Transcript

[0:00] You know it’s easier to throw rocks at a house than it is to build one in today’s world of constant social media bombardment there are a lot of rock throwers and very few house builders.
But what inspires me is that every time I start to despair of there being anything good in this world someone comes along with a story that’s truly inspiring.
And that’s what you’re going to get on today’s podcast,
my guest today Grew From a solo practitioner to one of the biggest practices in his specialty and is now inspiring hundreds of thousands of Physicians and patients through his content on medicine business and Leadership it is an amazing conversation
and I’m excited for you to be a part of it let’s kick it it smells so good.

[0:38] Music.

[0:45] Welcome to the scope of practice podcast where we help busy Healthcare professionals learn to manage their businesses successfully in master their personal finances now here’s your host dr. Brent Lacey.

[0:58] Hey y’all thanks so much for joining me for the scope of practice podcast where you can get the knowledge and resources you need to grow your leadership skills your business and your personal finances welcome to episode 79.

[1:09] If you haven’t already subscribe to the podcast please be sure to go ahead and hit that subscribe button right now and also,
hit the button at the top of the podcast player to turn on the automatic downloads and that way you can listen to these episodes anytime anywhere even if you’re in a place like,
my office that has just wretched cell phone service man it’s just it’s just the worst well listen if you’ve been listening to the podcast last couple weeks you’ve heard that I am going to be hosting a free online Summit
on November 15th through 17th this year called marriage and money MD,
you know Medical Careers drain time and energy from Physicians and their spouses not to mention the crushing debt that most doctors are faced with when they’re first coming out of training.
Well the marriage and money MD Summit is a free three-day online event that would give physician families the tools resources and encouragement they need to strengthen their marriage and build wealth so they can have the happy family and financial Independence they deserve.

[2:05] Just go to marriage and money M d.com to sign up it’s totally free to sign up so sign up today and even if you can’t attend Live sign up anyway and you’ll get access to the replays of the talks for the rest of the week,
and if you want to get access to the 10-plus hours of bonus content from our speakers
plus MP3 files of the talks that you can listen to on your phone plus exclusive access to join the live Q&A sessions at the end of each night with our speakers you can also upgrade to an all-access VIP pass for just $99,
ticket prices go up to 149 after the conference starts so upgrade today and take advantage of those savings,
but again the summit itself is free to attend so sign up today at www.marriageguy.com EMD.com.

[2:49] Before we get into the show let’s talk about this week’s sponsor empath IQ.
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[3:51] My guest today is dr. Chang Ron dr. Ron is an internal medicine and lifestyle medicine specialist and he’s the founder for the Texas Center for lifestyle medicine,
he went from a solo practice to one of the biggest lifestyle medicine multi-specialty practice specialty centers anywhere he’s also amassed get this.

[4:11] Over six hundred thousand followers on social media no that is not a typo it is over 600,000 and they follow his advice on medical management of common syndromes and business and Leadership and,
it’s just amazing he is taking his practice to incredible levels and the most amazing thing to me at least is that he did it all organically bit by bit and he learned it all along the way,
I mean he’s not that much different from you or I but he’s going to talk to us today about entrepreneurship business leadership and how we are going to save our Healthcare System.
He’s also hosting a free online Summit in October that you can attend if you sign up at www.scopemonth.com / AI,
or click the link in the podcast description this conversation is going to inspire you at least I hope it will because it’s sure inspired me.
So here is my conversation with dr. Chang Ron.

[5:05] Hey y’all I am super excited to welcome my guests today to the scope of practice podcast this is the founder of the Texas Center for lifestyle medicine dr. Chang Ron
dr. Ron thanks so much for joining us thanks a lot for having me how you doing well I am great my friend I am super excited to have you on here so I think,
it’s likely that a lot of our listeners don’t actually know who you are which
the more that I have talked to you the more I hear about all the things you’ve done in our doing the more I think that there’s no reason people shouldn’t have heard of you but but what we’re going to talk about today is.

[5:48] Is having a growth mindset you know learning from your mistakes you know growing and building off of past failures in the future successes becoming a thought leader becoming an influencer you know,
you know one of my favorite Proverbs is and that really has stuck with me as I started the scope of practices do not despise humble beginnings,
and so you know I mean you think about it Apple started in a garage right and now it’s this huge conglomerate company so,
so so I’m very excited for this today but maybe you could kind of tell us a little bit about your background so people can get to know you so what led you to go from,
you know your friendly neighborhood physician to
now business owner thought leader influencer you know someone who’s having meetings with the head of the CDC things like that’s.

[6:38] By keeping to be a friendly neighbor physician I think yeah so I’ll tell you what it’s been an interesting Journey.
And it really started with me questioning myself because I was I felt so much burnout.
At the time finishing residency I trained in New York Presbyterian Queens New York and after I finished residency.

[7:06] I had this sort of moment where I was kind of in limbo.
About what I really should do ended up in private practice and which was fabulously Private Practice was great because allow me to see a lot of different things I became partner in my second year.
Which allow me to CL even more things but I got to really understand.
Humans I got to understand that me being that friendly neighborhood doctor and all of a sudden you know by the way it took.
Two years before my panel was completely flat to stop taking new patients in two years and it was crazy them in part of it because I had a senior partner.
For the practice and that practice been there for very long time but the other part because I was attracting a crowd I didn’t expect it attract.
And it’s the people who want wanted to get off of medicines and being an internal medicine doc you know I think that I spend a lot of effort talking about it.
In a really allow me to really have understanding of just what human connection is so I started valuing human connection.
And realize that was sort of my goal to get out of the burnout phase and then started asking patients and this so about half a year about six months into private practice.

[8:24] This is my aha moment is instead of assuming why the patients that are based on what my medical system puts in the chief complaint.

[8:34] I tell them well you know you cheap complains that you have a cold but I’m curious like what are your goals in coming here and what do you see yourself.
By the by the end of the year and every page in just it takes back like huh.

[8:47] No one’s ever asked me that and to this day that you’re still are taken back by that but what it does is it triggers a different level of communication.
Because if I were to write them steroids or Z-Pak or something to a script.
Um then the value I gave them was in the power of that prescription.
But then I challenge I challenge them to to have a thought yes I’m probably still going to use script but what are you what are your goals.
And honestly it didn’t really take that like I didn’t spend a bazillion hours of my patients when I first started I had 10 minute slots for my patients and I was doing this during the during the slots.

[9:22] But a challenge them to come back the next time.
And talk about the things that they want to accomplish and by the end of the year and a half majority of the people were making appointments with me just to talk.
It was like the coach all of a sudden right and I’m like man this is pretty cool and I really enjoyed it and it’s not something my other partners really kind of experienced.
And and you know at that time I was doing inpatient outpatient hospice sports medicine at kind of did it all.

[9:52] And I will start being kind of burnt out I enjoy my conversation my patience but I start being really burnt out and not understanding why,
I was really burnt out because I was I thought I was I was I was serving right really wanted to serve and so so my aha moment was that yes I like relationships and I like that patients are coming to me for it.
But also like that that there’s something called Google reviews.
At the time which I ended up having the most number of five-star reviews for that City.

[10:23] I’m and I got voted on the the biggest Rising Star physician in the following year top doctor within that City.
And so and it really gave me a purpose of under and an understanding of what people actually value it’s not,
in the power of prescription but it’s in the power of a conversation,
right and so that was my big aha moment I think I had and I was like you know what all of medicines really should be like this because not only did I have the conversation I had great outcomes for patients
my you know I started tracking my A1C data for diabetics my hypertensive and I became a data Miner data nerd like the more data the better for my patients I presented the ACO and that ended up going.
Hospital in the situation and then I stood aside to write a book about my my data,
it’s called the ultimate guy for type 2 diabetes reversal it’s on Amazon if you guys want to look it up so I became an author my second year into practice and co-wrote it with one of my really good friends weddings Mimi changes the rest of your dietitian and then when that book came out.
It really it really challenged the way that I looked at medicine other people looked at me and then I’m like what now what do I do now right.
And so from there exploded into me wanting to.
Replicate myself in different formats and that’s what the entrepreneur entrepreneurial bug kind of bit.

[11:51] After the book was written and developed online courses and did a lot of digital marketing start my own digital marketing company on the side of the time.
And then learned a lot from there and then ultimately,
good drew a really big social media following and then decided to open Texas Center for lifestyle medicine as sort of a prototype of what I think the perfect practice should be.
I love you kind of glossed over that you said a very big social media following I know the answer to this but but tell the listeners what the size of that social media following is,
yeah so I started talking about diabetes and all this stuff doing a bunch of Facebook lives which just became available.
To regular consumers other than celebrities at the time and develop to just over half a million followers.
At that time I think I’m just under 600 thousand right now on Facebook and then face it was the only thing I grew and I started developing other platforms since then.
Um but that that number just kind of exploded I don’t know where and I realize a lot of it was just providing value man just providing value value value value value.
On to the interwebs so I mean that is absolutely phenomenal I mean anybody who can.

[13:01] Figure out a way to get 600,000 people to sit up and pay attention has really tapped into something and I what I’ve heard you say for the last 10 minutes here is that this is
you’re sticking with the fundamentals it’s it’s,
inner it’s individual interaction its human connection it’s how can I provide value it’s it’s changing the conversation to what the patient needs
not necessarily what the patient is asking for and that seems like such a very basic very simple concept but you’ve been able to leverage that into a phenomenal.

[13:36] You know the concept is simple but we’re kind of taught to do the opposite man and medical training to be honest.
You know I think going through residency and that’s cool learned a lot of pharmacology learns a lot about what to do for patients medical side this is patient needs surgery or the guidelines,
because American Heart Association American Cancer Society and what not right.
And so our life became dominated by guidelines but there’s not necessarily a set of guidelines,
until I came across American culture as College of Lifestyle medicine a CLM.
It’s really talked about like the human interaction and I came across this brilliant guy by the name of Don Miller and think you know who he is.
And our kind of read this book that kind of changed my perception about human interaction is you can either choose to be a hero for people we can choose to be a guy.
And for me I will be a guide all day long and what a guy does is very different than what a hero does.
You know what a hero does and I think we were taught to be heroes not there’s nothing wrong with Heroes but Heroes get really burnt out but what a hero does.
Is that a hero delivers value to a person but that hero can suffer a tragedy,
when the the needs are on the mat and but what a guy does like Yoda right like Yoda is not going to disappoint anyone I mean the dude like.

[14:54] Yoda could do anything but because Yoda was a guide.
And that guide will empowers people to become a language of empowerment if I were to write someone a z-pack or a Medrol dose pack or something like that.
There’s no empowerment that’s that’s a hero’s mentality I’m going to give you here is,
Dragon called you know coded or flu whatever and want to slay it with his antibiotic where this prescription versus a guy is like hey what are your goals for for for this year I just kind of want to know want to know,
here’s my thoughts on it you know from a guy’s perspective so I get to play Hero and a guide at the same time.
But what ended up happening what kept people coming back was the god philosophy so I started.

[15:37] Putting that into online course to teach nurse practitioners with with.

[15:42] And physician assistants and started accepting these students into our practice and I start teaching them this and then they took that to other,
rotations and then they came back on something to do elective and like well this is what I experienced I mean there’s so much joy and medicine when you speak like a guy.
And it just is a completely different philosophy but your outcomes are fabulous because now you have a partner to work with with your patients
rather than you know here’s what I say do it if you don’t do a see another physician which I don’t think is the right way to practice medicine.

[16:16] Well and I’m really excited to be talking through all this stuff this is just Sookie and I think as I think it’s Physicians you’re right we tend to focus on the heroes aspect of the journey we see ourselves as the hero in the story but,
you know I think I hadn’t really considered it in that framework until just now as you’re talking but when I’m talking to patients this is very much the same way that I approached I call myself a teacher so
you know teaching as my spiritual gift and so for me I feel like whenever I go into a patient’s room
my goal is to teach and to educate and to coach so because just like you said it’s it
it’s very easy to go in and say okay mrs. Jones you have you have acid reflux we’re going to put you on Prilosec at this dose and come see me in three months and we’ll see how you’re doing,
that’s easy and a lot of people do that and are successful at treating the reflux but.
What I found in my experience is the thing that separates good Physicians from great Physicians is the degree to which you get people to
understand what’s going on in a way that helps them modify their behavior and achieve a more Global level of success and
I see it as part of my,
goal is part of my duty really to engender that sense of change in that person and that really starts for me from the educating so that guide mentality I think is huge absolutely.

[17:43] Yeah so you know adopting that guide mentality I really wanted to do something with more of a federal level I start approaching legislators I start approaching politicians.
Medical societies with this concept.
Honestly no one really cared until I put the numbers to it right I was like hey okay here’s here’s what our actual numbers are for a practice and how we’ve been able to keep you by the hospital and stuff like that I mean we even
got numbers through through through covid-19 right and so I am you know I was a data Miner,
at the same time trying to make some changes and ultimately one thing led to another.
The people who really jive with me are other Physicians who have been in my shoes and who’s been really burnt out as well and then we saw all of a sudden like you said we started seeing yourselves of teachers I mean the word doctor actually is Latin for Teacher so,
you know dr. Ron teacher on right and so.
And so if we see ourselves as teachers I started creating a classroom so one of the things that I went on this,
one week journey by myself in California and I meditated the whole time and I when I came back and what I realize is that.
You know I don’t I don’t have a medical practice I have a university and within universities you need teachers and you have students.

[19:09] And so and then I started looking into what American Academy of Family Practice called dickmas which is drop in group visits that was defined back in the 90s and no one used.
Let’s start doing group visits and I start seeing that oh my gosh people actually wanted to become a classroom group visit we actually build patients insurance for it.
And got paid for it and it was actually a scalable business model but not only that,
there are people coming to us only to be in the groove is as they don’t care about the one-on-ones right there like ought to be in a group of diabetics autoimmune patients dementia right so all of a sudden different pockets of communities start being formed,
Within These groups.

[19:50] And and one of my friends James maskull billing guy who wrote two books but one of them is called a community qrst featured in chapter 7 and chapter 11 a talking about how we actually approach the community
and then on my started realizing the other institutional started to adopt as UCS D star doing it.
And then I reached out to them like holy crap we’re doing the same things Cleveland Clinic started doing it,
and they had a massive programs My Mama D’s hospital had over want to say a hundred thousand patients within the group setting in medical settings with health coaches providers and.
I’m like hold on a second I’m not really a large institution I don’t have a desire to be large Institution.
But what I know is that they have data supporting this and the reason they’re able to allow the continuation of these programs is they have grants and stuff in the government I don’t have that right and so.

[20:42] When I started Texas Center for lifestyle medicine it was that experimentation that really led me to really understand.
What does a modern practice what should it really look like and I wanted to be uncompromising of what it should look like and design business plans were around it
suffered a tons of pain points you know we open six weeks before hurricane Harvey that was a terrible idea but learn how to no no that’s a horrible timing
yeah my own house got flooded that was that was not good timing and then suffered multiple different things and had issues with United Healthcare contracts and BlueCross BlueShield contracts.
Our acos had had these wars with them and all the stuff like that insurance reimbursements you know and then vendor ships and stuff like that so learned a lot through the private practice that there’s so many pain points within it.
But the number one goal was uncompromising is how do you communicate.
With patients and what can we do how do you develop business,
business plan around communicating patients and that’s the birth of in the continuation of Texas Center for lifestyle medicine and in fact you know to this is our fourth year in existence and I think we’ve done we’ve done pretty well.

[21:55] And it’s so key what you just said that that no matter how big you get no matter how many people you
acquire no matter how many social media followers start joining you it’s keeping to the same original Mission and I just think that’s so crucial want people to hear that it’s
it’s not the things evolve and morph over time it’s that
the way that you apply those fundamental principles is what will change but that core that fundamental
set of values that core Mission that’s the thing that can’t ever change so that’s really crucial I love that well so let’s let’s kind of pivot a little bit then so because we you alluded to a few tough times with hurricane Harvey and some insurance challenges and things like that I mean,
you’ve got you’ve had tremendous success you’ve had a lot of accomplishments and I’m sure a lot of accolades but.
Anytime there’s a large success like that what I usually see is there’s a large pile of mistakes and failures that that is built on it no that’s certainly been the case for me
so can you talk a little bit about that for some of our younger docks that are here in this going well,
well how am I ever going to get to that I’m just sitting here this will this little low level or whatever so.

[23:05] Encourage us what are some of the maybe the low points are some of the failures some of the mistakes some of the challenges that you’ve had to overcome in your career to get to where you are now.

[23:15] You know my personality I’m a very optimistic person and sometimes optimism kills right and so you know I started hard in
developing Texas interval I lifestyle medicine u.s. 6 providers just start off with and that’s a lot of overhead when all of a sudden you have a hurricane that wiped out half of Houston or
three-quarters of Houston you know and all of a sudden were having payroll issues and stuff like that so.
You know I wasn’t a great I wasn’t great our finances I understood it but it wasn’t I wasn’t really great and I didn’t know how to do a lot of these things so you know I you know I come from China I’m immigrant and with the Immigrant philosophy.

[23:55] Is that you just do it.
And see what happens and you fail we want to be able to make fill forward right and so I’m very proud to say that I failed every single day I actually feel today because I got delayed on one of our
our tax items and so you learn from it right and so people should really look forward to failure so that you can pick up what you learned and continue to keep going
and I think that.
The more number of failures you collect in the lifetime the more you learn from them keep going but the only way you can do this.

[24:32] If you have your eyes on the prize you uncompromising about.

[24:36] Have there been times I’ve wavered off and not understanding what my identity with the practice I didn’t he is chasing after money or contacts you bet
hundred percent I have was it worth it never it was never worth it to go gear off with your eyes
on another prize because it was too distracting
and guess what everyone’s suffer I suffer my staff suffered my provider suffered my family suffered okay and so but that’s human and that’s normal but guess what the same staff that’s been with me through those tough times are the exact same staff I have right now.
We’re such a close-knit family and we love hanging out with each other even after work and so that includes everyone from my front desk to my office manager to my director of operations
than my CFO I mean we all it’s just a coast in the family and that culture reverberates
between the language of my staff to the patient’s so you just Google Texas Center for lifestyle medicine look at our online reviews look what people are really saying,
EC every five star review that you see and we don’t have all five star reviews trust me of a lot of one stars but we all every five-star views that you see is saying that finally you have a practice that actually listens from.

[25:53] The doctors the practitioners that health coaches the front desk or whatever right and sure there’s going to be some some now so reviews on Ministry of stuff but we take that and we make those one star review people.
Into our partners like hey I like you give us a one star review this is freaking awesome you know let’s let’s work through what actually happened and then ones who work those I’ll change that to 5 stars and I should don’t want you to change a 5 so I’ll just leave it as one star,
that’s totally okay and we’re going to work through it on our side and that’s the that’s the culture that we really have and and respect.
Most practices and belief that your patients come first and your staff comes second and I think is the quite the opposite.

[26:35] Your staff is your family they come first and so they’re your voice is right,
and so you understand who you’re around with all the time are the ones who are going to be your voices what are they actually saying what is the feedback and you want as much interaction with them as possible or develop a system.
Were they can freely talk.
That’s what once a month we have I called Grand rounds but really we just kind of get together and talk through pain points that we have and we always solve things you know.
I think that I think those are really important things is keep your eyes on the prize yes we’re going to Veer off dude I mean we all do,
young dogs out there you’re going to viewer off you probably viewing off right now and but that’s okay but as long as you keep your eyes on what’s truly matters to you,
and who do you really want to serve not that hey I want to serve everyone that’s not how it works who does that who’s the Avatar who’s that person.
That you want to serve and continue driving down that path for me I wanted to serve my 68 year old,
Medicare Grandma who’s stressed out because she still has to work because if different issues and then she’s has these chronic health issues but she doesn’t want to be on medicines that’s my avatar right there right you may have a different one,
but if you stick to that and you don’t view her off you should be good.

[27:56] I love what you said that you need to look forward to failure I hope people missed didn’t miss that because I think is really an important statement,
and really an important mindset to have look forward to failure and I think as Physicians were trained for the opposite,
fear failure punished failure mock failure you know and so it leads to people covering up mistakes that leads to people
playing it safe and being overly cautious and and you do not not try and not taking care of patients when they think it’s going to be harder it it might be a bad outcome or something and so it really puts training wheels on people in a way that I think is is limiting
but it takes a.
A pretty forward-thinking mentality to have that Paradigm Shift especially early on and it sounds like you really had that so do you think that that is an important thing for the younger docs for,
for trainees for for folks who are early in their career to have that,
broader scope of vision Beyond just the next patient the next day the next fiscal quarter to really have that broader scope of vision of what I want my career what do I want my practice to look like in three years in 5 years in 10 years is that important for us to have early on.
Yes and no actually I think it’s important to have earlier on but also you have to check yourself.

[29:17] Because this may be what you want in 2021 it may not be what you want in 2022 and you have to recognize it you know.

[29:24] And I see this all the time you know I think you and I are both part of so many dogs which is social media doctors.
And there’s a lot of social media doctors kind of see out there kind of young doctors who.
Um have an identity and they kind of shift and change in a lot of what they said the year before comes back to bite them right and I feel like there’s nothing wrong with doing that right but understand that,
you always have to have some margin to say yourself hey this is the road that I’ve been going down.

[30:00] But am I running enthusiastically
down the wrong direction or Mike still going the right way right and so so that’s that’s what I mean by yes and no like no no truly what you want who you want to serve and also
you have dedicated time to serve for yourself as well and stick to them.
There’s okay for your identity change my identity changed multiple times right and I was able to Pivot through it.
But the biggest lesson that I see a lot of or the biggest I guess pain points for me when I look at social media.

[30:37] And people were putting themselves out there is negativity remember that if you’re posting something your great great great great great grandchildren will see that post because it’s index forever.
In the digital media space right so you got to be proud.
Of what you post and everything that you put on their every word that you put on Instagram and Twitter and stuff like that.
That is your digital Equity You’re Building Equity upon yourself and that Equity is priceless because multiple future Generations have direct access to the equity.
Ons a man they probably don’t have to type anything in the future why should they know how to do right now just ask Alexa or Syria or something like that right and so we’re coming to that age where we understand that there’s a footprint and imprint of everything that we do.
In just because we said I wouldn’t do it last year doesn’t mean we have to necessarily.
Continue to do it this year and and that’s that’s my thing in our entire practice identity changed a bit our website changed to match her identity you know,
instead of calling ourselves Integrative Medicine call itself a collaborative medicines because we reach out to other doctors and Specialists so much we’re like we’re really collaborating it’s not really integrated which is collaborating,
and that’s bringing better outcomes for the practice and because we’re open with that and we shared with people.

[31:54] Those things before okay with it you know and that’s that’s sort of my my one new thing I picked up this year for a lot of social media Docs,
so let’s get real practical so if you’re if we’re talking to a trainee out there someone’s residency fellowship or maybe the early in their career and their thinking okay this guy’s tapped into something.
I want to be like that I want to tap into something I want to influence my patience I want to be
in a position to influence other Physicians I want to I want to be a thought leader I want to I want to do more I want to be better I want to be stronger you know what are some.

[32:30] Habits that we should be cultivating if our goal is to reach that level at some point what are some practical things that we can be doing on a regular basis right now that will.
Push us towards success in the future honestly this is this is my big Sook I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this before.
There’s nobody too big for me to talk to or attempt to ask.
To learn lessons you know I had several Heroes years back.
You know you know Mark Hyman he’s very famous famous famous doctor he’s the doctor for the Clinton family and all the stuff like that but you know what I went to conference I met him and the dude actually sat down with me because
well I don’t know why I just went up and talked to him and was really honest about hey I like you but,
you have pain points come out of your I really want to know what they are and they’re not being yeah they’re not used to asking that and then also like if nothing’s What It Seems.

[33:32] The people who are the most successful have come from a lot of strife and you want to learn what those are more than you want to learn about the successes and it’s really easy to look at successes because they’re clickbait,
right it’s sexy but you really want to learn from the people who they are so when I started going through training through functional medicine Integrative Health I reached out to.
Let’s go to dr. Jeffrey plane who coined the term functional medicine 1989.
And then he’s now a great mentor friend of mine and we actually on Boards of several different companies and being being Consultants on the business side and so like there’s no one too big for me to just like go out and talk to because everyone’s human.
And I was relentless and trying to communicate with these people because I really want to learn and absorb and so and so I think that if you’re a young doc or if you’re any Doc and you want to be an influencer.

[34:31] I know what mistakes other people have made and just reach out to them directly,
tweet them Instagram try to get their emails and by the way it is really easy no lie to to get someone’s cell phone number and email these days,
I have my ways but it’s actually really really easy and scarily easy but by and I’ve been real resourceful and putting myself out there.
And then my emails have have you know what Tony Robbins got RPM format our is what is the end result trying to choose I am trying to learn from your mistakes,
because I want I like the things that you’re doing but I recognize that it took a lot to get here,
right P what is the purpose behind it because this drives me it feels like I feel like I have a lot of contribution and I really want to learn from you and then m is he calls it the massive action plan out the map
like I would like a map to get to where you are right now
um would you be willing to guide me gotta use the word guide you would you be willing to guide me so that’s how I kind of write all my emails and my voicemail stuff like that that one secret I think
has put me in places I never thought I’d be like the White House like that was brand new this year after covid-19.
So in now you know.

[35:51] Being asked to do things I came and talked about in here because the government let me you know stuff like that is really cool stuff that’s really going to be affecting the the the.
Health the scene of what health care reimbursement going to be and you know that’s really over the last four years you know I just turned I just turned 38.
And I really look back and I really proud of what I accomplished and I don’t know how I got here as fast as I did but what I do know.
Is that was uncompromising in being genuine to myself.
And genuine to other people and there’s nothing fake about what I do and if I change my mind I’ll tell people I changed my mind and for whatever reason and I’m emotional about it you know and so I think those are those are,
you know be who you are like genuinely inside don’t be who someone else wants you to be.

[36:40] So I love the strategy of talking to people not about their successes but specifically about their failures and
this is a really,
practical way to leverage a concept that I’ve long been a fan of that the idea that the best mistakes to learn from are the ones that you see somebody else make right so people say the best of mistakes to learn from our your own,
and those may be the most powerful to learn from but I’d much rather learn from somebody else’s mistakes so yeah that takes a lot of that takes a lot of gumption to just.
Email someone out of the blue and or call them out of the blue and say Hey listen I have been following you I’m an admirer of your of your work of your character I want to do the kinds of things that you’re doing.

[37:26] Will you guide me and you’re going to probably get a lot of NOS I would expect that you’ve had a lot of NOS.
Or a lot of no response presently not so really I think that stuff that is kind of surprising actually you know I’ll tell you what you know.

[37:43] And I think you know I reached out to you cold call to actually I you know I think that when.
When you talk about your to genuine self and we trying to portray out there it’s even reverberated into an energy of an email you know but you know Heather been knows sure there have been knows.
But knows are never knows they’re always not now my biggest yeses or always not announced for the first like two years.
And all of a sudden I get I get a phone call or a text like whoa like this person was to talk to me this is kind of.

[38:15] I mean that’s how I got into this sort of federal task force and talk to this person in two years and now they want me to write something for our for CMS and like okay that’s that’s interesting.
And so you never know because you know people may not remember who you are but they’ll remember how you make them feel right,
and if you’re really honest and forth about yourself and then you’re right it does take some gumption there but but I am not ashamed of it because I am projecting myself you know.
And have there been really embarrassing emails that I shouldn’t have sent a few years ago sure but I’ll say Hey you know I sent you three years ago that email,
you know I’m a little different now you know but I’m very forthcoming about it and guess what 2022 2023 I’ll probably be different again,
but we’ll all keep telling you about it never never going to hide that no I love that I think that’s really really fantastic so
so as we’re as we’re starting to think about how we can grow how we can mold ourselves how we can start to seek out some of these
mistakes to learn from these successes to emulate.
How do we incorporate that into our into our strategic vision for our lives without burning out because I could easily see how.

[39:37] You have this Grand Vision for yourself and then you say okay I need to work 10 times as hard as everyone else I need to do all these different things I need to I need to be sending emails I need to be calling people I need to be growing in these ways
I need to be influencing people I need to be on social media and need to be talking to patients I need
and it very quickly balloons into this huge overwhelming monster right and it just sort of consumes you so how do we start to do that without.

[40:03] Becoming so overwhelmed that we just burn out and then we lose our momentum.
You know I’m a recovering micromanager wanted to do everything myself in the beginning because I thought I was the only one to do it but that just ends in tragedy.
You know I think the most important thing to do is to understand the power of Delegation.

[40:24] Input by doing that you kind of have to track what you’re doing on a daily basis and see how much time you’re actually wasting.

[40:30] And you know the second thing is you got to talk to the people around you man if you live with your family members talk to them you live with your spouse talk to them talk to your kids if they’re old enough to talk you know
and and you’d be surprised how much feedback you actually get the people who you surround yourself with know you better than yourself and you have to respect that
you know and you can’t be afraid to say.
Hey how do you how do you think I did in the last week do I seem stress you know what am I doing and then you know my wife always be very honest with me like
it’s like chain stuffing you know and I’m like okay okay I got it I’ll turn it I’ll tone it down a little bit.

[41:10] But sometimes you surprise and she’d be like no you’re not working hard enough on this like why did you just stop by oh I got totally distracted you know so,
I think having that humility and this is a learned thing is not something that just came out of nowhere but having the humility,
to talk to the people around you and recognizes there’s actually people that care about you that love you and accept that love it’s really hard for doctors to accept Love by the way because we’re
there’s a lot of PTSD coming from training right and recognize that love is the most important lesson that that I have because without you know my family’s love my friends love,
I don’t know how to really appreciate myself the way I do right now you know and these are really hard lessons to learn but.
Business is 80% psychology you know.
It’s about human or actions about how to speak to people how people speak what personality they speak not be offended and always understanding what is the outcome they’re trying to achieve.

[42:18] So
I’ll give you example my wife’s an OBGYN we’re very different people so she is so we did do the something called a disc profile of the disc profile so these dominant eye is influential.
That’s the sort of slow and steady personality and sees very conscientious and everyone has a mixture,
so I’m a high I which means I’m influential but I tend to be very big picture and lose the details my wife is the opposite of that she’s an sc or she’s kind of like slow and steady and these are surgeons like,
but study the free procedure oriented and she can remember everything in a line.

[42:55] But she has a problem do multiple tasks at a time and I have problem doing one task I’ll start 17 and finish one may be right and so we have to understand that we’re different in those ways we’re different leaders with different people in relationships,
and the way we speak is actually very different and so by recognizing Who We Are by communicating Who We Are.

[43:16] It’s not just about what they say it’s about how they say it so if my wife is speaking to me and she’s SE personality.

[43:23] And she be talking to me is like hey why is there a sock on the floor right and so and so.
And so in my mind I’m like.
Will probably cuz I cuz I because I put it there because I didn’t see the laundry basket here so I didn’t know where it was and I got distracted I can look for it right.
Whereas if I see a sock on the floor I’m like hey.

[43:47] Someone misplaced laundry basket you know it’s different the different types of communication based on personality levels I use that with my staff.
I use our patients with this profile all our patients all the time.
You know sometimes rules instead of saying mr. Smith has Smith or so and so we’re like oh she’s the 67 year old lady who’s a DSC.
I was like oh yeah dese oh yeah totally get it this is why she sent us a secure message,
well let’s let’s respond back in her DSC way was she values if someone’s coming in with a notebook and paper in your office
and writings out every single line item they’re probably in SC if someone’s just laying back right here and doesn’t want to,
he doesn’t care what you’re saying as I just want the big picture tell me what to do they’re probably a Heidi or high I right and so I so I use that with business I use that with family I use that with a relationship with everyone
everyone around me and it helps me be a better communicator but understand people and and I.
Honestly think that everyone always has the best intentions for what they know and so we just have to meet them there.

[44:50] Yeah I’m definitely with you on that the disc assessment is a really great tool I got introduced to that about 4 years ago
when I was developing the financial discipleship Ministry my church somebody had done it and we went through it was hugely valuable it really helps
people learn how to communicate more effectively because you understand another person’s communication style a lot better so I’m a high us
and my wife is a Hi-C so yeah so learning understanding that those differences about ourselves was certainly very helpful.
I can predict your dinner side conversations now know you letter
yeah absolutely and well I’ll include a link in the podcast description for the the disc assessment if anybody wants to check it out it is an incredibly incredibly valuable tool.

[45:40] So I highly encourage people to go check that out there’s a lot of great tools like that but I think the disc is one of the best,
as we start to wrap up here I want to take some of these Concepts that we have discussed here the
the idea of looking forward to failure the idea of failing forward the idea of keeping our our core Mission steady despite
growth despite non-growth no matter what sticking to those fundamental let’s take some of those Concepts and I want to talk about the future of medicine for Private Practice what is that going to look like in 20 in the 2020s and the 2030s and Beyond what
does the future of medicine need to be for Private Practice to be a scalable workable model going forward.

[46:26] Yeah the operative word is scalable and workable right and that’s always the thing that becomes really complicated because if you think about it.
The business of medicine is not designed to be scalable from a practice Private Practice point of view because what happens with a doctor retires while the doctor is the business he’s really hard to kind of sell the business what you’re doing is selling the assets of the business
like a list of patients and the rights to see those patients stuff like that which is not worth,
very much at all versus if you’re if you are in real estate investment all you’re doing is building equity and by the end of your life you have a lot of equity,
no matter how small you start from right and so so it’s very difficult to scale medical practices unless you have consistency.
Let’s talk about the biggest inconsistency in all private practices as staff turnover whenever their staff turnover everything goes to crap you know and.

[47:24] And statistically speaking your staff is most likely to quit when you’re on vacation statistically speaking because they do not want confrontation right when the boss is away and so that means you and your vacation early and stuff like that and it’s just not fun.
So to have something that is scalable you have to set up a structure where it is.

[47:43] Old days which I think is the current days of a doctor medical assistants a office manager and the billing person is going to be.
Defunct okay because it’s too high of a cost because we’re dealing with a lot of documentation which waste a lot of time and our dollars per VAR per hour is and be a lot less dealing with is going forward what is scalable are things like Outsourcing things that our biggest pain points that someone can do
that’s could be optimized for so we use digital assistants we have people,
who are trained very well in different parts of the country different parts of the world and who,
really Jive of us in our own what we do we have we use this.

[48:31] We use this platform it’s basically online training manual called train you’ll actually that that houses all our Sops are.
Our procedures Center operating protocols that.
Is able to let us train staff really really fast like digitally speaking,
give them assessments and test and does not take very long to make in my senior staff actually makes it for for these for these platforms so that everyone comes in its consistent rain,
and when someone is consistently missing something I’m like well where did we go wrong and that training manual like oh
it’s right here let’s just put this here we put this here all the new staff trained are well that’s scalable that in business that is very scalable when you have the SOB’s down and then you have to understand.
That humans are humans and humans are never going to be a hundred percent error free but there are automations and systems and artificial intelligence now that’s that’s available.

[49:34] Two doctors that that can help you scale dramatically faster because of the consistency.
In by the way robots work 24/7.
There’s no off time for for robot so you can use robots for intake forms mean a patient should be able to go to your website at three in the morning and schedule an appointment and give there,
give their insurance card and ID and then all of a sudden end up on your calendar
before your ma goes to work at 7:30 in the morning.
Right to for the confirmation all that could be done ahead of time and then Insurance pre verification that can be done in time there’s so many tools that are available to Doc’s now,
that’s able to to to help scale and guess what administrative burdens that’s the number one reason why Doc’s are are are burnt out 60 speaking right and so you know that’s why I kind of I developed the physician practice a I upgrade Summit.
To address these things while there’s so many companies out there that have systems for larger Hospital systems.
Um and now we’re seeing startup companies and probably has been existence for three to four years that’s dedicated himself to the small to medium-sized practices which is what we are.

[50:47] And scaling from there using using that technology is just going to be absolutely crucial and that’s where medicine really has to go.
And the last thing is really want to give a shout out there to health coaches,
if you’ve never heard of health coaches well guess what February 1st 2021 the government just regular recognized health coaches.

[51:07] They have their own texts on any number we just adopted their taxonomy which means we’re now multi specialty.
With Family Medicine internal medicine and health coaches and he’s health coaches are actually considered providers because they have their own MPI numbers now.
Which means there’s a billable platform for them.
So part of my project on the federal level is to create and advise for fee schedules for what their reimbursements are and so that’s what that was a big win for our group.
These health coaches so the the medicine part the core medicine part will always be led by The Physician always always always always but there’s things that could be engineered,
to overcome a lot of the pain points with Administration,
with communication with intake and with even with marketing and I think it’s just a really powerful thing.

[51:59] So dr. Wan this has been fantastic thanks for coming on listen I would love it if you would tell us a little bit more about this physician practice automation Summit that you alluded to a little bit earlier.
Yeah this this Summit is really geared towards Physicians who really want to make the change
for things to be more automated it’s for Physicians who are burnt out who really want to have personal development relationship development
money
and do all the things that reduce anxiety improve the outcomes of our patients and also adopting new and upcoming Technologies so we’re featuring artificial intelligence companies and other Silicon Valley companies that I have,
really change the way that we do business and it is something that I’m very proud of and we have some big big names on there that that I’m really excited to feature so I think everyone should really jump on to the summit
thank you yeah and it’s going to be free right so anybody can sign up to be on it and listen and and watch the replays so I mean there’s.

[53:08] Guys there’s no excuses here I mean it’s going to be awesome I’m I know I’m given three presentations you got,
some 30 speakers and change that are going to be coming I mean it’s just going to be it’s just going to be an awesome time definitely want people to be a part of that absolutely thank you so much,
yeah well thank you so much to dr. Chang Ron from for coming on the scope of practice cut podcast today so make sure you go sign up for the summit will have the links in the podcast description,
and in the show notes for everybody and we’ll say thanks again to dr. Juan for coming on the show today thanks a lot thank you so much for having me on I really had a good time thank you.
You know something dr. Ron isn’t that much different from you or me.

[53:51] I mean he started out with no knowledge of how to build and grow a major practice or how to build a large social media following and yet he is grown and learned what he needed to know over time to build something incredible.
And there’s no reason why you can’t do the same.
Listen you don’t need six hundred thousand followers like he has to be able to be successful you just need the diligence and persistence to get a little more knowledgeable and take a little more risk every day and you’ll grow over time.
Hey listen if you’re serious about building a successful physician practice then you need to invest your time and energy into the right resources to help you grow but you don’t have unlimited time to read every book and take every leadership course and watch every video especially since a lot of those things are,
kind of a waste of your limited time and that’s why I wanted to reach out today and give you today’s free resource the five critical tools all physician leaders need this guide will help you cut through the noise and give you the five most impactful resources that you need,
to succeed in private practice as a bonus for downloading the guide you’ll also get a free ticket to the new 2021.
Physician practice automation Summit happening from October 17 through 24th of this year the virtual Summit is hosted by none other than our guest today dr. Ron,
he has brought together over 40 experts in medicine a i automation marketing accounting the law and more to help you grow scale and optimize your private practice in 2022.

[55:16] I can’t wait to share this guide and the summit with you to help you discover the incredible power of AI and automation to build a thriving practice your deeply proud of,
so download the free guide and sign up for the Summit AT www.scopemonth.com / AI Summit.
Also don’t forget you can sign up for free for the marriage and money MD Summit on November 15th through 17th at www.marriageguy.com EMD.com.
Don’t miss out on either of these two amazing Summits they are both free and they are full of amazing speakers and phenomenal content best of all.
They’re both free sign up today by clicking the links in the podcast description.

[55:56] Thanks so much for joining me on the scope of practice podcast today you can also find all those resources in the show notes at www.scopemonth.com / episode 79,
that’s www.scopemonth.com episode 7 9 or just click the links in the podcast description thanks so much for joining me and I’ll see you next.

[56:17] Thanks for listening to the scope of practice podcast at www.visaplace.com.

[56:26] Before we end here’s a quick reminder if you want to streamline your five star patient review generation contact empath IQ,
www dot the scope of practice.com / empath IQ that’s www.scopemonth.com EMP a thi cute,
and mention the scope of practice podcast to receive two months for free.