Um mm-hmm. Like, assume you’re not gonna pay yourself for a year plus any initial investments is probably like a good average which is super intimidating. I mean, that’s, mm-hmm. If you’re used to living on x dollars per month, you can do the math. It’s usually a big number. But if you’re able to get a stipend, that’s pretty big deal I think one of the biggest struggles, two struggles new businesses have, number one is, The financial part and, really what it comes down to is they don’t have enough cash. Mm-hmm. To get through the hard part. It’s always hard starting a business on the front end, especially if you’re on your own, not having a set up like you.
And it’s, that’s the number one reason they. Ultimately fail. (Mid Roll) I guess the other part, which is kind of related is they don’t get growth of patients or clients or whatever, depending on the business type. And so Mark, that’s b basically marketing. are they helping you with marketing and what does that look like and how are you getting new patients?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, so Freedom HealthWorks has its own marketing team. Mm-hmm. And so they do all the marketing as well, social media news. Papers arrange events flyers and business cards and postcards and everything that we need to get the word out there. But also since it is a small practice, it’s partially. I want to do my part and kind of the boots on the ground marketing, like going to farmer’s markets and talking to friends about it.
And I’ve like hosted my book club here, so it’s like, okay, like I’m not pushing you, but like just get the word out or we have, An event coming up here with a tea tasting, like a tea party kind of thing. Oh, nice. And so it’s open to the community and people can just kind of wander up here and be like, oh, okay, this is cool.
This is doctor’s office. Wow. And just word of mouth it, once you have. They say about 50 patients in your panel, really word of mouth begins to take over the marketing part because if you have one person sign up, they love it, they’re happy they sign their husband up, they sign they’re. Kids up, they tell their friends and then, and then it just kind of continues to, to go from there.
So yeah,
Daniel Wrenne: which is the, probably not exactly how typical or traditional practices grow, A lot of times I think it’s probably referrals from mm-hmm. Other providers or the network or whatever. But yeah, word of mouth marketing is, Really great way to grow a business once it gets going. Also, once it gets going, the other thing I’ve seen with businesses that are word of mouth is you tend to have a more values focused group of people that you work with.
Like people that work with you and like you tend to be on the same page about what’s most important to them, right? And then they tend to refer people that are. On the same page with all that as well. Mm-hmm. And so you, mm-hmm. You’re way more likely to work with people you enjoy. Working with. Mm-hmm.
Which is great for your, you know, life satisfaction in your career.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, absolutely. That’s, that’s definitely what I’ve, I’ve noticed here I love taking care of entire families, especially like young families with lots of kids and both parents. Um hmm. And so like, we’re sharing a building with a Pilate studio and Oh, so there’s lots of moms that come up and walk past my door and they’re like, oh.
You know, sports physicals are coming up. Do you do those? Yeah, sure. Oh, you know, my husband doesn’t have a doctor. Are you taking patients? Yeah. And so it’s, that’s kind of like people that I would be friends with and mm-hmm. So I, I like, love that. And we just kind of, it just naturally happens that way, like you
Daniel Wrenne: said.
Yeah. So how long have, have you been opening up and running? Is it six months now or?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: We, we are just finishing month
Daniel Wrenne: four. Okay. So you’re in the early days, which is fantastic. I feel like this is a great time to talk because a lot of times that’s when it’s like the really, really, really hardest, hard time mm-hmm.
Of starting a business, especially when you’re like all in on it. Because you don’t usually have enough business. Or even close to enough to like keep the thing running, but like starting to see a little bit of success to where you’re like, maybe this thing can work, but you’re start, sometimes you start to question it cuz it’s just taking, usually it takes longer than you expect and mm-hmm.
that’s a lot of times what we see. But I’m curious of your experience, like is it going better than you expected, right on track worse than you expected? What are some of the challenges?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, it’s going better than I expected. It’s really going very well. Our clinic is in a great spot in a small town that is lots of foot traffic, and I share a building, like I said, with a Pilate.
Studio. There’s also a boutique underneath my clinic cuz I’m on the second floor and then a hair salon. So Oh yeah. We get kinda like the foot traffic that we need. So that’s been great. And then the word of mouth, because I didn’t really. Start with any patients but my business team says that we’re right on target where we wanna be.
You don’t wanna grow too fast because you wanna be able to get to know your patients and keep your promises of same or next day appointments and hour long visits and make sure that they don’t feel rushed. we’re going really well actually. Freedom Health Works has opened almost like a hundred clinics across the US and so far with starting at zero, like we have kind of surpassed all of the other expectations as far as how many patients are enrolling.
Daniel Wrenne: Nice. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that’s cool. because that’s very intimidating. I remember when I started in my business, I was very, Concerned about that probably more than anything is like mm-hmm. Well, at first I was like, is anybody gonna hire us? Mm-hmm. You know? Yes. Like, I wonder if anybody wants what?
Cuz you have this idea and you’re like, oh yeah, it seems cool, but like we don’t really know for sure until mm-hmm. And then the first person shows up and you’re like, yeah. Yes,
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: yes. Yeah. That’s how it was for sure. I, I mean, the first couple of weeks I would maybe have like, Three patients total in the entire week to see, and it’s like, hmm, I get so excited.
I’m waiting for my patient all day. It’s like they come in, it’s like, I’ve been waiting for you. Would you like a coffee? Like, come on, let’s talk. I have all day to talk. And they’re like, whoa. Like, okay. I’m glad you’re excited. So yeah. But without, like, if I had personally taken on that business loan, I would probably be freaking out right now.
Mm-hmm. Because we’re not busy, you know, we still have a good ways to grow. We’re, we’ve only got gotten to about 20% of our total enrollment that we’re hoping for right now. Which is great. I mean, that’s,
Daniel Wrenne: yeah, but you got trajectory, you’re only like four months in and you’re at 20% of the total.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah. So, I mean, that’s really good.
Daniel Wrenne:
But in my view that means you got, you know, just five more of those and you’re good.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah. So it’ll
Daniel Wrenne: be fun. And usually, usually it builds on itself too. That’s the other thing about word of mouth is a lot more exponential.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Versus linear. And so I do feel great about that, but I would still be, you know, the catastrophizing warrior.
Typically like, oh my God, well what if? What if? What if? What if it doesn’t work out? What if it flops? I don’t know. Like I know we’re gonna be okay. And I have like a hundred percent confidence in that. So instead of asking like, what if it fails, I try to think like, what if it all works out and it’s going to, so there
Daniel Wrenne: you go.
sometimes you gotta work on your mindset. Our minds go towards that worst case scenario, All right, well, as we start to wrap up, I, I had couple other questions. I’m really just kind of curious about if I’m, let’s say I’m a younger physician and I think there are a lot of these folks out there that I’m like starting to hear a lot of these problems in healthcare are different, new ways of doing things, but I got like a million, you know, a ton of debt and I’m.
Really kind of like needing to get something secure going on, like outside of, or, you know, once I’m done with training. But like, I’m, I’m kind of resonating with this idea, like, what advice would you give to someone that’s, that’s younger, that’s kind of like, resonating with this, but that has all this, you know, this stead and this concern and this fear, kind of like where you were at.
Um, maybe if you’re talking to yourself five years ago, what advice would you give yourself?
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, so as a resident, we are doctors. We do make money, but it’s a fraction of what you make as an attending, someone that practices on their own. So I would say to try to, for those first few years, kind of continue to live like a resident and live off of that budget, and that way you can jump right into a practice like this.
And it’s not. Taking like a huge pay cut. because I feel like we’re all like goldfish, like we adjust to the size of our, our bowl of how much money we make. Mm-hmm. And no matter what, our lifestyle always will adjust. And so if you get used to making, you know, $400,000 a year and that’s what you’re, you’re you’re doing and you’re great awesome for you, that’s amazing.
But Then starting your own practice and going to zero, or is gonna be like, whoa, like how do I afford my life? Because you probably have the more expensive car and the house mm-hmm. And all the extra things. So I, I would say like, just keep it simple with after residency, you don’t have to like, You know, be super frugal, but be comfortable, but not splurging, not excessive, not a like luxurious lifestyle.
And then just kind of take that leap of faith that it’s going to work out. This is a proven model for healthcare. When we first opened, we had an open house, and one of my colleagues that I worked with who had retired last year, he’s like, wow, where was this like when I was practicing? Mm-hmm. This is the best of both worlds.
This is amazing. And, and really that was the vote of confidence that I, I needed to hear like, okay, he’s a seasoned doctor, he’s 70 years old, he mm-hmm. He’s, he’s seen all of these models. And, and he told me, he’s like, you know, if it didn’t work out, heaven forbid, there’s always gonna be a corporate.
Hospitals are all, you’re never gonna be without a job. You’re a doctor. I mean, everyone needs healthcare. So now is the time you’re young in your career. Yeah. Like now’s the time to take that risk and, and, and see if it works. And it, it will.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think that’s great. I. Also would agree, like I think a lot of times people will tell themselves like, I gotta wait till I X, Y, Z, like pay off the student loans or have my financial position really solid.
Or even wait till I’m financially independent completely before I do whatever big risk like this, for example, like starting a practice or doing things you know, a different way. But I would argue that. It’s actually the best time possible right after training because yeah, you have a lot of time and you’re used to a lower lifestyle.
Mm-hmm. And you can kind of keep that low lifestyle going. And it’s much easier to, cuz typically the biggest cost associated with starting businesses. It’s not actually the for, for service businesses at least. It’s not actually the business itself. It’s the biggest cost.
It’s the lifestyle. That you have to sustain mm-hmm. For the time period that the business is just not gonna do very well. Right. Um, that’s the biggest cost. And especially if you’re like 10 years out in, and you’ve been practicing and making you know, good income for a while, your lifestyle is gonna be high.
of course. A resident. But if you’re at that still, at that residency, you know, level lifestyle that’s a much more sustainable lifestyle and, I think that’s great advice. Thank you. Any other suggestions or advice for other people? You know, kind of like in healthcare, maybe for someone that’s like in the healthcare environment that they’re frustrated with the system and I talk to a lot of these, these people.
They’re just, they feel kind of like stuck in the system of healthcare and they’re, they don’t really feel like they have any options.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Yeah, I would say honestly to call Freedom Help Works, they can help
Daniel Wrenne: call Anna too, like call me. I’ll
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: hack doing it. Yeah, absolutely. And just, they will help you just set up your private practice and it’s okay that you don’t have the business knowledge because they will do it all for you and take that risk on for you because they believe in this model.
It’s not just that they believe in it. It’s gonna be successful financially. They truly believe that this is the best healthcare model for quality care for patients. And I believe that too. I really do. So I would say just take that leap of faith and get the help that you need to succeed and just continue to live a comfortable, simple life and everything’s gonna be okay.
Daniel Wrenne: Right? Yep. Because the other thing too, is I can tell from just talking to you like. When you’re in a work environment where you enjoy it and you’re happy about it, and you feel good about it. It’s just comes across pretty quickly. Mm-hmm. And you feel good about, like, burnout becomes like not a thing.
It’s just not near, I mean, I’m sure there’s cases where that still can come up, but it’s like those sorts of things kind of dissipate when you have an enjoyable work experience and that’s priceless. Like that’s, you can’t really put. A dollar amount on like doing something you enjoy or taking good care, having the time to take care, good care of patients.
And that’s, unfortunately a lot of people are, are missing that. But well Anna, I appreciate, you coming on this. It is been fun conversation and congratulations on. All the success, especially so early on. Like that’s pretty impressive, just four, four months in and I appreciate you.
Thank you. I
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: feel really fortunate and so blessed to have this opportunity. I never really thought that I’d be able to have a private practice and, but I do. I love coming to work every day. You know, like you said, I, I genuinely do and I have time to, to sit and talk with my patients, have a cup of coffee together and just get, really get to know them.
So, so yeah. Thank you. It’s been really an amazing experience so far, and I know it’ll continue to just get better. Yeah.
Daniel Wrenne: I may, maybe, I, maybe we’ll do like a check-in, like a few years in and Yes, we’ll see how I’m, I’m sure you’ll, you’ll be thriving, but best of luck going forward and thanks again.
Dr. Anastasia Boyer: Thank you so much. All right, well have a great rest of your day.
