Dr. Deb is a functional medicine practitioner and entrepreneur. A pioneer in functional medicine, scheduling, leadership, and practice management, Dr. Deb has a wealth of knowledge and is eager to share to help functional medicine become more productive and live better lives. Our podcast shares the good and bad of our industry because Dr. Deb knows the pain you live every day building a functional medicine practice. With practical tools on how to manage money, taxes, and patient care, she will discuss it all.
You're listening to the Functional Medicine Business Podcast featuring Dr. Deb, one of the most creative functional medicine business practitioners in her industry. She shares the wisdom and knowledge that she has gained over 25 years of functional medicine, a pioneer in functional medicine, scheduling, leadership and practice management. Dr. Deb has a wealth of knowledge and is eager to share to help functional medicine become more productive, and for the practitioners and patients to live better lives. Our podcast shares the good and the bad of our industry, because Dr. Deb knows the pain you live every day building a functional medicine practice with practical tools on how to manage money, taxes and patient care. She will discuss it all with you.
Welcome to the functional medicine business podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Deb. You know, I have been in podcasting for a few years now. And when I told my team, I wanted to start a second podcast, they thought I was crazy. Like you're so busy, you have so much going on. Why do you want to take on another podcast show. And what I realized is, there are lots of podcasts out there talking about health and wellness and my own show does that as well. But there's very few people talking about the business side of functional or integrative medicine. We talk about marketing on various podcasts. We talk about client development, and how to use different tests and things like that. But nobody's talking actually about the business side of things. And I realized many years ago when I went into private practice, that we learn everything to be experts in the health side of things. We learn very little, if anything, about the business side of things, how to run a business, what do we do with our business? How do we grow our business, all of those things are pushed to the side. And we're just supposed to learn them as we go. Well, I learned when I was in business for the first time with a partner, that it's difficult to learn as you go. If you learn as you go, you make a lot of mistakes. And you don't really have anybody to mentor you, unless it's been somebody that's been in business for a while. And just because they've been in business for a while, doesn't actually mean they're running a business, correct. I mean, they're running a clinic. And they may be doing fantastic with their patients or clients. But they may not be profiting very much in their business. And it was in that first practice that I really learned what not to do in business, and what to do in business. You see, I joined a practice. That wasn't existence for about 30 years before I joined it was very established, had great clientele, loyal, loyal patients that had been with the practice for all but 20 or 30 years. So it was a very seasoned practice. And I was going to buy into that practice. And I was so excited because I never thought I'd be buying into a practice and partnering with a medical doctor. And, and I don't say that from a negative side of things. But it's, it's really from where I grew up that business wasn't something that we were taught in my family. So that's why I say I was so excited and never thought I could do it. But I did. And I remember getting to the point where I was going to buy this practice. And I thought, you know, I better look at their books and see what they're doing. And I would go to the meetings with the accountant every month or every quarter.
