ļ»æScott Rattigan (00:00.)
How do you want your patients to feel when they walk out of your office? I want them to feel seen and I want them to feel heard. And when you're somebody answering the phone who's feature dumping on them about what your program is and how much it costs, guess what they don't feel? Seen and heard, right? And so it's like, how do I actually get to know this person? And granted, whether it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or in a five minute phone call, it's not necessarily an easy thing. But if I can ask, like, hey,
Thanks so much for calling. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with? And in case we get disconnected, can I get a phone number to call you back? Awesome. Before we dive into like how the new patient thing works, I'd love to know what brought you to our practice today. How did you find out about us? Right? And all of a sudden you just opened up a floodgate. Welcome back to The Junto with Scott Radigan. I'm your host, the founder of Functional Learner and this show, The Junto. Junto comes from Ben Franklin's club of the same name where we gathered experts and peers from different trades to support each other through their entrepreneurial.
journey and that's what we're doing here. We have experts from around the field, both inside and outside of functional medicine and those that can help us in our entrepreneurial journey as well. So everything from mindset to practical tips and tools and software that you might be able to use, anything that we can do to support each other and optimize our own selves so that you can turn around and then optimize the lives of your patients. So that's what we're all here to do and let's jump right into this week's episode of the Junta.
Today we're so excited to welcome Claire Bodtke and Lauren Tancredi from Medicava. Medicava was founded in 2019 and they've helped transform private practices across the country, offering healthcare providers a seamless opportunity to provide enhanced experiences to their patients. Basically, their consulting services help cash -based practices launch quickly, run smoothly, and grow exponentially. We're very excited to have them here. Welcome, Lauren and Claire. Thanks, guys.
Yeah, so. It happens when you work together so closely, right? Yeah. Yeah. We both got on. I'm like, we both did the glasses today. Like it's, you know, it happens when you start to even you could be miles apart and you still start to be one with the other. Yeah. So let's start there. You guys go back a long time. Where did Metacava come from? How did you guys first meet? Kind of.
Scott Rattigan (02:19.502)
You take turns, take turns and come telling the story of the actual name because people ask us all the time. What does it even mean? Sure. It means luxury health. So many health and cover luxury. We started, you know, a long time ago. I'll let Lauren tell her sort of like me cute, if you will, of where we started. But this has been something that we've been in for a while and.
What we knew is that when you start to get into a cash pay medicine or even any kind of a transactional healthcare system, you have to create an experience. And once people reach into their pocket and pay for a service, there's an expectation there. And it far exceeds what a lot of our practitioners had been taught up until that point in quote, conventional medicine, right? Up until that point, the phone just rang.
right? And the patient was just there. And all of a sudden, now it was, okay, got to find them. Then I got to sell them. Then I got to deliver. What happened to the just the medicine, right? And so we, yeah, we just felt that there was this need of the business side a long time ago. So yeah, I'll let Lauren talk about how we met. Yeah, Claire and I met I think back in like,
2010 or 11, somewhere around there. Yeah, that's a long time ago. Yeah. Geez, now we're dating ourselves. All right. Yeah. And we had both worked for an MSO organization similar to like the MDVIPs and the Signature Choices of the World that was providing concierge kind of oversight. And I was the director of sales in essence and Claire worked for me. And so we literally taught people kind of Claire's point.
how to reach into their pocket and get a credit card. And a lot of it is based upon education and relationships and nurturing. And so, while we look at a variety of kind of aspects of like the practice and the delivery, really Claire and I are, I like to kind of tout ourselves around being more of the sales experts because everything starts in the experience from the first contact, right? Whether it's,
Scott Rattigan (04:34.638)
you're out doing business networking or somebody lands on your website. And so really focusing our efforts on like, what does it mean to get somebody in front of you, educate them around who it is that you want to serve and what it is that you want to do and how you can support them to what Claire was mentioning, which is like delivering the service on the other side and making sure that we're really clear upfront on what they're getting so that they're not bouncing out the other end, right? And so,
Claire and I worked in the sales capacity early in our career together. And I got to teach her about like taking credit cards and how to be quiet and listen to what people needed and not over speak so that, you know, people are coming to your practice to like share what's up with them. Let them share. They will tell you exactly what they need and you get to decide whether or not you can deliver on the other end. And so we had done a lot of contract work on and off together throughout the years after that.
The company had kind of dissipated and about five or six years ago joined forces again. It's like, okay, let's do this this time for us in the way that we know how from the experience inside the practice that we're able to live with. And hence, Medicava was born and we've had iterations. We focus a lot on conversion from traditional primary care and insurance based practices into concierge or direct primary care type models.
But we also help those people that are in existence, like refine their product service offering and in particular their membership sales experience. And so that's who we are today. Yeah. That's amazing. And I know, cause we have known each other outside of this environment for a few years now in kind of, you know, you met in 2011 and then Medicava started in 2019, but I know you guys have had your fingers in a lot of household names, at least household.
functional medicine names. Can you give me the version as long or as short as you want? What were the things you bounced through to give you the experience and expertise to help practices? And as we were talking before we started recording, the courage to get started doing it. Yeah. I mean, I think you and I met because of my work with The Living Matrix, right? And that was a game changer for so many of our functional medicine practitioners.
Scott Rattigan (06:57.102)
And it's interesting because Lauren and I, while we have a similar background, we sort of took two different tracks, right? I took the more integrative functional medicine approach and she took the direct primary care approach. And what was neat about that is ideally at the end of the day, they're both cash -based, right? Transactional membership style medicine. And when we did the functional medicine side,
there was such a need for people to be able to onboard, right? And what that onboarding experience looked like in Living Matrix was, like I said, a game changer because we really did not have any way to automate those very specific clinical pieces, which were the timeline and the matrix. And whether it was great for some and not great for others, it did a job and it really allowed the patient to
this artifact, this thing that they could look at and see and interact with. And you could create a visual experience for a patient to kind of buy into functional medicine a little bit. They saw where life started from birth, and then these sort of triggers came in and then the conversations began. I think a lot of patients up until that point just sort of saw functional medicine as
I mean, I'm going to say it, you know, which doctor and voodoo and you know, Oh, they're going to throw some mortar and pestle at me and Oh, they're just pushing supplements until they really started to understand this systems approach. Right. And what I like to think of is living matrix is the catalyst to a lot of the tech that we look at today of how we are gathering data, interpreting that data and then showcasing that data.
and health outcomes for our patients because if I hear it once, I hear it a hundred times. I don't want to work myself out of a job, right? These practitioners get to the point where they say, oh, I've done everything and now they're better and now they're leaving, right? And we don't want that. We want you to be able to retain and keep those patients because you've worked hard for them. And so being able to, again, showcase data in a way that
Scott Rattigan (09:19.202)
allows them to see their labs getting better or their body compositions getting better. You need to be able to have that. And I think Living Matrix was a great start. So Scott, to your point, that's we met, we met, you know, on the grounds of the IFM exhibit halls and how we can help support people. And I remember thinking, gosh, he has something that nobody else has, right? You have this attorney side or this lawyer side that everyone.
was not even thinking about the business of medicine. And I mean, I know you have, you know, you have a lot of other things and your wife and you have some really great tools and resources for practitioners. I like to think that there's some synergy in between what we all do here. And it's just teaching practitioners. You don't have to be everything to everyone. Right. And you should still understand the bones and the structure of your practice. And so, yeah, living matrix was great. It was fun.
And yeah, so I know Lauren's done some other really cool things too, though. Yeah, Lauren, anything you want to touch on? Hmm. What do we want to touch on? I mean, for me, it's been mostly the converting of the practices. So they go over to somebody like Scott and your wife and go through and learn the clinical applications outside of the IFM, right? And like, to Claire's point, they have a lot of these questions around like,
how do I actually put this stuff into practice? And then from there, it's like, how do I convert and sell my patients? And so really my kind of expertise in the whole thing has been around like the business management side of things. Also took on a couple of projects to put functional medicine in corporations, right? And so we're looking at these high claim employees that have autoimmune disease and need things like Humira and like did the sales side of this work to be able to help kind of these self -insured.
self -funded employers really drop their claims data and be able to save a little bit more money by taking a more functional medicine approach and finding the root cause versus just getting thousands of dollars of humera to their employees every single month, which is coming out of the employer's pocket. And then in turn, being able to give the employees some of that benefit of the cost savings. And so that would probably be like my cool, innovative thing in functional medicine. We've also worked with like,
Scott Rattigan (11:35.278)
better nutrition and like putting together programs, onboarding practitioners through things like CalRoy Health Sciences, again, building their sales systems. How do we like give the practitioners additional information, education, resources, and their team to be able to help deliver and utilize the compliance piece that actually is getting people better, right? And so it's like, we can sign you up all day and give you the health plan, but if these people aren't actually
following the guide that's being put forth, we get into trouble. And this is where it's really important. And I think Claire and I can speak to this both, but working in a practice, like I know early on in even my HRT days, like 86 % of the patients stayed with us, not because they talked to the doctor all the time, but because the staff was following up, the nutritionist was following up, were making sure they were compliant with their medications and getting what they need on a regular basis.
then there's like nowhere to turn because the accountability level is so high amongst them. And so, yeah, we've had a lot of like different like little spaces and places that we've played in, which allow us to really help create and like codify this experience that these, these, you know, physicians and providers really desire to deliver to their patients. And sometimes they just like need to get out of their own damn way to make it happen. I think that's what sets us apart is that we,
have really touched every side of a practice, right? Whether we are staff, we've both been in practice, we've answered the phones, we've taken schedules, we've been practice managers, we've taken and been salespeople, we've also worked with clinicians, we've listened to the patients. Like there really isn't one side of a practice that we haven't worked in and understand the end user. And so that allows us to really peel back when we're creating these experiences.
and look at all the sides, right? Whether it is technology or it's systems approach or it's the clinical application. Lauren and I have a quote where like, we don't do three things. We don't do clinic, right? Like, so we're not doctors, we're not lawyers, and we're not accountants. So you're going to need those three things. Everything else, we've really been able to create something spectacular for our practices.
Scott Rattigan (13:59.758)
something that's unique to them that they have been dreaming of in their mind that this is exactly why I wanted to be a healer and this is why I wanted to get into this business and sort of taking the grunt workout and there's still a lot of work they have to do, but it allows them to kind of use their own imagination and build the practice of their dreams. Yeah, that's amazing. And for those that are not aware, they were both hinting at the program that my wife, Linda and I have co -founded called Origins Incubator.
It has legal and clinical and practice management in it, but we have a small cohort each year. And so it's, uh, what Claire and Lauren do is a little bit more hands on the ground or boots on the ground. Um, and you know, there's room for everybody, I think in this space, because as you guys mentioned, they receive almost no training. Most practitioners receive zero business training or skills. And many of them feel very icky about what you're calling sales or asking for money. And I find too, um, and.
This is why we teach like a whole pricing module or a lesson a week, whatever we call it these days on pricing your services correctly. And so those two things together, I think are the biggest levers to pull. Like once you're in front of a person asking them for the money and then not feeling icky about the amount of money you're asking for or even just making that ask. So, you know, what is, and going back to, you know, Living Matrix being a good educator for patients who at that time,
I didn't even know what functional medicine was, you know, almost a decade ago. I think people had to overcome, like, you have to explain what it is first and then explain why they want to come see you in particular. Um, but you know, we talked about selling them on the first contact and even maybe before like landing on the website, first contact, that's when the sales process starts, not when you get them on the phone finally, or you get them in your office finally. So what are some of the things that you guys have seen in your experience that work well or.
that you might take a potential clinic through when it comes to the patient experience side of things to help make that ask kind of a less pressure or what's your approach to that? Well, I'm going to say one thing and then I'm going to let Lauren take this because she's really good. But I will say during Living Matrix, one of the things that I helped create was the online MSQ, right, where people could go on and fill out their symptom questionnaire so that we could get a baseline of where this person was symptomatically.
Scott Rattigan (16:26.19)
right and what it allowed us to do is craft a conversation around what they need instead of when they called in us just sort of word vomiting out everything we can do and so i found that. In doing that through that piece of technology I was listening and hearing these huge areas of opportunity where the practitioner was sort of taking the phone call right let's say lead right patient calling in and wanting to work with them and.
saying here's what i do i do this and this and this and this and here's a bunch of costs and are you ready to get started and the person just felt you know a little on the defense like wow that's a lot of information and it's not really what i asked for and so we use and leverage that msq to this day on people's website and it's a lead magnet for them to say get your symptom score or get your health iq or you know take this little quiz however we can gamify it.
for them to buy in, answer a few questions, and then that gives us a real leverage in having a conversation around it. And then I'll let Lauren talk about kind of like that experience from soup to nuts, but yeah, the tools that we created are still in practice today just in a different way. And HIPAA compliant, I might say too, so. Which is important. Yeah, it is important.
And to your point, Claire, like, you know, a lot of times we're like feature benefit. This is what you're getting. This is what you're getting. Right. And that's what the patient experience is. It's important to have an understanding of what is it that you're actually offering and what are the boundaries and standards around that? Because a lot of times what I hear from, you know, practitioners is look, I'm in burnout. I want to practice different. I don't know how I'm seeing too many patients, but then they get into this new model of care and it's like,
Now they're giving me money and I'm still having the same problem because I don't know what to do with the money. And I'm responding in like almost like a traumatic response mechanism where I'm like, okay, I got to keep going and doing the things, right? And so a lot of the work that we do on the patient experience side of things is one is the sales piece, but I'm going to just put that aside for a second because I feel like that's where Claire and I come in with our expertise and clinically like you guys are not necessarily thinking about that. Then there's the clinical side, right?
Scott Rattigan (18:42.606)
There's all the paperwork that Scott puts together with his team that needs to be onboarding and then all the way through the clinical journey. Like how many patient appointments are we having? Who are those appointments with? What test am I getting? On average, right, we're all the N01, but usually there's a through line that you guys have from a clinical standpoint, right, that we're gonna be able to do. And to Claire's point, if we have an MSQ, we know we can have variants. Like, hey, this is somebody that's...
got Lyme disease and it's super intense and it's going to need a little bit more handholding than somebody that's been living with, I don't know, let's just say Hashimoto's and it may not be, that may be your expertise and you can do it off the side of your desk, right? And so we really look at the practitioner and say, all right, well, let's design it. Let's design it based upon what you think you can deliver, what kind of tools you need to implement, how do we enhance it?
Maybe it doesn't add value to you from a clinical diagnosis standpoint, but it gets people back in, right? They're paying you monthly. It gets people in, like the in -body scales and all of these other like cool pieces of technology that we can add in. And we literally take that journey and we map it out over 12 months and we say, how much time is this going to cost you? Who's the staff that you're attributing it to it so that we can literally add up the dollars, make them make sense and amortize that over the cost of the, over the course of a year, right?
So now when I'm asking for three, five, $6 ,000, I know exactly what it's for. And I, as a practitioner potentially, or the salesperson, don't hold a thing of like, is it worth it? Are they going to like this? Because energetically, you're shutting down the sale before it's even happening. And so to Claire's point, it's not for you to feature dump that to them, but it's really an educational tool. So now,
Once I got the person saying yes, I can say, here's what's going to happen. Right? Next, you're going to get paperwork. It's going to feel really overwhelming because Scott's making me have you fill out six forms from legal compliance. And I'm going to have to get you like to fill out your timeline and matrix. Right? And so whatever it is, but we have to think about too. And Claire and I have a client that we're working with right now and they've been in practice for quite some years.
Scott Rattigan (20:57.036)
And they're like, look, we've got a bucket with a hole in it. Like people are dropping out. They're not finishing their 12 months. What's happening here? And like we sign, we secret shop the practice. We call them, be a patient. We fill that all. I mean, the paperwork alone, I think what did it take you like 15, 20 minutes to fill out just the legal forms, not even the health questionnaires, right? It was like, no wonder you've got a bucket with a hole in it. Like this is a person in a lot of times in functional medicine. And one of the reasons I like it,
more than direct primary care in some instances is people have pain. Like they're real pain points. It's not like, hey, I need a primary care provider. Let me find one when I need it. It's look, this stuff has been going on for a long time and nobody's been able to fix it and I need help. And so the first point of contact, you want them to be like, here's all of the documents that you need to sign and fill out. Like, think about that, right? Think about how this person is feeling. And so we literally like map it out.
We go through the experience, we map in the like the different kind of touch points and what you need to do. How often are they getting the MSQ? Can you check back in? Right. And so, you know, sometimes we like say even with these, this client that we're referring to, it's like, you know, maybe the health coach, the first health coach meeting gets to do the paperwork with the client instead of you being like, here's everything. Like what value would that add? How much do you need to charge in order to enhance the experience that may actually take that churn rate and drop it in half for you.
Right. So you're not having to constantly fill a bucket with a hole in it. And so I know that's kind of like a general like overview without getting too much into the weeds. But like literally we think about this and then it's not a set it and forget it. It's come back and go through the experience. That practice she's referring to is 100 percent virtual. Right. And so it takes us, you know, time and effort, obviously, to go through these things. And one of the things that.
It could be one thing we give them. It could be, I always say this, I'm like, usually on our calls, even in a discovery call that I have with somebody, there's always a golden nugget, right? Like I know when you talk to people, you're like, did you get your terms and condition on your website? And they're like, oh, thank you. Like that was like the thing I needed. Or I'll teach somebody about canned responses and Gmail and they're like, oh, I just saved my life. Right. But there's, there's a one time, I mean, in this case, we said, why don't you just do a video, right? You're virtual.
Scott Rattigan (23:22.542)
So if I'm online and you're expecting somebody to just go on, click a button, sign up and pay you a thousand to $2 ,000, right? The very next thing should be you, right? It should be you engaging and interacting with them. And I think we say this a lot to our practitioners about videos and they kind of coil, you know, it's like, I'm not asking you to be an influencer. I'm not asking you to create a podcast. If you want to do those things and go write a book, please now, hopefully you'll have time to do it.
What I am asking you is for people to get to know who you are and for you to set an expectation of what is about to happen. And so in this case, if it was the health coach that we recommended that they sit down with, it's the health coach that's on the video. Hi, I'm Amber. I can't wait to work with you. Over the course of the next 12 months, this is what you can expect. But really over the next 24 hours, here's what I need you to focus on. Right. And then let them.
sort of swallow the ocean as they can, right? Like we can't ask them to do all of these things and expect them to just turn around and do it. We can't even get them to do a lab, right? Like we can't even get them to go to the labs place and get their blood drawn, right? Like these are things that take time and effort and we're putting a lot of onus on the patient to show up when to be quite honest,
They're probably the most non -compliant patients they've ever worked with, because that's why they're in chronic disease. Right. They didn't they don't have a Zoloft deficiency. Like they got this way because of other lifestyle choices. And so for us to put for us as practitioners, quote, to put that, you know, sort of work onto them, I don't think is fair. I think we have to do a lot more heavy lifting. And we do say this, too, when it comes to videos.
If you've said it want more than one time that day, probably a video, right? And can you use things like courses? And I don't mean just make courses to make them. I say make them to leverage your time. If you are a solo practitioner and you find yourself saying the same thing in every visit, can you front load that with some education? And, you know, I think over our course of what we learned and I've been doing, we give advice a lot.
Scott Rattigan (25:45.838)
We say these things, we give these golden nuggets to people. And I think other people have heard them and then sort of create these larger than life, like courses and masterminds and all this stuff around, you know, your, your story and your narrative and your program and your sales process. And really, if you just peel it back, we can teach you how to do it. Like we're not saying buy our $50 ,000 program, right? To come in and.
We'll do it for you. We just want to show you what works here. Are there like the 10 things that work best practices and go do them. Right. So I'll only say that because I've seen a lot of people go through programs and end up right back on our desk. And it's tough because they invest a ton of money, whether that's building a website or going to these masterminds or these programs, thinking at the end of the day, it's going to turn a faucet and everything's going to happen. Right. And that's.
That's not how it ends up. So I think, yeah, as someone who is in the education space, they don't always watch the videos, even though you've spent hours creating them. So that's that's one point. But you guys touched on a few things that I want to come back to, which is and starting with that one, like, yes, they go and they learn. But then when it comes to the executing, oftentimes it's hard. And that's really what I want to touch on and why this actually show exists.
is because what we found at Incubator and through the various iterations of it is that we can hand you the blueprints and teach you how to fish, but like you still got to like take your rod, walk down to the water and like cast it into the ocean once in a while. And then wait and then reel it in and then get it off the hook and then cook the food and then scale the fish. Like it never ends, Scott. Like I love your analogy because where we end up is.
Literally then we got to the point where like, okay, are we making your dinner? Like, are we holding your hand and we're doing it? And there is a lot of that hand holding that comes because, and everybody listening to this podcast is probably going to nail me for this, but your doctors or your practitioners or your healers, you are not innately business people. So for me, it is very difficult to understand the Krebs cycle. For my doctors, it is a little more difficult to understand a marketing funnel.
Scott Rattigan (28:06.286)
And that's okay. Right. Like we all have our skill sets and we all have them for a reason. And it is not a detriment. It is not a failure to you. If you don't understand, I think that's another thing that our practitioners feel is they feel failure if they don't get it right or they don't understand it the first time around. And it's just it's it's you can lead them to the water. You can show them you can show them the value and then they have to learn it on their own for what makes sense. And so.
The implementation side is where I hear you getting to and that's the sticky, right? That's where we might have to get into your EMR and help you build a schedule of those touch points. Or we might have to get into your CRM and help you build out a funnel, right? But really it should be doing that, creating a video, and then you go back and look at it later and figure out how to make it happen. Because the minutia of getting involved in the stuff,
Right? It's hard. And at the end of the day, we don't want to have to be, you know, fishing for you. We want you to learn how to do it. Yeah. And ultimately, let's be, let's be clear. We're not, or at least I'm not trying to throw you guys under the bus. We're not trying to talk down to anybody here. All of this stuff is just a skill that was learned. And just like, um, an accountant has a different skill set and just like, uh, a bookkeeper has a different skill set and a health coach has a different skill set and an acupuncturist.
It's just a skill set you haven't learned yet. So you can learn it. And that's where places like Incubator and Medicava come in and teach you to do it. But I wanna be clear, there's nothing wrong with you if you have tried different programs or tried different things, expected a magic pill, or you expect it these days, everybody expects AI to make everything fantastic right away with no effort or anything like that. Everybody wants everything right now with no effort. And that's just a human trait. It's not,
Maybe your patients want it, that's where they pay for every ill, that's where it came from. And you want it with your business and everybody wants it with basically everything. It's a human trait. So there's nothing wrong with you. And one of the things I like from one of our mentors is he talks about this valley of despair and it's kind of goes into Dunning-Kruger effect, but also kind of like just human psychology. When you're starting something new, you have what's called uninformed optimism.
Scott Rattigan (30:31.79)
Okay, this time this is it. This is the program or this is the thing, or these are the people that are gonna help me. And then you kind of get into it and you're like, oh shit, this is harder than I thought. And so then you go down to this valley of despair where it gets tough. And at that point, most people look over across the other side of the fence, see some greener grass and hop over there with some more uninformed optimism. That grass must be greener. Cause they get over that pasture and they find it's full of shit too, like cow shit, right? And so, so people just go from uninformed optimism to,
value of despair and then back to uninformed, like just keep hopping off of each horse or cow or whatever in this example to the new field. And so that's not necessarily a personal flaw. I think it's a general human trait, especially in our culture at this point in time to kind of hop through. But the people that can push through that valley of despair and into the beginnings of success are the ones that will ultimately make it work. And I think...
where a lot of people get in trouble is they just kind of hop from horse to horse to horse instead of like, all right, this is my horse. We're crossing this river. I'm going to give it this much time. Yes. I mean, of course it's going to be hard. You know, I do what I'm doing. Right. And so I just want to be clear that we're not talking down and this is totally normal. Just a skill you don't have. It's not a personal flaw of yours. And it's general human traits. That's what I've come to find out. And I know the end of the day, they're healers. Right. Like they got into this for a reason. They.
All they want to do is just help people feel better. I implement the 15-minute consult, like the free 15-minute consult for everybody that I talk to. And they'll say to me like, well, then I'm just giving away free medicine. I'm like, don't like you can't diagnose in five minutes. That's why you are an expert. You get to say that to them. This isn't drive-through medicine, right? Within these 15 minutes, this is get to know you. You get to know me. Is this a good fit?
What kind of things can I help support you with? What does this look like? It should never feel like you are trying to sell yourself or that you're trying to, you know, be something that you're not right. Nor should you be trying to deliver medicine in a 15 minute call. Um, and so, yeah, I think that there's nothing, there's nothing at all that I'm trying to, you know, I don't ever want someone to feel.
Scott Rattigan (32:53.134)
like they're less than because they don't know these things. I am the first person to admit that I don't know everything. Even when you get on a call with me, I will say, if I don't know it, I will find it out for you because that's another skillset that we bring is resourcefulness. Lauren and I try our hardest to identify where the areas of opportunity are every time we talk to someone. And if we don't have the answers, we lean on people like you and our other, you know,
resources to be able to find the right answer for them. So. Well, you mentioned the discovery call. So I'd like to get into some maybe practical takeaways that somebody listening could get into. And I know because we also teach discovery calls and Incubator. Like even just that 15 minutes can be very difficult to execute for somebody who has no framework because they're givers and they want to help them. They just kind of blurt out everything they know. Right. At least that's been our experience. And so, yeah, of course, that 15 minutes turns into 60 and then they just taught them everything. And.
they come away or the practitioner doesn't feel great because it didn't like there's no framework. So could you give like when you go into a practice or set up like the patient experience at least the onboarding part and you know, we talked about making it valuable and making the experience great long -term to reduce the hole in the bucket or the churn. But like what are the kind of the main things that you teach and if you want to go deep into the discovery goal.
or just kind of be more general, like what's the good way to evaluate? The nugget is when you start the call, say, I am so excited to be able to speak with you today. I have a patient coming in at, look at your watch. Is it 1 .15? Your patient's coming in at 1 .30. Is it two o 'clock? Your patient's coming in at 2 .15. That allows you that stop, hard stop. You don't have to say, I have a hard stop. You can say, I have a patient coming in at 2 .15.
I really want to make sure that we can dive in and get these things answered together. Let's do it. If the person is going to close on the phone, the beauty of what you get to do when it's two 15 is say, do you mind if I go ahead and ask my patient to give me about five more minutes so we can finish our conversation? Right. And then you can put them out and go back. But if that is your hard stop, they understand that you need to go. Why? What else? Great. Yeah, I mean, that's essentially it. She teed you up, Lauren. What are you going to add to that? me up, right?
Scott Rattigan (35:17.358)
That's really it. I mean, a lot of the work we do is around setting boundaries and expectations, right? And that's for both like the practitioner and the discovery calls and the patient to like make the most of their journey. Like how do we set the boundaries and expectations so that everybody can like win in the relationship? And so yeah, what Claire said, now if you've got somebody teeing up those calls for you, it's about asking the person. I mean, we did a practice where,
We went to a conference, we got a list, we were exhibiting, we got a list of over 100 practices. We secret shopped every single one of those practices. Eight of the hundred asked for our names and our phone numbers. Eight of a hundred, okay? That's not even 10%. So one of the things that we do in our, yeah. Where's your article? In our, in all of our, like this is literally what happened.
in our discovery calls is like we are in discovery. Exactly that. Like whether it's the practitioner or somebody that's answering the phone. And so a lot of you guys have, you know, your front desk person answering the calls for new patients. Not bad if you don't have a ton of volume. Not easy if you have a lot of volume because one of the skills that in my mind, I believe really sells patients is this concept of active listening. And it's hard to actively listen when you've got the phone ringing, you've got a schedule and do all these things, which is why
You know, we developed a call center to be able to help support practitioners so that they had a dedicated person to take these calls. So not only do we ask who you are, what your phone number is, we ask how you heard about us, right? So now all of a sudden we have context for where our conversation gets to go and or, you know, what's making you look for a new provider, right? So we can already see the pain points outside of the physical pain.
Like, what did I not like in these other practices? And then you get to start to suss out, like, this person is going to be a pain and I don't want to work with them. Or like, okay, those are things we can solve for easily. Right? And frankly, a lot of you guys get really sick people and sometimes they're energy vampires and they don't really want to be like, you don't want to be in practice. It's not joyful. Right? And so if you're asking these questions, you can really understand, like,
Scott Rattigan (37:34.478)
Who do I align with? Because now all of a sudden, insurance isn't the thing. This is my business. And even Claire and I, like when we're taking clients, sometimes there's clients that don't align with us. Just from a values perspective, it's better for me to refer them out to somebody else that might be better aligned. So have your referral list of other practitioners too, right? That may do other things. And this is why when Scott said, there's room for everyone, there really is room for everyone, right? To be able to do this work. And so. Yeah. And have that referral list.
for out of state practitioners too, because you can't practice everywhere without a license. Just quick BSA. Go ahead, sorry. If you're talking 80 % of the time, you're losing. You're losing because a lot of the times your people are going to tell you exactly what they need and how to sell them. Your job, the same way that when you walk, if you're a provider, walk into a clinic room is just to get
to the thing under the thing under the thing under the thing. Right? And the majority of practices that I interview, because I also run a bootcamp for one of our clients, is like, you know, I ask them, like, how do you want your patients to feel when they walk out of your office? I want them to feel seen and I want them to feel heard. And when you're somebody answering the phone who's feature dumping on them about what your program is and how much it costs, guess what they don't feel? Seen and heard. Right? And so it's like,
How do I actually get to know this person and granted whether it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes or in a five minute phone call, it's not necessarily an easy thing. But if I can ask like, hey, thanks so much for calling. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with? And in case we get disconnected, can I get a phone number to call you back? Awesome. Before we dive into like how the new patient thing works, I'd love to know what brought you to our practice today. How did you find out about us? Right? And all of a sudden you just opened up a flood gate.
But if we're like, hey, yeah, we're accepting new patients and here's how it hurts. Like it doesn't even give anybody an artifact.
Scott Rattigan (39:39.758)
Yeah, if you want to know, like, because people on here are really statistically oriented, but only 16 % of the practices that we shopped asked for name and contact information. And so when we're looking at evaluating practices from a sales perspective, we're also looking at your tech stack, right? We create blueprints for your technology and what you're using. I can't tell you how many people are not only not asking that question if they are asking it, it's going on a sticky note.
It's not even if you said you had a spreadsheet, I would I would be like, thank you. Thank you. Because at least it's being tracked somewhere. I'm not even asking you to go buy a whole CRM, a customer relationship management system. I'm just saying, are you even asking one? Are you writing it down to and did you call them back? Because what we have learned in the past 20 years of doing this is it can take upwards of eight to 16 touch points sometimes.
for somebody to understand the why, the how, the what, and then make that decision that they want to purchase. And so to her point, only one out of 10 practices actively listened to our concerns. One out of 10. That is staggering and is a huge testament to the fact that if you just got on a call with us and got those 10 things, right, we have a sales checklist of
what to ask and did you do those things, you might see a huge conversion rate in just the type of people that are calling in. When we get practices that will reach out and say, I'm not, I'm not, I don't have any patients, right? Well, there's a lot of different reasons you could, you could not have patients. And if you tell me how much the phone is ringing, my first question is going to be, where are those people? Where the list and they don't have it.
Right. It's not even just about growing your newsletter. It's not just about those types. Those are great ancillary benefits to asking that information. And there's a bigger picture here, which is your sale is not going to happen on the first try. Another thing to say in what we've talked about pricing, I think that just keeps coming up for people a lot is knowing your value and your worth and all those things. And those are great things. And. You guys ask.
Scott Rattigan (42:03.79)
for money every day. When you tell a patient, hey, you got some gut dysbiosis, I've got this Genova test that I want you to go take, it's cash pay, it's not covered by insurance, it's not a really hard sell for you because you know there is a clinical need at the end of the day for them to go get that lab done and for you to interpret results. So all I'm saying is if you understand the clinical need for your program or package or membership,
or whatever you want to call it, right? Then you just say, I recommend working with me over the next 12 months. Here's what it looks like. We even have things where we've told people, hey, look, stop telling people it's a membership. Cause everyone's in like subscription overload right now. And they feel like between Spotify and you know, the U S postal service, everyone's digging their card every month. Right? So don't say that say my program costs $2,900 a year.
As a benefit, I can amortize that over the next 12 months for you. Would you like to do that? So now they have the total MSRP value of your program and what you're worth, and now you're giving them a benefit of being able to pay it monthly. It's a change in the psyche. It's a little change in the verbiage. And I don't feel locked in. I don't feel committed. I don't feel stuck. And I don't feel like I can't get out of it, right? Or that you're going to call me every single month.
every time my card gets dinged and say, what did I get? What did I get? What did I get? So yeah, those are some high. Yeah. And I like how Lauren touched on earlier, but maybe it wasn't very, or I don't think it was super explicit. I was just listening for it was that by creating it in a, creating the experience. And in other words, like figuring out what their problems are and then coming up with solutions and how you're going to deliver those solutions to these patients. Um,
You, you kind of see your own value in the program or the membership or the whatever you're calling it these days, your services, you, by building that out first and then seeing what all the expenses are that go into delivering it and then, you know, accounting for taxes and a certain level of profit. But just building it out, I think demonstrates to yourself that the value far exceeds the price, right? Because.
Scott Rattigan (44:27.886)
It's not like you're not selling, and you guys keep saying features and benefits, but for those who are new to those terms, you're not selling lab tests and supplements. You're selling health, getting younger, getting their life back, getting their energy back, feeling like they were 10 years ago. And so everybody that, you everybody you ask 100 people on the street, 99 of them are gonna say, what's more important, health or wealth? They're all gonna say health, right? But.
So just you giving a super valuable thing where the value far exceeds the price and understanding that you're not selling supplements. You are delivering them their health. Those two things, if you can just mentally, one, go through that exercise and if you don't know how, go to Lauren and Claire at Medicava or we teach something similar at Incubator too. Those two shifts will be game changers, I think.
from the asking for the money. I mean, what you guys all said was super golden nuggets already, but I think Lauren actually touched on it earlier. And what we've come to know is that if the value exceeds the price, if you're not just picking the price out of thin air, because that's what the person down the street came up with and you're like, oh, I guess that's reasonable. And you know, cause you've built it that the value exceeds the price, people will pay it. That's the decision making process we all go through every day. Am I thirsty? Do I want to buy this Gatorade or this bottle of water or?
There's a value and that's an eight-dollar bottle of water at the airport. I'm good. You know, or I'm super thirsty. Do I want electrolytes or do I want like artesian? You know what I mean? There's so there's value in everything that we purchase. And as consumers, we make those decisions every day consciously or subconsciously. And so when people are buying their health. Right. I wish to this day that I had memorized the Dalai Lama quote, because I probably try to say it all the time and never really land on it. But it's about.
how we spend our whole life, when wealth right and then we try once we lose our health, we spend our whole life trying to get it back with as much money as possible. And it's the same testament that we don't really understand the value of health until we've lost it. And everyone I think that is listening to you right now understands that these people have lost their health. And that you as a thought leader and healer, it is your job to help them identify and regain that health back, whatever that looks like. So we said it earlier,
Scott Rattigan (46:52.366)
There is a skill set in bookkeeping and being an attorney and fixing AC and plumbing, right? And there is a huge skill set in integrative and functional care and just being a practitioner regardless. So if we leave you with anything, it's you are of value, you are of worth. The systems that gets you there and the approach that gets you there, there's plenty of people that can give you advice and we're two of them, right?
We've been doing it long enough. Like I said, I probably tell people more what not to do than what to do every day. And there's value in that too. While we've been on this call, I just got a text message from one of my clients that said, I think I'm ready to raise my prices. So I feel like it's pretty timely. You'll sort of see that that is the flow of things, right? We get on and we say, this is what we want and this is the price we can do. And as we grow, we start to see that sort of shift right into,
Okay, no, I'm worth a little bit more. So now she can hire an extender, they can pay one rate, she's now tiered up to another rate, and her renewals go out in May to another price. But even just if your prices are too low, then you're going to resent your patients because you're delivering too much to them at such a low value and you get burnt out. And then you go out of business. Or I can't count the number of people that say to me like, I've been in business for three years, I haven't paid myself yet. Something's wrong.
if that's the case. And so you need to either talk to Claire and Lauren or find another mentor to kind of help you right that ship because it certainly doesn't need to be that way. And likely it's your prices are too low. Yeah, a lot of our clients come to us just because of that reason alone. Like I need to raise my pricing and how do I do it? And I think that, you know, to your point, it's like,
They're here to be of service. Practitioners really want to be of service. And most of you that have been in the traditional medical field have probably gotten raped over the coals from insurance companies and paid what they paid you. Now this is your time to build your dream. You get to think through these things and that's why we put you through these crazy pricing exercises so that at least you can make sense of what it is, the time invested into these projects. And then the only other thing I want to say is,
Scott Rattigan (49:09.774)
you know, back to the marketing side of things. It's like nobody bought a drill because they wanted to drill. They bought a drill because they wanted a hole. People don't buy an airline because of the airline. They buy it because of the destination. And that's what people are coming to you for. They're coming to you because there's a promise of hope for something different in their future. And if you allow them to talk to you about where they're at, you can all of a sudden help them make a plan for where they want.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm just kidding. That's fantastic. This is where I feel like she's like, just got it. She's real. That's awesome. So Claire and Lauren at medicava.com, they are a full-service agency that specializes in website development, patient marketing and acquisition, and customized concierge medicine conversions, and also dropping tons of value on podcasts like this one. So thank you so much, Claire and Lauren. Any parting thoughts? No.
Keep doing. Thank you. Yeah. Like Scott referred to, if you're in the valley of despair, reach out. There's tons of people that are here to hold your hand along the way. And very much like you guys are in these discovery calls. We're in a give to give culture. We're shifting perspective all around the world. And you need help, raise your hand. There's people out there that are willing. There's more than enough space for all of you to serve. There's 8 billion people on the planet that need support from folks like you. And so,
Keep living the dream, man. This is yours to make. Beautiful. Thank you, Claren and Lauren. Nope, Clare and Lauren. Together, Claren. Yep. All right. All right, appreciate it. Thanks, Scott. Thanks for listening to the Junto. If you want to hear more or find all the notes and links that we talked about in today's show, go to functionallawyer.com/Junto. And if you got any value out of today, please
Feel free to share it with a friend, hit that five-star rating on Apple Podcasts that really helps us out, and give us a subscribe on Podcasts, Player of your Choice, and YouTube, and we'll see you next time in the Junto.
