Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to Leading with Grace, Grit, and Greatness. Don't miss a second of this show or any other now media television favorite. Welcome to Leading with Grace, Grit, and Greatness. I'm your host, Vaquita Poindexter, and I have the honest honor and privilege of having Dr. Mike Schmut with us.
Dr. Mike is the founder of Honest Med Spa here in Murrieta, California. So we are going to talk about what it means as a medical practitioner serving urgent care facilities, as well as discussing what it means to lead with great and greatness as he's treating his patients, not only in his private practice, but at times where it's challenging when it comes to urgent medical procedures. Dr. Mike, welcome.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: All righty. So let's just jump into this particular conversation. I mean, why the medical field?
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Short story, really. Going into college and university, I had no interest in medicine.
I was a computer nerd.
I actually loved computers, putting together computers and programming and things like that from a young age. As a teenager, took my first bio course in college. And the instructor at the time actually approached me. She said, hey, you know, you're a natural with this.
And I really think that, you know, you should focus on medical field and biology and things. Do you have interest in it? I said, not really, because I didn't do too well in it in high school.
And that kind of pushed me away because I was more of a perfectionist, a straight A student. And then when I took my first bio course, they were practicing in high school with the freshmen. And at the time, it was very challenging for a freshman to go through a bio course and dissecting and things like that. And not many people did very well in that course, but it kind of like pushed me away. And then I took my first one. So it's just. It's crazy how the influence of these little experiences can really change the course of a person's life and where they go. But in a nutshell, that's exactly what happened.
And taking care of my grandparents, I was raised by my grandparents, so that was a huge factor from birth. Divorced parents, from birth. And my dad's parents, my grandparents, who passed away back in 06, went through. It all, went through the home health care at home. And I was a teenager at the time, managing their medication, giving them their insulin injection. They had Alzheimer's, bypass surgeries, amputations. I mean, you name it.
They were the classic patient that would cause caregiver burnout. And they had every Medical condition in the book that you could think of actually ended up doing home healthcare for many years because of that, because I saw all of the areas where medicine was really lacking, and that really switched out. The focus of my life really is taking care of my grandparents.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Okay, well, thank you for sharing. You know, I, you know, caregiving is not for the faint of heart. You know, it doesn't matter what age that they are. I mean, you know, my son was expected to live to be 10, so I was his primary caregiver. You know, he spent the majority of his time in. In the hospital down in San Diego. So I applaud anyone that steps up into caregiving, which is why the work that I do with AARP California is so important, because caregiving is not just for folks that's over 50, of course. And so that launched you into where you are today. So tell us a little bit your practice, what are you doing and some of the services that you offer.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Sure, sure. So it's called Honest Med Spa.
I'll probably get into that name and why I've always had that name in my heart. But like you said, it's here in Marietta, California. The focus of Honest Med Spa started more on the aesthetic realm because I got a little burned out in urgent care medicine. I've been doing urgent care medicine and aesthetics for over eight years now. So I've always had a balance of both. And I still do. I still work in a NURS emerging care facility, but trying to grow Honest Med Spa into more of a concierge feel.
Non insurance, you know, which will allow me to spend more time with my patients, of course. So focus is greatly on the aesthetic realm. So Botox filler, what's called Honest Meds about weight loss and wellness. So really help people lose weight with, you know, more popular medications that are out now, as well as the aesthetic side and making them feel good about themselves, making them look good. Patients are happy to come and see me versus urgent care medicine for many years was more. I'm sick.
Where have you been? I've been waiting here in the room for so long. They're frustrated the second they even see me.
And it doesn't allow me to spend that time with the patient because of the pressure of the system. Just more and more patients per hour. Less time with the patient. Document. 1, 2, 3. You spend more time documenting than you spend actually understanding what's going on with the patient or actually listening to the patient.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Right? Well, yeah, listen, I have my own opinions about insurance. I have my own Opinions about health care based off of some of the things that we kind of talked about. So in your current practice, right, you're dealing with people sometimes at their most vulnerable times. Right. They're coming to you. You know, traditional medicine hasn't worked. And so oftentimes when we think of leadership, we, we think about C suite leaders.
How were you, you know, leading your patients into understanding that the services that you're providing, one, you're doing it with grace. Right. You understand their particular situation.
How are you leading them to, to make some of the decisions that they're making about their own healthcare?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Sure.
The step one is always a complimentary consultation. I want to understand you, for example, as a patient. I want you to come in, I want you to understand the style that I have here, honest medspa. And I want to get a better understanding of, you know, the factors, what you've been through. Like you said, traditional medicine hasn't worked and give them the time of day. I think a lot of the time it's that influence is really what makes me a true leader versus others that are just following, you know, the herd and just doing exactly what they've been told and what they've been told in school.
So not having the insurance burden really opens things up. I could really understand the patient, what they've been through, what has worked, what hasn't worked, and really try to influence by example. So anytime I meet a patient, for example, a weight loss patient that's been struggling with their weight, they've been told time and time again, exercise and eat good and you know, follow a particular diet, et cetera, pushing medications on them. Oh, your cholesterol is high, prediabetes a huge one. We got to start you on metformin. We're going to start you on these medications. They scare them to, okay, well you're going to become a diabetic, but what have you really done with the patient?
With patients that come in to me, I usually see them every week because they're coming in, they're paying for their visit, whether it's an injection for, to help them boost their weight loss, like some of the common medication, the GLP medication, or sometimes just not everyone's a candidate and we just talk through things. And I use myself as an example because I used to be £200 really believe it or not, and at 510 that was pretty heavy. I was like 198.7. I was able to get down to about 175 on my own. Leaving Detroit, the East Coast. So that helped more active lifestyle here in California. And just really at one point I said, you know what, I'm in the medical field and I have to lead by example. I have to practice what I preach.
Got into really strict exercise routine that I've kept off for the last three years. So this is all in the last three years.
And you know, you'll hear the common thing, like when someone goes to see their doctor or their provider and say, you know what, he's really overweight, he looks out of shape, he looks very frustrated with his position.
He doesn't look happy to be here. How can I trust this person?
And I hear that a lot. And when I use myself as an example, I hope that it resonates with people. And most of the time I could feel that it does, but that's really my approach.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Okay, when did you, I mean, you kind of talked about urgent care, right? And so let me just talk a little bit about that for a second. You know, that's a really fast paced environment. And you said, I think you used to start the term insurance driven for our viewers that don't understand that terminology. What do you mean by insurance driven?
[00:08:42] Speaker B: So a typical urgent care visit revolves around, yes, you see the patient, yes, you document, you send the prescription. That's all the patient sees, that's all the patient knows. I'm here, I'm sick, I want my antibiotics, I don't care how it happened, give me what I want. It become like a grocery store. So patients coming in with certain expectations, but they don't realize that there's a lot of factors behind it. One, ethics. If you're an ethical provider, you're not just going to give the patient what they ask for. You're going to have to explain some things.
And sometimes, you know, you don't have the time to explain, which causes a big barrier. But back to your question about insurance. So insurance will reimburse you for certain things that you do with the patient or that you don't do. Then you get paid a little bit less, one of which will be educating. So you have to educate the patient, you have to spend certain time with the patient. And it has to be a complex visit for you to be able to, you know, for the company to be able to bill a higher tier for reimbursement. And this is where patients sometimes will get a bill. And like it's $500 for an urgent care. He only spent two minutes with me. How do you, how is he capable of billing for $500?
Now, I don't do the billing, but from what I know from the insurance perspective, if the visit is not a complex visit, then you don't get reimbursed properly. If it's a simple, oh, I coughed and a common cold, and I didn't prescribe any medication, it's called a simple visit.
You don't get the higher reimbursement. Now, if you're trained as a provider and we have meetings and you have, you know, certain things that, you know, they lecture you on and, well, it is a complex visit because think about all the complexity and the differential diagnoses that had to go through your mind because of your education and background to come up with the proper diagnosis for that patient. So, yes, a patient may have come in for just a common cold cough, but you've ruled out bronchitis, you had to rule out pneumonia, you had to rule out other viral illnesses before saying, hey, I think you have a common cold. Here's some cough medicine and you're okay. Now, let's say you don't prescribe any medication. Automatically, that visit becomes that simple visit. You don't get proper reimbursement. So there is a push to actually prescribe medicine.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Because if you don't prescribe the medicine, you really didn't do much for the patient. What are you now documenting? How are you justifying the complexity of that patient visit? If you can't, then you're at loss. If you can, then you win.
Now, who really is the winner?
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Well, I think that was a mouthful right there. So we're going to take a commercial and we're going to come back and talk to you about how Dr. Mike is a. Winnie, we'll be right back.
So we talked about how who's winning and who's not winning. And before I jump into how you're winning, you know, we understand that, you know, you got to build trust back up with some of these patients in your own private practice. We talked about some of the challenges when they have to go to urgent care or emergency rooms or things like that.
How do you deal with patients that may come in? They're skeptical.
Now they're a cash patient because, you know, your firm doesn't take insurance because obviously you don't want to deal with insurance companies anymore. They may be nervous, uncomfortable. How do you overcome some of those challenges?
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Sure, that's a great question.
I mentioned a complimentary consultation. A lot of the times with patients where they're coming in, I say, look, sometimes I even have them use a Link, listen to some audios, for example, like weight loss, things like that. I say, listen to this audio. It's like an eight minute long speech by me that I pre recorded. And I'm working on more of a video to make it even more personal and see if you're a candidate or if you have further questions. There's no harm done, no obligation to you. Listen to the audios. If you think that you're a candidate and you want to move forward, sure. Let's book an in person visit, come into my clinic, meet me, let's talk one on one and discuss the options that are made for you. And then they have nothing to lose. So I try to make it as simple as possible for the patient. And I also offer telemedicine. And when you offer telemedicine, you see a lot of these places, for example, where, you know, I used to work, we used to charge $300 for a cash bay patient to be seen just to be evaluated, which I thought was way too much. I mean I, we shouldn't be charging somebody $300. That doesn't include x ray imaging, that doesn't include any possible treatments or injectable medication that we might have to give the patient. So it's not unusual for a cash free patient to walk into an urgent care facility and walk out paying $700.
Now this is where it really upset me, where the system upset me.
If you had insurance, for example, IHP Inland Empire government insurance, the average reimbursement to an urgent care facility is about $80.
The patient comes in. No matter what you do, you do suture, you stitch them up, which is a complex procedure. That's usually $1,000 for a cash pay patient.
Why are we charging so much for cash pay patients when the average insured person, just because they have government insurance, which they're usually lower income. I get it. So why do we have to differentiate between people?
Why? If someone has money, we could charge them 6, 7, 10 times for the same exact visit, for the same exact service. But because somebody is low income, the reimbursement is so low.
So it's a difficult question to answer because say, well, we're kind of, you know, doing them a favor. Well, you're not really, because you don't have the option the government has mandated. This is the reimbursement, this is all that you're getting. But now we get a cache pay patient. Oh, let's take advantage.
And that's what really upsets me with the system and the pressure that they Keep putting us in as a provider.
A few years ago, the average clinician would see three patients an hour.
This is how they monitor your performance. This is the number one metric that they use to monitor your performance. Whether you're a nurse practitioner, mdo, it doesn't matter. How many patients an hour are you seeing.
If you try to budge below that, you're getting written up, you're getting called into, you know, a speech in a meeting to discuss why you're not meeting the metric.
Then we had the, this evolution of AI now and we have autoscript, we have, you know, something called Dragon text to speech, which should make the provider's life easier. And you would think, well, great, now you can get through the documentation a lot. Worker. Totally true. I mean, it's amazing.
Which means now I could spend the time with the patient.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Oh, no, no, you got to see more patients.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Yes, ma'. Am.
The three patients an hour became three to four became four, now four to five in 2026. Now with AI, they expect you to see four to five patients an hour at an average urgent care, which is like you're just running around non, stop, non stop. And stress. And I mean, imagine the stress levels that the provider goes through. And a lot of These shifts are 12, 13, 14 hour shifts, sometimes longer. Don't let me get started about what
[00:16:18] Speaker A: happened during COVID I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure Covid was taxing, which is why so many people walked away from, from the medical profession. And so what do you think that patients need most from a medical provider beyond credentials and expertise?
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Attention and listening. When we talk about leadership, what makes a great leader?
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Right?
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Listening, listening to the patient, using empathy, building trust.
All of the core values of a true leader and any medical profession or possibly any position if you want to be good at it, listen to the target audience, find the need, find the problem, find their, you know, why should I come to you? Find their why, understand their why, and then be able to provide a resolution.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: So I hear you talk about it and I hear, you know, I'm going to get to how you're winning because you made it. You made a choice to be able to start to start your own. But you have some providers that are leaders that are in particular positions where they can't, you know, what would be some of the summit leadership advice that you would give them to still operate grace under pressure?
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Sure.
I always say, you know, starting a business or going off on your own is very scary.
I was scared even though I had some Confidence. I, I was reputable in the community, I knew that I had a good following on social media and I knew that I would be successful and the growth is there over the last couple years that we've been there, thank God.
However, my word of advice for people that are even thinking about opening, opening their own business or thinking about venturing into something like that is start it part time.
I think that's the smartest way to approach it. It doesn't mean drop everything. It doesn't mean drop. Whether you're a nurse or a doctor, drop your full time position, go part time, go part time, still generate some income so that you reduce that stress. You could still pay your bills with part time work and start building on your business part time. When you're ready to give up all those part time positions and you see your business growing and now you could work really focus, you can afford to spend the time and focus on your business and go full throttle. I think that's great. Of course you always hear the stories about the struggles and people that did it out of their basement, just Amazon and the greatest companies and all of that and just gave up everything and focused on their business. I don't think there's nothing wrong with that. But not everyone is able to, right? Especially these days with the expenses they have. They feel like, oh my gosh, if I give that up, it's the end of the world and I'm going to struggle and I don't know if I can afford it. It's always that same.
But I think that giving something up part time, doing part time and working on your business part time and finding a balance is a great approach.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: I think most people, and I agree with you, I think most people step into the medical industry because they have a passion for helping people. So there's grit behind the leadership. So let's talk about how you jumped right from a full time provider to now running your own.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Sure.
I would say over the last six years I've worked 60, 70 plus hours a week non stop juggling multiple positions.
Telemedicine was one urgent care with just one aesthetics and doing, you know, getting into more of the Botox fillers which if we take a step back, why did I even get into aesthetics? Right. So I got into aesthetics because I was the typical registered nurse at the time working home health, didn't like the hospital position. I always liked position that I had more independence. So I was the case manager for the patient. I would go in as a nurse, assess the patient, order other modalities for the patient and other services. They needed a social worker, they needed physical therapy, occupational therapy. So I had a lot of autonomy to be able to, to do that. But even that became a burden. It was always, how many patients can you see? Here we go. The same thing all over again. Whether didn't matter which hospital setting you're in, which medical field you were in. It was always productivity based on number of patients. Because number of patients equaled a certain amount of money, right? Not your performance, not how much the patients liked you. Of course, that's always a stress factor.
But that really pushed me and continued to push me away from medicine. Unfortunately. I went to school, I got my nursing degree. I get bored quickly. So then I was like, okay, that was then. I get my bachelor's, did that for two years. I'm like, okay, I need to get my master, got my master's for Covid. Okay, I need to get my doctorate. Like, what else can I do to really grow in the medical field?
But with each degree came more work.
I thought initially I was like, you know what, I'll get a higher degree, I'll get higher pay. I could start to back off a little bit on the hours that I work. But it was actually quite the opposite because urgent care is great. You're able to do three 13 hour shifts in a week. That's 40 hours and you have four days left. Great. I can hustle, I can work another position.
But I was caught in the hamster wheel for many, many years. And it took a breaking point this past summer to finally break away from my full time position at the urgent care because I was still running my business and working full time urgent care because I had the days and the week to be able to do it.
But that pressure from the organization finally pushed me and breaking point, I said, absolutely not. They wanted to take away my weekends, no time with my family, be on call and standby on days that you really, you know, taking more time away. So even on your days off, you couldn't rest. This.
There's always constant calls, constant demand, filling in gaps in the schedule. And you're trying to do your best to be a good leader, supportive for the team and other providers. But at what point and at what cost?
And it was costing family and whole nother subject. But I finally said, okay, you know what?
Part time. And that's what I'm doing. I do one day a week now. Urgent care, maybe three days a month. Some, some of the month. And I'm really trying to focus now. More on my business and the aesthetic side and the wellness side.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: Right. Because I think, you know, when, when the providers are not healthy or not rested, then the quality of care goes down, of course. And so we're going to, we're going to go to commercial really quick and we're going to come back and we're going to talk a little bit more about Honest Med Spa. You know, what do you offer and, and tell the people how they can reach you.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: All right, we'll be right back.
Welcome back to Leading with Grace, Grit and Greatness. I'm Vaquita Poindexter, your host, and I have the phenomenal Dr. Mike with us. Dr. M, tell the people where they can find you@honest MedSpa.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Thank you. So we're right here on Cal Oaks website is honest medical spa.com.
we're right inside a SOLA suite, temporarily and hopefully to expand into a larger suite. But you can book online. Everything is pretty straightforward as far as booking and contact the office, of course, there with any questions or concerns or issues with that. And like I said, for majority of the service, it's a free consultation and you can just come in. I'd love to meet everybody and talk to them about the different services we offer from botulinum toxin or your typical Botox cosmetic treatments, different versions of that one, including Daxify, Latibo, a lot of great products, Dermal fillers for volumization of the face and now getting more into regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine is where I believe aesthetics is going. So instead of your typical fillers and volumization that may look sometimes overdone, we're using your own blood, we're using plasma. We're using what we call PRP or platelet rich plasma, which has been around for a really long time, used in various areas of medicine, but now it's becoming more and more popular and more and more in demand in aesthetic medicine. Because we could use your own blood, spin it, draw your blood, take out the platelets, take out the plasma, warm it up, put it in a syringe, turn it into a gel, and now inject it back into the face to use it to promote collagen. So we call it like a, we call it a biofiller or bio stimulator, which then you'll see a gradual improvement in collagen production, volumization over time, rather than an instant dermal filler or synthetic filler.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Well, that was a lot, so I need to unpack that a little bit.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: So you Know, your journey from, you know, you know, starting your own business. Business. Right.
You know, what I hear you saying is, number one, the quality of care was going down and so you wanted to provide more of a concierge. And I'm starting to see that a lot, not just in aesthetics, but all different areas, whether it's cardiology, whether it is allergies, whatever.
Why do you think that is? Is it more because the quality of care has just got depleted and providers are like, I'm done. I want to make sure that I'm taking care of the entire patient and just not, you know, what they're coming to the doctor for.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: So I think it's a little bit of both.
We've talked about the stress on the provider side and we've talked about the frustration on the patient side.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: So for patients that are looking to be understood and go outside of the typical medic medicine driven visit, they look for someone like myself to say, you know what? I want the more concierge feel maybe, you know, and I can afford it and I can do it. And I'm actually trying to make it very affordable. So we talked about like a typical reimbursement for a visit for Government insurance is $80. I charge a hundred dollars for a consult with me over the phone. Assess you if it's something that I can assess via telemedicine. All your meds, you're diagnosed and your meds are sent to your pharmacy and all you've paid is 100 bucks. You don't have to worry about getting a bill for thousands of dollars. There's no surprises. I don't need your insurance. I'm happy with the reimbursement. The patient's happy that they don't have to worry about anything else. And they can contact me seven days a week. They have that support.
So imagine going to an urgent care, then trying to contact the same provider that you saw. It's almost impossible because it's always different people that are working anyways.
Hopefully that answers.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's relationship building. And I think that's the key thing that people fail to understand. You need to have a relationship with, with your provider.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: And so you're building that relationship. So at your particular practice, you talked about the aesthetic piece of it and then you talked about, I think you say you offer telemedicine. And so what made you get into aesthetics?
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Aesthetics started back when I was in Detroit about eight years ago. And I always had a little bit of an interest.
And I said, you know what Let me. Let me just dive into this. And it was with a friend of mine who's an md and we did it together. We said, let's start this training program. Program. And we actually traveled all over the United States just to see is this something that's a good fit for us because it's not for everyone. We actually had a family member with me, a cousin of mine, and it turned out it wasn't a fit for him. And he said, okay, you know what? I don't want to do this. I like my, you know, the medical side. I don't think aesthetics is, for me.
You might not have a steady hand doing Botox and filler. You might not have the proper bedside matters.
For patients that are coming in, they expect great results, they expect attention, and they expect you to be knowledgeable about what you're doing. They're paying cash, and they have high demands. And I always say, you know, under promise, over deliver. So that's usually my approach and honesty and transparency of why we developed Honest Med Spa. Because I also saw in the esthetic realm the things that go wrong and how I can better, you know, approach my practice with patients.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: Right, so we see that. Right. You know, I've watched, you know, some channels where I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, you know, the Catwoman, right? You know, are these, you know, celebrities who were beautiful and then we had all this work done, and, you know, they don't even look like the same person.
And so did any of that kind of play a part to say, you know, you see these doctors trying to go in and fix it, you know, or. And so are you doing that piece of it, but you're also being more proactive to say, let's not have to fix something. Let's get it right the first time.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: Absolutely. You read my mind.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: You really did. So a great example is when I moved out here from Detroit, I said, well, what better place to get into aesthetics than la, Beverly Hills, you know, the celebrities, et cetera. And I did. I moved out here with a buddy of mine, the md, And I said, let's go to la. Let's meet this group of people that I knew actually from somebody in Michigan.
And they were looking for a great provider. They were looking for a medical director. And it was a. It was a good fit. And we worked out of a place in Thousand Oaks, so we had the Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, you know, very higher end bougie, as they say. And we did. We saw celebrities. We saw semi celebrities. We saw Very high income individuals that were overdone and you could see their lips walking through the door before, you know, they walked in, unfortunately.
But I said, you know what, let's work with this group for a little bit and see if we're a good match. See if I'm a good match, what if I'm not comfortable?
And that was the challenge for me. A year into it, I understood very quickly that these type of patients were coming in and here's my money, give me what I want. We're going back to that grocery store, right? But the practice of aesthetic medicine is still medicine.
Whether it's a cough, cold, they're still patients. They're not your clients. People call them clients as like my pet peeve.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:30:17] Speaker B: This is, this is, this is still a patient that's coming in and you're providing a medical service. It doesn't matter if they're paying cash for, it's still a prescription product. Whether you do Botox, fillers, weight loss, etc, even as simple as a vitamin B12 injection, that's still a medical procedure, right? Or else, then anyone else can do it, right?
So you still have to approach it as such. And you have to approach it, approach it with ethics.
And when I was in the Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village area, unfortunately the approach and the, the consensus was a patient has money, they want this, give them this, hand it to them. And my approach was just very different. Especially I was still starting out, you know, I wasn't very aggressive with, with it. And I continue to, to, to practice this way.
Very conservative people, I think they see that very quickly.
So to get back to that, yes, I saw that patient population.
Give me, give me, give me. Their cheeks are fine, their lips are fine, but I want a little more. But I want a little more.
And we would, because that was my position. I don't want to upset anybody. But quickly I realized I'm like, I just wasn't comfortable. I went home at night and I always conflicting with, am I doing the right thing? I'm giving the patient what they want, they're paying for it. And I was just an employee at the time. It was in my practice. And I want to perform well, I want to perform well for the owners and I want to be there for the patient. Or else how else can I build patience if I keep saying no, no, no, no, no.
So finally, during COVID when things started shutting down, it really gave me an opportunity to reflect back on myself and what kind of provider I want to be moving forward. Because this was Going to be my career and what kind of reputation I wanted to have. I actually made the decision to just move completely away from la.
And I said, you know what? Just nothing wrong with, you know, I'm not saying everyone, but for me personally and my approach, especially in aesthetics, was not the LA vibe. I wanted to get away from the overdone look.
And I found this great place here. More family oriented people are raising their families middle age, you know, people my age, things like that, and they're usually more conservative and I like that. You know, middle class families. And it's been great. It's actually been very, very different. And I was able to work at a facility that didn't push that, you know, didn't push the salesy thing. And I said, you know what, this is a great fit. Which really gave me time, like I said, to reflect on myself and it's been good and I follow that. And I always wanted to open up something called Honest Med Spa because I felt that the honesty and transparency, transparency with patients who really resonated with them, made me a great provider in their eyes. And I can go home at night and sleep well and saying, you know what, I was very transparent with them. And I have to reject patients sometimes, right? Patient comes in, their lips look great or their cheeks look great or whatever it may be. And I might have to say no.
So don't be surprised if you're a patient coming in to me and looking for more and more and more. I might have to tell you, you know what, I actually think we should dissolve that. You know, we should go in there and get rid of the filler because now it's migrated or it's moved and go back to see how, what your lips usually looked like. And I say lips because it's like one of the number one areas where we actually dissolve old filler. And a lot of the times I'm doing that, I'm dissolving either bad work or just overdone work. Over the years that they've had multiple injections and then I just get to see what their normal tissue looks like after a couple weeks and then provide a brand new approach using my technique, for example.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: That's good, that's interesting. One final question before we go to commercial break is this one. You know, oftentimes we hear about esthetics, right? And it's like, oh, you know, this person is so vain, or this, you know, there's such a negative perception associated with it. You know, what's your style, your leadership style and talking to your patients or anyone in general to open overcome that negative, negative connotation associated with why people do aesthetics.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Sure. And this is very common with first time patients. Right.
So the number one, and they've done studies on this, like Allergan, the maker of Botox, they found that the number one reason why a patient that's never had an aesthetic procedure doesn't go to get an aesthetic procedure is due to fear of what they see.
Because they see the overdone look, they see the billboards, they see like, I don't want to look like that.
So they have this misconception that lip filler or cheek filler looks like that. And it really isn't. Sometimes. Most of the times when I approach my aesthetic patient and the interventions that I implement, whether filler, Botox or other services, is to keep it very natural.
They should walk out of the room. They might look a little puffy in the beginning, maybe some swelling, but that goes down over a couple days. But when everything has integrated into the tissue over a couple days, no one should really be looking at them and saying, oh, you got your lips done. Oh, you got your cheeks done. Oh, I can see that you got one. They really shouldn't. It should be nice, subtle, and just looks very natural for their face. And I think that educating patients on that piece during the consultation is key to building the trust so that they see, okay, you know what? You're not going to botch me. Okay. He doesn't have that aggressive approach. So I think that's very important for an esthetic provider.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Okay, well, we're going to jump to commercial, but when we come back, we're going to talk to Dr. Mike about the wellness piece of it. You know, not, not just the aesthetic. Everybody wants to look good, male and female. Correct. So we'll be right back. You're watching Leading with Great. Great. Leading with grace, grit and greatness.
Welcome back to Leading with Grace, Grit and Greatness. I'm Akita Poindex, your host, and I am talking with the phenomenal Dr. Mike. We talked a lot about your practice at Honest Med Spa regarding aesthetics. And I think anybody should feel like they want to do whatever they want to do to make themselves feel better about themselves. But in concierge medicine, there's a whole other piece to it. Right. There's the wellness side, the relationship that you probably don't have with a primary care for physician. Talk to me a little bit more about what that looks like for your particular practice.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: Sure. Thank you.
And that's a great Discussion. Because the biggest factors other than weight loss, which I think has been phenomenal, I mean it's revolutionized weight loss with the GLP injections that we offer now. You'll be hearing more about peptides, right? So everything is peptide this, peptide that and these are little coenzymes. They come in injection forms as well that really more tell the body to heal and to do certain things. So it triggers the body from a back door, back channel instead of taking medicine. And it really is preventing people has anti aging properties, anti inflammatory properties. We could talk about inflammation for days and how it affects all disease processes.
And now more so than ever is the hormone component. So we're incorporating bhrt, which is bioidentical hormone replacement for patients. And that's usually if you don't have a serious, you know, like a hysterectomy for a woman or a serious medical condition that caused your hormones to be imbalanced.
Many 9 out of 10 times it's actually not a covered billable visit by insurance standards.
And it's which I think is horrible. I think that hormone and balancing hormones in men and women, whether young. I have patients that are starting to incorporate that in their early 30s, such as men with low testosterone that never had an idea. But it's not typical to go to your primary care doctor. Well, let's check your testosterone level. You know, let's check your B12 level. Let's check your thyroid panel. Why? Just I'm tired all the time. So a typical, you know, 30 some year old, even as a 40 year old like myself goes into a primary care facility and says, you know, I'm tired sometimes the misconception can be, you know, oh, they're overweight. You know, I checked your labs, your cholesterol is high, you probably not eating well. But they don't really get into a lot of details. It's usually. Well, we're going to refer you to this, we're going to refer you to that. So at Honest Med Spa, you're able to just speak with me. You're not speaking to anybody else. I am the full package. You can speak with me. And we can, you know, we can test all the tests that we have to test that we know certain inflammatory models, markers, B12 etc can really guide me and guide us in developing a proper care plan for, for the patient. So I think hormones is ever evolving for many times they wouldn't give hormones because of fear of breast cancer for women. I think that many studies actually showed that's not true. That's not the case. You know, a little bit of estrogen progesterone and makes a 50 year old woman feel like she's 21 again, you know, so it's been revolutionary for sure.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Okay, so you know, what you, what you've shared with our viewers and on the show today you talked a lot about the medical industry and what's lacking.
How do you define greatness for, for yourself with your particular practice?
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Sure, I think greatness for me and my practice is influence.
If I can influence others to live a better life, higher quality of life than I've done my job.
And I think the growth for me because people, well, you still got to make money, you still got to run a business, you still got to succeed on that aspect. But I'm in no rush, you know, I'm in a rush to be a millionaire. You know, I have my simple practice and I truly believe in the growth by word of mouth, just growing organically. I have spent no money on Google advertising or Yelp or any of it.
All of my growth over the past few years has been strictly word of mouth. One will tell other. If I threw a party, I think everyone will know everybody, you know, from the hundreds of patients that I have, I think everybody will be quite surprised that it's just a small community of my patients. And of course growth is great, but greatness is the influence that I can have on people. And if I can positively influence them having a higher, better quality of life, then I can sleep very happy. And it just really makes me, makes me smile, makes me happy, makes me happy to see the patients come in and they look, you know, they still follow up with their primary care doctor. A lot of these patients, they say, since I've been with you and look at my markers, look at my cholesterol, look at my, I'm out of prediabetes, I've lost so much weight with you that I'm no longer a pre diabetic. Sleep apnea was a huge, you know, my patients sometimes are like, oh, you know, about to get on a CPAP machine or they're on a CPAP machine and then they come in, they lose the weight, they talk about what things that we could do for them and all of a sudden they don't need that. Like, wow, I was able to prevent having a sleep apnea or CPAP machine. This uncomfortable thing that allows me to breathe better at night.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: So these are just some minor examples. But it's just, it's these stories always resonate with me. And you know, or their quality of life and their relationships are better with their spouse, they're having more intercourse, you know, they're because of the weight loss, because of how they feel. So these are all just phenomenal to hear. I love hearing that.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Okay, that's good. What advice would you give aspiring medical professionals who are leading in both excellence and humanity?
[00:41:53] Speaker B: Find your gift, find your niche, find what you're good at or even what you're passionate about, even if you're not good at it. Take a course, take a certification course. You know, don't be afraid to dive into something that maybe interests you in the back of your mind. And you've always thought about it, just like I always thought about aesthetic. And I didn't know that I was going to be this passionate about it. I didn't know that I was going to make a career out of it. I thought it was, it's going to be a little part time thing. And I work at the hospital, I work at that. But you know, and if you're interested in training, come see me. I offer training programs now for aspiring. I was just training a nurse just this past week and same thing she why? I always ask them why you want to get into aesthetics. And I want to know if they have a true passion for it. And they usually do. They're like, you know, I feel like I could be good at this and I'm good with people and I'm just burned out and burdened from my position at the hospital and this is the typical typical rn, md, dos, or any medical provider. But find your niche, find what you're good at. If you're not good at it and just you take a course and see and you know, always push toward excellence and take as many courses as you can. Invest in yourself, invest in the training and get the training properly done. You know, don't just watch your YouTube video and think you could do something like get into one on one, you know, with somebody like myself. Get some hands on experience and see if it's the right fit for you.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: Sounds good. How do you protect your peace and your personal well being? Why carry in so much responsibility?
[00:43:28] Speaker B: Faith, you know, faith in God and reflection, prayer. These are huge. These are huge daily, you know, these are all the time. You know, I don't say this to a lot of people, but you know, when I grab, it's not out of fear, but when I touch my patients, you know, for the first time, I say a prayer, I say prayer in my head. They don't need to know that I say it.
But for, for me, for my own piece, I say, God, please protect my patient. And when I'm in start, you know, right before I start injecting, you know, especially with filler. So even after eight years, I always say that a great provider always has that little bit of fear that prevents you from becoming, you know, big headed, as they say, or overly confident. Always go back to base, always go back to safety because you're providing a treatment that can cause complication, you know, like anything. So you always have to, you know, have that in the back of your mind. But I think prayer and faith in God is very crucial in my practice and my, my self piece for sure. Spending time with family, of course.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Okay, let me ask you two questions about legacy.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: But I'm going to start with one is what kind of legacy do you want to build through Honest Med Spa and your medical work?
[00:44:45] Speaker B: I don't want to build just a brand.
I feel that the legacy of Honest Med Spa should be something that is welcoming to other providers that are interested in following into the aesthetic and wellness space.
I want to provide a space. My goal ultimately would be to have a multi room facility where I could provide a space that an entrepreneur or maybe first time registered nurse, doctor, M.D. whoever in the medical field is interested in this space can come in. I could train them and I could show them the works and then have them be their own leader, have them have their own space. Maybe in my facility, maybe they go venture somewhere else. But my goal is to have Honest Med Spa as a center of excellence. Center of excellence. Whether you know, it's Botox, fillers, lasers, bioidentical hormones and all of the service that we have to offer where someone can come in, get educated, get trained properly and then decide what they want to do. They want to join Honest Med Spa. Do they want to be under the umbrella of Honest Med Spa or do they feel like they want to go and venture on their own? But I think a center of excellence and education would be my ultimate legacy because I take great pride in teaching and I love to teach.
It's a passion of mine for sure. Other than just providing treatments to the patient, I think influencing others and educating others in this space is a great thing to have.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that. And then with the teaching piece of it, I'm going to give you an example. You have an opportunity to speak to a board of directors of hospital boards, CEOs throughout the Temecula Marietta area about quality of Care and health care. What would you say to those individuals sitting on those boards?
[00:46:43] Speaker B: I would say take a step back.
Take a step back and put yourself in the position of the patient.
And a lot of the times, if they were actually able to do that, and really not just like really put yourself in the position of a patient, go pretend you're efficient, sit in a hospital bed.
Many CEOs are, you know, usually young, healthy, probably lack a lot of medical conditions. Maybe they've never experienced being a patient, but I feel like good CEOs of hospitals have been on the other side. They understand.
And anyone that has been through any traumatic experience, whether it's a medical illness, a car accident, anything like that, and they've been through the turmoil of the hospital system or through the medical system, would really understand what it means to be a patient and the expectations of that patient toward nursing staff and medical staff. But I would say go put yourself in a bed, spend a night at a hospital, spend a night in a home care facility, spend the night wherever that will make you a better person.
It will really put things into perspective for you as a leader. And I think you'll make a lot of changes because then, and only then will you really understand the frustration that comes from the medical staff of not being able to spend that quality time with their patients.
And when you get a one star review because you didn't give a patient an antibiotic, I don't get upset because I know that I did the patient no harm. We take a note. Do no harm, right? So that's our medical oath. I can't allow the facility, no matter who that I work for, to be about Google rating, which is important. It's a reflection of who you are. But if you get a one star review here and there, and you're getting 99, five star, who cares? You know, don't, don't let that keep you up at night.
Know that you did a good job. Know that you did no harm for the patient. You followed your ethical and your medical knowledge and you didn't give the antibiotics because you believed it was a viral illness. Don't just give them a Z pack because it's made the patient happy and that's what they wanted because you didn't want to be uncomfortable, be uncomfortable. Learn from the position to be uncomfortable. Because then and only then will you learn to excel and be a true leader in what you do.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Okay, perfect. And before we close, I always ask my guests this final question. We know that a year that you were born, we don't know that ear that you'll transition back to the Father, but there's that dash in between.
What does that dash mean for you as far as your personal legacy?
[00:49:34] Speaker B: I feel like fearing God and fearing and knowing that the story is pretty much written for you. You have some influence, of course, but God has a plan, and he's the best of planners.
So living your life knowing that you don't have an eternity, I think is, you know, a lot of the times we forget that as a general population. And sometimes I have to remind myself, so we're chasing certain dreams, we're chasing certain passions of ours, but I think keeping that in perspective will really allow you to live life to the fullest and.
And all of its meaning and knowing that you're doing good on this earth for the hereafter.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: All right, well, Dr. Mike, I just want to say thank you for spending time with us. Listen, if you did not enjoy this conversation about wellness and healing and leadership with Dr. Mike, then you are completely missing out. He gave great insight as to what it really takes to be a good medical provider. And so give the audience one more time on where they can find you.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Honest medical spa. Com.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: Dr. Mike, thank you for sharing your time. I know that it took you away from your patients, but we appreciate your time. We appreciate your knowledge. Thank you for being the great leader that you are. Thank you for thinking about the patient first and the procedure second.
And I just want to thank you for all the work that you're doing, because I'm a firm believer that the work you're doing today is building a better tomorrow. So thank you.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me and thank you for the opportunity to come out. I feel blessed, really, to be here, so I appreciate it, and thank you for doing what you do. I think this is fantastic.
[00:51:19] Speaker A: Thank you. Well, that's another great episode of leading with great grit and greatness. We'll see you next week.
