Tag Archives: Acupuncture malpractice Insurance

2023 – It’s the New Year Where Are Your Patients?

So what I wanna emphasize for this first of the year is talking, where are our patients? How do I get my patients?

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Hey, good day everyone, and a very happy New Year. This is our first show this year. Welcome, and let’s get your year started off in a way that’s going to continue to help your practice grow, to help you continue to do what you like to do, which is help people get better. But of course, how do we make sure we help people get better?

We make sure by having patients and understanding where those patients are gonna come from. So what I wanna emphasize for this first of the year is talking. Where are our patients? How do I get my patients? This is a little different from our normal kind of just butts, nuts and bolts of coding and billing.

So let’s go ahead and go to the slides. Let, where are your patients and what are the barriers for them to come in your office? , you know, how do I make sure that I’m accessing? Because any practice to grow means we have to have more people that we can see. So I wanna focus in on understanding like how do I set forward my plan for the year?

And I want you starting to think about, have you written down any goals? Have you written down any protocols? Like what am I going to accomplish? And then start to look at some steps to do that. I think most things you have to do an algorithm. You’ll hear that term a lot, but it’s really just nothing more than a step-by-step process.

And the good news is when you set up a process, if you start doing something and it’s not working great, because now you can go back and fix it and change it. So that’s why the best invention often is errors, because with errors you continue on. It’s a scientific method. So we’re gonna create an algorithm for you.

And the starting point this year is gonna be setting for kind of that plan to promote my practice, prepare myself to get those people, and start determining like, well, how many patients can I see? Can I see five a day, 10 a day, 20 a day? And if whatever, I wanna see, am I seeing that amount? So I start with this though, for acupuncture, you gotta think of.

barrier to your care is the kind of, why do people know what you do, what you can help them with? Because if I drive by an office that says it does acupuncture, I’ll go, okay, but what does that mean to me in the general public? Think of it, ask your friends, ask acquaintances, your family even, and say, Hey, what is it?

Do you think I. , what do I help with? And you wanna start to notice that you’ll get a lot of varied dancers. Some could be very good, but many of them are gonna be very poor. And what I’m bringing this up for is that beginning to understand how do we educate people to understand what we do and the why they come in.

I mean, obviously you can look at the things that acupuncture helps people do. I mean, headaches, lower back pain, neck pain, arthritis, menstrual cramps, respiratory disorders, tennis elbow. But what about like worker? Can acupunctures treat workers’ compensation patients? Absolutely. Can it pay pretty well?

You’re darn right. What about personal injury? People involved in a car accident? How about veterans for the va? So think in those terms. Do those people who have that even though to come to you, think of how chiropractors really market towards car accidents and tell people, Hey, if you’re injured in a car accident, come see us.

What about many of you? We’ve had some pretty crazy weather across the US in the last few weeks. Do you think there’s been a few more car accidents than. I would think so statistically, which means some of your patients have been involved in an accident, are they choosing to seek care with you? And if they’re not, why not?

I would start with do they even know they can see you? A lot of times people think, oh no, my acupuncture wouldn’t be covered there. You bet it will. But how about conditions like fibromyalgia, anxiety and depression, chemotherapy, inducive, nausea, dental pain, labor pain, and I’ve just listed a few. But all of these conditions, by the way, have coverage under insurance, but it also has coverage under, if someone wants help and you can make them better, are they gonna choose you?

Yes. But you gotta give them the why. So here would be my, If you treat any of these things, how does anyone know you do? Is there anything on your website, anything on your social media, anything that purports you to do this? By example, if you look up to have acupuncture, coding and billing seminars, I’ll guarantee if you type that in, , we’ll be the first place up.

And the reason why is we put information out. We don’t pay for it. We just put so much information, we’re gonna be the first place because we do so much work on it. We want you to know this is the place to access it. So think in the same way for yourself. Are you creating a funnel? Are you creating a way for people to come to you to understand what you do?

Like if I typed in VA acupuncture and typed in my city, would your name pop up? Maybe not. Well, let’s go with the why not? Well, why not? Could be. They just don’t know. But I think a lot of it is, it’s just unknown. So we’ve gotta do a better job of putting stuff out. Like what articles have you written? What things have you put out about it?

Testimonials even, cuz remember, Google and things like that. Scrub websites to look for information, and they put those towards the top. The other factor of course, though, is just fear. Are there some people who are fearful of acupuncture? Ooh, I don’t know about the needles. So what do you create to make sure that people are comfortable?

Any explanation there? Or how about just money? . Is money an issue? Well, you bet it is. Healthcare in our country definitely is dependent upon how much money do you have? And if someone doesn’t have money, they’re not coming in. And this is where you have to look and go, well wait a minute. What about someone who has insurance by example?

I’ll give a couple of things. That’s just happened this year. The state of Colorado now has a mandatory six visits of acupuncture on all insurance policies. Wow. Well, all the Medicare, that’s an exception. That’s pretty. Oregon now has 12 visit. But how many of you there in those states have even promoted or understood or even know it’s happening?

We’ve gotta do a better job of communicating. Think of how many plans that you might be aware of that do cover acupuncture. If you take that insurance and it pays for acupuncture, you bet. I wanna let people know because if I have it and I don’t see your name, maybe I’m not gonna pick you. So I want you to think about what is a barrier for care.

It’s often money. I mean, it’s so much. So there’s actually a diagnosis for not having money to go to the. It’s Z 91,190. It’s patients non-compliance with other medical treatment and regimen due to financial hardship. Do you think that’s a big deal in our country? Yeah. We wouldn’t have a code for it. So this is where I think acupuncturists.

Are kind of that bridge because you’ve never been fully dependent upon insurance. Not that I wouldn’t use it if it’s covered, but you’ve also taught people the value of your service and that there is a value to getting it just paying out of pocket. My mom always said something that’s always stuck with me.

People buy what they want and beg for what they. . Think about that for a second. Does anyone truly need acupuncture? Now, I know we say that, but are they going to like die without it? No. So they have to want it. The good news is people who want things, those are the things they purchase. You see it all the time.

You ever see someone that needs to pay their rep? They buy the shoes they want in the interim. So you wanna put yourself in that side to understand that, create what you do. Because when someone comes to you think of the beauty of what you. Compared to just about any other practitioner. How many of you’ve had a patient that came in your office with a migraine or a headache or some type of pain and they tell you, oh, I’ve been to doctor one, two, and three, medical chiro, all of this, and they come in your office and think, well, I don’t know if it’s even gonna help, but I figure I’ll give it a try.

And then they get literally just a single visit or a few and go, I can’t believe it. It’s. That is powerful. There is value to that. When you can help me, I will pay for it. But you have to create the access so someone comes in. So thinking of it from this standpoint, are you gonna have a lot of people that will pay cash?

Absolutely. You will. I think a good portion of your practice should be cash, but also insurance and it should ebb and flow. You shouldn’t be interdependent on one or the. Because let’s face it, someone who has really good insurance is gonna want to use it, so I want to access that. But if they have very poor insurance, I’m not, and I’m gonna put them in cash.

Or if they have no insurance, we know from the National Institutes of Health that people don’t have as good a coverage for acupuncture benefits. They’re just not as good. They’re there, but not as good. But the data from that shows people are more willing to pay out of pocket for acupuncture because you have created that.

So if they are, what can I do if I’m treating a cash patient? Well, that’s pretty easy, you treat them. But let’s talk about how other professions deal with it. So we can kind of take a page from their book. Take a look at this. This is from the American Physical Therapy Association. This is something they wrote in 2022, and they indicated that higher copayments decreased the likelihood of people coming in.

Well, that’s kind of a duh, of course. . If people have to pay more outta pocket, they’re less likely to come unless they can place enough value to it. Now, here’s what’s interesting for them. It indicates that as soon as a person pays $30, about 30% of the people or one third of them leave, they don’t come in.

And so I thought when I saw this, I thought, Hmm, is that something that’s gonna apply to our profession? Acupuncture? And it turns out, actually in the article at the end, it says, for PTs it does, but for acupuncturists it. So it shows that I think when people choose acupuncture, they understand that, you know what?

I know my insurance is not gonna cover a whole thing, but if it covers a little bit, great. So that $30 is much less of a barrier. So keep in mind, the more value you give, , the more someone’s willing to pay, again, buy what they want. Here’s something else this article pointed out. Now, it’s not specific to Cairo or it’s not specific to acus, but I think we can take something away about Cairos.

Physical therapists are a little jealous of chiros, and I’d actually say a view a bit because how you have branded yourselves. You’ve never been fully dependent upon the insurance model, and I think that’s why so. Medical models can have failure because if you’re trying to do all cash, oh, my insurance doesn’t cover, I’m not coming in, because you’ve always dealt with both ends, I think it gives you a better way of dealing with that.

So it’s not quite as much a barrier. And I think here it shows the value of the service. So let’s talk about, that’s the barrier, but where are these patients coming from? Well, in my opinion, you’re gonna have 12 types of patients that can come in your office. You’re gonna have three methods. That’s kind of how when someone pays out of.

and then nine different sources that could be insurance, which you can see here. Those nine sources. I’d like to access some of them. Here’s what I would point out. Some of these are not that good. Like I’m not that interested in some of those HMOs that pay only like $35 a visit, so those I’m not too excited about.

But what about a standard insurance that pays several hundred? What if you’re in Southern California and treating someone that’s a longshoreman or a New York with New York ship or Florida with Anthem and these plans? Some of these plans can be excellent, va. How about an auto accident? Think of it. If someone’s in an auto accident, would they even think of coming to us?

How about work comp veterans? If, if you treat VA patients, you know those pay well, how do you get them to come in your office? Think about when’s the last time you have something out letting people know. Do you have a sign up that says you treat veterans or is there anything on your website? There’s lots of tools.

To do that. I mean, heck, what about Medicare? Now you think, oh, Sam, come on. Medicare only covers chronic low back pain has to be supervised by an md. That is correct. That is true Medicare Part B, and that’s a little difficult because you wouldn’t need a medical provider to work with. But what about Medicare Part C policies, so-called advantage plans.

By the way, close to 50% of people who have Medicare have that type, and most of them have routine acupuncture, which covers quite well. So what I want to access those patients, I would, but how would someone know you take. If you don’t have it on your site, well, obviously y’all take cash. People will come in.

Well, someone who pays cash, great. They just pay for the service. But let’s talk about what other things might there be to create less of a barrier. What if you have a cash price but you give a small percentage off at pay a time of service? I like that. I mean, that makes sense to me. You know, if your visit’s a hundred and if you pay cash, it’s 90.

That’s fair. You can charge a hundred for insurance, 90 for. Because you can give a small discount, very small, five to 15%. The one exception is California providers. Of course you probably are familiar, but outside of that, a small discount, that’s fine. But does that create a barrier or less of a barrier for the patient to come?

I think so. But what about something else? You ever heard of prepaid plans? What do I mean by that? Someone comes in, instead of buying one visit, they buy 20. So I want us to think of a minute for business models, cash. Can you just waive fees? The answer is no. You can’t say, Hey, I won’t collect it. So be careful of that.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have hardships here and there, but you can give discounts. You know, as I say, the five to 15%, and I wanna focus more a little bit on prepaid plans, but I wanna look at it from this standpoint. You’ve all seen modern Acupuncture. Is that a very popular place where people go, you bet.

How does that model work and think in this way? Are you doing anything to adapt your office? Well, let’s talk business for a second. , you are all familiar or many of you should be familiar with the company Sears. In 10 years, most people won’t be because the company doesn’t exist anymore. It’s bankrupt. Why?

It’s really funny. Sears was Amazon before Amazon, but no one at Sears had the wherewithal to look and go, Hey, when Amazon was coming in and shipping things, Sears already have that inform. They had a catalog. Why didn’t they have it online? People could ship. If they did that, would they still be around? So I want us also thinking of adapt.

Think of the company, modern Acupuncture. Have you ever thought of, could I make that model maybe work a little bit? I will say pretty much every state, so long as there’s a modern acupuncture in your state, it’s allowed. There’s some restrictions I’ll go over in a moment, but what you’re dealing with when you’re dealing with a modern acupuncture style is the person is buying instead of one visit at a time.

Maybe they’re buying 10, so they pay 10 up front. Maybe instead of it being 75 each, it’s 50 each, so it’s $500, but it’s paid up front. One lump. I like that. Patient’s more committed to come in. The only thing you have to make sure is if they don’t want to come anymore refund what they didn’t use. And a couple of things.

If you’re in Montana or in Florida, you do have to put the money in a trust account. Florida’s a little unique that if it’s under 500 you don’t, but can’t be more than 1500. What I will say is just know your state. It’s one of the things we teach at our seminars to make sure you’re compliant. We do with the network, but I’m gonna say this to me, would be a good avenue because there are people going, well wait, I need to come 10 times.

That’s your recomme. But you know how it works. After two or three visits, they feel pretty good. So they stop coming because they go, well, I feel good enough and I don’t wanna pay a hundred a visit, but what if you offered it so it was 50 or 75 prepaid? Chances are they’re gonna be more committed to it.

That part you might want to think of because that’s exactly how the modern acupuncture model works, and being modern acupuncture is the biggest area of growth in your profession, wouldn’t you think you may wanna adapt to that? I mean, think of it this way, did target adopt the 99 cents? a little bit. You can still go into Target and buy expensive watches and so forth, you know, electronics.

But do they also, when you first walk into Target, have a small 99 cent store? A few things. So there’s nothing wrong offering. A little bit of both. Don’t have to be mutual exclusive. You want to think of, I wanna accept patients, I wanna accept patients who can pay the fee. That’s reasonable. And you certainly can come up with some reason for that.

So think along the lines of where are these patients coming from? How do I access them? How do they know I do it? If you’re doing prepaid plans, how does anyone know? , are you putting anything out there to let people know this is how we can make care more accessible to you? Remember, think of how you shop.

Think of how you choose things. Now, the good news as a healthcare provider, a lot of it is based on just good word of mouth. You know, often when the best place to get a patient referral. My acupuncturist, the one I go to personally, is not very cheap. I have very good insurance, so that helps. However, I will tell people when they go to her, I’ll say She’s fantastic.

She really is helpful. She’s thorough and all those things, and I tell them, Hey, she’s not the cheapest, but she’s really good. No one I ever sent to her goes because they think she’s cheap. They go because she’s good. And I want you to think of, is that what people are saying about you? So you gotta start to create like what is my image?

What am I doing and what type of business I’m promoting. I have a friend that’s a very expensive acupuncturist. She’s very, very busy, but she treats a certain type of clientele. She knows her market. Start to look and go, what is my market? How do I do? Because your success is dependent upon you. How are you setting up to get more people, whether it’s cash, insurance, or ait.

you might wanna get some ways to help that. We do seminars, we do continued education. That helps that. This is our website for the network. We have upcoming seminars this weekend. It’s gonna be on Eastern time zone. In two weeks it’ll be on the eastern, uh, central time zone, but it’s there to help you understand what does it work in my state?

How do I make all this work? I can go into much more detail and really give you help. In fact, I can become part of your staff. You can join our network where Sam is your staff. Call me. Email me. We want to figure out how to make sure your office is success. Your success is ours. So let’s start the New Year’s.

Let’s create a plan. Let’s start getting things together. Probably want to come to me for a little bit more help, but this is gonna be a good starting point. Until next time, everyone, I wish you the best. Good success for 2023.

4 Recurring Income Streams – Chen Yen

Would you love to help more people and bring in another stream of income beyond just seeing patients? What if you had more recurring income streams in your practice?

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Would you love to help more people and bring in another stream of income beyond just seeing patients? What if you had more recurring income streams in your practice? Because. Most of the time in your practice, you might mainly have one avenue. Seeing patients to, to be helping more people and bring in income.

And when you have recurring income streams, then you actually are able to have ongoing revenue coming in even if you aren’t seeing patients yourself. So let’s talk a little bit about the four recurring income streams that you can weave into your practice. And this is Chen. You’re a six and seven figure practice makeover mentor@introvertedvisionary.com.

Where. And also your AAC show host today as well. So I one of the things that, about this with the four recurring income streams is that we’ve helped our clients put these in place and it’s been just so wonderful to see that these are. Avenues in which you could actually help people.

So as you, as I share these with you, the four recurring income streams, I’d like for you to think about which one might resonate for you the most and then see about implementing it into your practice. So the first kind of recurring income stream has to do with more of having a membership kind of a model.

So when you think about this word membership, what comes to mind for you? You might think, oh, okay, so are you saying that I would be providing acupuncture treatments in a membership benefit kind of a way? And that’s it. It’s not just limited to that, by the way. And we’ll talk a little bit about what are some things that could expand your possibility of what this idea could bring for you in terms of recurring income stream in your practice?

But first let’s talk about it in the traditional sense of how this could work within your practice. And so there are memberships that I’ve seen that are for, cuz have you ever had, had patients who came in for care or they got better and, or maybe they didn’t actually get better and then they just dropped off care and you never saw them again and you feel like if they were to have stuck with it, they would’ve also, , gotten better results.

This is where membership could have a role in it, in, in supporting the patient. Or it could have a role more in when a patient’s already doing so much better, they would like to come in for more maintenance and then just tune-ups. But and then you having a structure that supports that.

So this is one, one of those situations. It could also. Where you are offering membership where this could be especially good for those of you who have ancillary services outside of acupuncture or your core service offering. So for example, there’s an acupuncturist client of ours who specializes in fertility and she also offer.

Massage within the practice and then their facials as well. So it, it helps with other people. What helps with your patients knowing more about your other services and actually utilizing those other services, because how many of you have other kinds of service offerings within the practice, but then your patients don’t usually hear about it as much or really understand what it is and never really utilize those opportunities to, to get help that way.

Or those services. And you forget to talk about it too because you’re really busy treating your patients typical. So she ended up incorporating a membership that in when people would pay this monthly membership fee, then they would have their acupuncture treatments at a savings, and they would also have their, the other service offerings.

They can book those at a savings plus they got first priority with the scheduling side of things too. And then she also, and also offers. more of an she offers online kind of courses and that kind of thing. So she also included that within the membership. And there are some memberships that are, have nothing to do with treating patients.

By the way. You need to be kosher with the laws of your state profession and country before implementing anything like this and tends to work best for more cash-based practices only. But here’s another possibility. Of where you can look at membership when it is let’s say you have an insurance based practice, or let’s say you are not wanting to do anything membership model wise with your overall even if you’re cash based, you, you don’t necessarily wanna do this kind of a model for your acupuncture treatments and.

Then there also think about what are other things that you offer within the practice that could be beneficial for patients. For example, there’s a practitioner who offers supplements and he has a membership that includes the savings off the supplements and then also with certain kinds of testing and scans and things like that they get a savings off of that.

For his, they pay an annual membership fee for that. And they get first priority to see him, but there’s no like discounts off of visits or anything like that. So it’s that’s another avenue to look at this, where it doesn’t involve treatments. And then there are, we have another client of ours who is offering a membership where it is purely educational.

So have you ever. I had things where you say over and over again to your patients and and then they don’t always remember it, but then, and you say it over and over again and they still don’t always remember it. And what if you could put that together in something that is either just workshop ish, right?

And you offer that even if you offer it on one topic per month. That could be a benefit to them in understanding their health better, because how many of you feel like when you can treat patients, but, and they, some of them expect you to fix them, and then you feel like they don’t really understand that if they go eat lots of Big Macs and.

and fries and supersize it up, in between the sessions that, that there’s still some lifestyle factors that could affect how well they’re doing or if they just or if they sit there all day long at the desk and then they’re hunch all over that, that, that could have had an effect on on.

What they’re doing, whether you, so you could teach them about movement, you could teach ’em about other kinds of things like lifestyle and nutrition kinds of things in a workshop way. And they can learn from that and benefit from that. Also, enjoy the support of other people, not just you. And so that could be in a membership kind of model thing.

It’s just workshops where every month there is one, and then people pay a monthly thing and that becomes recurring come stream for you. So these are all models that our clients have put in place and successfully. And so these are definitely totally possibilities for you as an acupuncturist.

Now, as far as the, so we just talked about the first recurring income stream and then possibility. Let’s talk about the second recurring income stream possibility. So another possibility is something that we touched upon. Earlier which is this. So those things that you say over and over again, right?

What if you were to put that together in something that’s automated so it does the talking for you . So then what if you were to put that together in an automated online course? and then people can benefit from it and learn from it. And you don’t have to always be educating you just record it once and then you end up being able to sell it, have people purchase it, and then learn from it.

So we have an acupuncturist client of ours who, so there are two possibilities. You could create something and then I’ll just make it available to your patient, base you. The second possibility is you could create it and then offer it to people beyond your patient base as well. And so in terms of.

Let’s talk about how much could you charge for something like this? So we have people who are charging anywhere between, it might either be like, 50 bucks a thing to to over a couple hundred dollars to even thousands of dollars. It just really depends on what it’s. Exactly you’re offering.

It could also be for other practitioners, like you could create an automated online course that is about something very valuable for other practitioners. It might be in your profession, or it might be in another profession, or even things like, the workflow of your practice. Now that you’ve been practicing, you’re noticing, oh, this works really well.

But do you remember how on day one when you started your practice, you’re like, I’m not really sure about this and that. So you could create things that could be beneficial for new practitioners as well, and sometimes, Also for seasoned practitioners, maybe if other kinds of clinical things or even marketing kinds of things figured out.

So that could also be put into an automated online course to offer. And and then for the lay public, it could be on different kinds of health topics. So yeah. So you could be, imagine if you had 10 people paying you a hundred dollars, right? That’s like an extra thousand dollars in your pocket.

How many would love to have an extra thousand dollars in your pocket for doing the work? , and this could be for ongoing months and months. And then you could be, or it’s 20 people in something that’s $200. That’s it’s like $4,000, right? How many you could do with an extra $4,000 a month.

And upwards, $10,000 a month can be total. And even more than that could totally be doable from offering something like an automated online. And then so that’s another possibility there that’s really exciting. And what I was mentioning is that some of our clients, Two possibilities.

One is you just share it with your existing patient. So one of our acupuncturist clients is doing exactly that. So she has something for, it’s like designed for more A D H D cuz she works with kids with a D H D. And then the parents end up purchasing the, this online course that the stuff that she used to say over and over again.

Now she’s just put it in a course. They really appreciate it actually. And she doesn’t really do much marketing outside of that with it for her practice. Like she just has. . And in terms of, she just shares it with her patient base and that’s it. Another one of our clients puts it on her website and she charges like 80 bucks for hers, right?

She’s this is pretty nice cuz I don’t, I just created it once and then she’ll check her inbox. She’s Hey, cool. 80 bucks. 80 bucks can pay. For dinner. 80 bucks can pay for something the kids want. 80 bucks can pay for something splurging for yourself. 80 bucks can also be money you save for retirement.

Like it all adds up, right? She’s this is so great. And she’s so happy. She got it in place. And then some of our clients end up. Offering. It’s beyond their patient base too. So then you just need to get the word out about that too. So other people beyond the patient base, you’re able to touch and help.

Imagine being able to help people outside of your immediate area. You could be helping people nationally, internationally, even, and that’s just the coolest thing when, just think about those things that are so obvious to you now that you’ve been an acupuncturist that isn’t people don’t really know about so many of these lifestyle kinds of things or that could really benefit them.

And they’re suffering right now because they don’t know about it. And they only know about many of ’em only know about conventional options as well. And what if you could educate them about holistic options and also making lifestyle changes? And that can be amazing, could help so many people outside of just your practice.

You’re making a much bigger impact that way. So it’s super, super exciting. So that’s also another possibility is. outside of your practice, you end up being able to touch them and recurring income every single month from it as well, once after you get it created. The third recurring income stream is possibility to explore is also something that we touched upon a little bit earlier, which has to do.

Do you have products or herbs or supplements that you really stand behind? You feel like it could be a lot of benefit to either your patients or people who are beyond your, your patient base too, and. What if you were able to actually educate people more about it and then that, and you’re able to put up a store on your website and then people end up buying from that’s also recurring income as well.

So do you have something like that in place, or have you ever thought about, for example, private labeling? So what is private labeling? It’s so that if you’re offering herbs or supplements instead of people, Seeing it and then feeling oh, I can just get this on Amazon or online somewhere. And you know what, there, there are some negative aspects of fighting things online is on Amazon, for example.

In fact, a lot of the like well known suppliers of. of manufacturers of supplements and herbs. Like they know that there are counterfeit ones being sold on Amazon and they try to police it, but it’s really tough too, and like the story, whether it has the actual ingredients or not, it’s like, it’s a question mark, right?

And sometimes and then also storage. Like you don’t really know how people are really storing it as well. And there are some it’s not. Totally safe for people to be buying it on a place like Amazon, which a lot of people think to buy on places like that. So when you’re able to private label your own line of supplements and herbs and.

Then that can be also supportive and in terms of people getting the best quality that you have vetted. And it could also bring in income from people who need it. They get it through you instead of looking online and just purchasing online and that kinda thing. So that’s an third possibility.

In terms of more recurring income from you, we have had clients. When they put this in place and they have products or supplements or herbs in place and they’re offering it. They have people who are no longer their patients, but they still push from them. You know that relationship, you’ve built it and it’s know, they trust you and you’re able to still help them through this, and then you’re ending up making money from it too.

So that could be also be another recurring income stream to pay attention to that you may not have thought as much about in terms of what if I could private label. So private labeling for example, we have connections with private labeling companies and then there the supplement or private supplement or herbal comp orb companies that you currently use.

You could also ask them to. if they private label as well. Currently. Now as far as the fourth recurring income stream that you could look into is this. So you could have recurring income coming from these different sources or streams and avenues here. You could also have recurring income coming through other people working for you, other leveraging other people’s time instead of your.

And so that could end up bringing in recurring income when somebody else is seeing patients for you instead of you. So what if you were to hire someone like an associate or someone to help you? So associate could be an acupuncturist and associate, could also be health coach or other kinds of practitioners or people who could help your patients and make revenue for the practice and.

And it could even be done virtually for some of you who are like, oh, I don’t know about this. And in terms of hiring an associate and that kind of thing. And because I don’t have space for an associate and that kinda thing. So is there something that, that your patients can benefit from, whether it’s what I just mentioned, like the lifestyle.

Aspects. So we have practitioners who have a health coach hired for this, and then they’re helping people and then they’re making additional income every single month from not seeing the patients themselves, but actually a health coach helping them with their, with nutrition and lifestyle and that kind of of thing.

And we even have practitioners who have those kinds of practitioners doing the work online for them. So it’s literally, it’s like you have somebody. Someone who is, who’s a health. For example, it’s, it doesn’t have to be healthcare. It could be another kind of practitioner too. But they are seeing patients and then you could set it up so that they’re, they are, there’s different ways to set it up.

But you could set it up so that they’re, they are Making money and you’re paying them when you have a patient or when you have a client, like when you don’t then perhaps they don’t get paid. That’s just one, one str pay structure, but possibility. But yeah, so there, there are opportunities for other people leveraging other people’s expertise and help and then be able to benefit.

Your, either your patient based or even beyond the walls of your current patient based and bringing in another stream of income. So that becomes recurring income for you. Like even if it’s, let’s just look at an associate hire, right? If they’re making a hundred K a year for the practice and you end up paying them 50 K or 60 k.

Like that, I’m, that’s like you still, you’re just making between 40 K and 50 K per year without having to see those patients yourself. Could you do with an extra $40,000, $50,000, whether it’s to put towards retirement or to do other things with, and To, to do the things that you’ve been wanting to do or, help with like extra money, storage money or extra money for the kids or things that you wanna do, right?

So without having to think twice about it, like it, it all adds up. So those are the possibilities for that we talked about with the four recurring income streams in their practice. , we talked about membership as being a possibility and looking at it in a fresh way. We talked about online, an automated online course that you could get in place and that could be helping more people and bring in another stream of income.

We also talked about products and supplements and herbs and have you thought about private labeling and bring, and also educating the public about it too, not just your patient base and bringing in another recurring income stream. And then we finally, we talked about leveraging other people’s time and expertise and.

and being able to have either an associate hired or maybe someone who’s like a health coach or other kinds of PR practitioner who could help people and then be, also be bringing, bring in additional revenue for the practice as well. For a more six and seven figure practice makeover tips, go to introverted visionary.com and so it’s introverted visionary.com and to you weaving in recurring income streams into your practice and helping more people and making more money as well.

Till next time.

LED Light Therapy – Michelle Gellis

Today I’m going to be talking about L E D light. and the benefits and some of the contraindications. So if you can go to the first slide.

Click here to download the transcript.

Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis. I am a board certified acupuncture physician, and I teach facial acupuncture classes internationally. Today I’m going to be talking about l e d light. and the benefits and some of the contraindications. So if you can go to the first slide.

So this is a little bit about me. I’m a formal former faculty member and clinic supervisor at the Maryland University of Integrative Health, and I’m currently on the doctoral FA faculty at Usan University, and I’ve been published several times in the Journal of Chinese. , my area of expertise is facial acupuncture, both for cosmetic but also for neuromuscular facial conditions.

And at the end of the presentation, I have some information about some of the classes that I teach. So what is l e d skin rejuvenation or l e d light therapy actually? So l e d light therapy is using light through light emitting diodes or LEDs to affect the skin and the body in. So these l e d lights and you can see a picture of a light device here.

These l e d lights can stimulate the cells in our body to do different things. They can produce collagen and this can help to rejuvenate the skin. And it can also. help with a lot of other things in addition to helping with skin concerns. So LEDs are different from lasers and I p l therapies that are other therapies that are used for the.

Because this does not use thermal energy. It doesn’t damage the skin in any way. There’s no downtime and there’s no trauma to the tissue, which is really nice for our patients. And this particular device, which. is a freestanding device. I like this type of device because you can move it around the table.

You don’t have to somehow prop it over your patient and you can get it as close or as far away as you would like, and it will function on any body part. So these panels, they of move, like open and closed to get to smaller parts and larger parts of the body. So what are some of the benefits, other benefits of l e d light therapy?

L e d light therapy has. Approved by the FDA for anti-aging, tightening and toning of the skin, helping the skin’s elasticity, improving pigment like dark spots, and any sort of molas, things of that nature. It helps our immune system because it targets the mitochondria of the. , which enhances our immune system.

It also helps with hair regrowth. You may have seen some of those caps and different types of devices. People, the red light devices that people put on their heads to help to regrow hair, and it also can help with inflammation and for things like joint pain, for concerns like arthritis. and the way, one of the ways that it helps with skin is it stimulates the fibroblasts to increase collagen production and it also increases the production of melatonin in the body.

So it’s great for. It stimulates the lymphatic system, so it helps with any sort of inflammation that may be going on. And also cell repair. So if you’re doing cosmetic acupuncture, You can include this with the cosmetic acupuncture treatment and it can help to with puffiness and also to reduce the incidence of bruising.

And because it does work with the mitochondria of the cell, it can help with the tissue. Injury tissue regrowth, if there’s been any sort of trauma. And again, it can also help with inflammation. So the device that I was just showing you is made it’s being sold by ocu. And they they have a website.

It’s called AccuLift skincare.com and Mossa OMS will also be carrying it. And it has four different types of light. It has a red light, which has a wavelength of 640 nanometers, and that is the most powerful penetrating is the red light, and that is for pretty much everything. It will take care of the skin cell, rejuvenation, oxygen content in the blood circulation, aches and pains, and promoting the collagen.

So you would use the red light definitely. If you were treating the skin. , the yellow light helps with oxygen in the skin, also circulation, red spots, red face. It’s great for rosacea and it helps to remove pigment in the skin. That’s unwanted, like dark spots, red spots. The green light is good for dark circles.

Also pigmentation issues, broken capillaries, sunspots, so it will target some of the red in the skin and if the person has over irritated skin. And then the blue light. Helps to kill bacteria and it’s wonderful to use, like if you’re doing any sort of microneedling, it helps to kill bacteria on the skin ahead of time.

Also, the lights can be combined, so you can have red and blue, yellow, and red. or you can turn all four colors on, and this will help with different types of concerns. So a little bit about infrared light. So this, the light that this device emits is a near infrared. So the T D P lamps that we have, they get hot that is far infrared, and these lamps they don’t get hot like a far infrared.

The light spectrum that we’re working with is mainly in here. However, when you combine the lights, you can get a little further into the near infrared. , which helps to go down a little deeper when you are trying to deal with aches and pains and muscle issues. So the red light. The near infrared red light again, it stimulates collagen, fibroblasts, and it does have some anti-inflammatory action.

And as I mentioned this has all been approved by the fda and we can use them in our treatment room for all these different things, including. Stimulating the mitochondria of the cell. And this is a link to one study and there have been many studies that have been done on. Red Light therapy.

The nice thing about red light therapy is there’s no risk of burning the skin, and you can treat a large area within a very short period of time. A typical treatment is between 20 and 30 minutes, and there’s nothing special you need to do afterwards. There’s no downtime. The person doesn’t have to stay out of the sun or put any special products on their skin.

It is safe for many different types of skin and , it’s completely pain free. It’s very comfortable. It’s actually very relaxing. It’s easy to use. The machines are easy to use. The Accu Lift device comes with step by step manual and also video training and. , it really does have a wide range of uses in the treatment room.

Back pain, hip pain, leg pain lots of different things that you can use it for in addition to just rejuvenating the skin. Here, here is a picture of me. You could see I’m wearing the same shirt right before the presentation. I thought I would just chill out under my red light and it’s very relaxing.

It has a timer on it. I don’t think I have a picture of the controls, but the controls are easy. You turn it on and then there is a timer. You can set it from zero to 30 minutes. And power I always turn it all the way. and then what color light you want to use. You just cycle through whether you wanna do red, blue, green, yellow, or a combination.

So there’s different seven different settings. Red, blue, green yellow and red. Red and blue, and then all four. And. It’s on wheels, so you can just move it right around your patient, which is nice. And when you’re done, you can just wipe it with a cavity, wipe something that is safe, and that way if your patient coughs or sneezes or anything it will remain clean.

and it stores up pretty small. You could just stick it right in the corner. And the other thing is, if you’re doing cosmetic acupuncture, you can put your needles in and then you just place this right over the needles. And you can see with these adjustment knobs, you can lay it, you can have it so it’s completely flat like this, and you can put it right up against.

The person I don’t know. I did not include the contraindications, but there are some contraindications. You would never wanna use the device on someone who had cancer, skin cancer, any kind of cancer, because it does stimulate cell growth. You don’t want to use it on. People who are pregnant any sort of open wounds, anything like that.

But this is all included in the training. This is really just an overview on the devices . That’s pretty much all I have to say today about red light therapy. These are some of the other classes that I offer. I haven’t even added the red light therapy class on here, but I teach cosmetic acupuncture certification.

I have a, an advanced certification, which is essentially all of these classes. I also just have a, like a basic five module certification. I teach facial cupping, facial guha, facial derma rolling, and skincare microneedling, both with a microneedle pen and derma rolling. I also have to meet, and these are all C E U N C A O.

California and Florida approved CEU classes. I also teach ethics and safety within facial acupuncture treating neuromuscular facial conditions self-care for acupuncturists and anatomy of expression. . So that’s my topic today and let me move this out of the way. Oops. If you are interested in learning more, definitely visit the AAC channel.

They have lots and lots of instructional video. And I wanna say thank you to the AAC for the opportunity today to spend some time with all of you.

How to Hire a Virtual Assistant for Your Practice

There are holistic health practitioners, acupuncturists, and other holistic health practitioners who have virtual assistance, and it can be a great avenue to support you…

Click here to download the transcript.

There are holistic health practitioners, acupuncturists, and other holistic health practitioners who have virtual assistance, and it can be a great avenue to support you without also having them be physically in your space or having overhead, that kind of overhead involved with having somebody physical in your space.

So this is Chen Yen your 6 & 7 figure practice makeover mentor@introvertedvisionary.com and your host, for our AAC show today, and we are gonna get into how to hire a virtual assistant for your practice to take things off your plate. We’ll talk about what what is the virtual assistant should you consider hiring one, and what are some of the The biggest let’s see here.

What are some of the common concerns that I hear about hiring one and then how to actually get it going? Like how do you hire your first VA smoothly to. I abbreviate as that virtual assistant smoothly va smoothly to, to be able to free up your time so that you can actually do more of what you enjoy doing most.

And so as far as the, should you, first of all what is a virtual assistant? So a virtual assistant as it relates to you as an acupuncturist or a holistic health practitioner. Is, and how they could be helpful for you is someone who can do anything from admin to marketing and even chart noting, did you know that virtual assistant can actually help with chart noting and yes, it’s even HIPAA compliant.

And so the. There are avenues of getting that kind of a support. And they’re virtual, so they’re not physically working in your office. And the benefits of that are that, it you’re able to have an, have someone support you. , even though you’re not necessarily seeing them every day or having them be in your physical space, and they can do a range of different types of things for you.

So you could hire a virtual assistant to just work a few hours for you a week on certain things. They also can answer phones in terms of Fred desk, receptionist possibilities too. So they don’t actually have to physically be there. And this could be good for you especially. Perhaps your, the volume of your practice isn’t that high yet in terms of patient, in terms of the, I’m talking about front desk, right?

Two possibilities. One is if the volume of patients isn’t as high yet, but you’re also not answering the phones all the time and then you’re missing calls and people are not getting attended to right away. So then they go and call somebody else and then end up booking with somebody else before, like when you call them back, they’re already like, oh, I’m already fine now.

. So it you are having some volume, but it’s not like a as high of a volume to the point where you would like to hire someone in your office to be taking calls. And then another possibility though, too related to having a virtual assistant to help you with phone calls is if you are, if your office is very busy, and you would like them to handle the overflow in your office for calls because calls do get missed because your front desk staff is already very busy and not able to really handle that load as well.

So that’s another possibility related to front desk help. virtually in terms of the chart noting side of things. It’s, it is interesting because when I first heard about it, I thought, really, is this gonna be HIPAA compliant? And that kind of thing. And yes you could, there are companies that do this where it is HIPAA compliant and and then you are able to have this taken off your plate.

Where, cuz have you ever felt like you are . You love to treat patients, but you hate the chart, noting part. , it’s such a drag that you end up putting it off and you let it pile up. Maybe at the end of the day, you feel like, okay, I, I just wanna keep seeing patients and have that kind of a flow during the day.

By the end of the day, you’re, it’s time for you to do chart noting and you feel like, Ugh, this is such a drag. And then you procrastinate it. and then you procrastinate it until it feels like even it’s even more of a drag. And then you, and when you go do it, it takes up so much time and energy. I know acupuncturists who do this and then have to stay late to do chart noting and then their family’s are you gonna come home earlier?

Cause you’re like, you’re staying home, you’re staying late at work chart noting and, starting to feel a little guilty about it, but also feeling like but I still have to get this done. Can, how many of you can relate. Like this right now, or comment blow to let me know. . Yeah. So this is something that can be happening.

And you could actually have a virtual assistant be taking chart notes for you during the visit itself, so that at the end of the visit it’s already well written in terms of the notes, and then you could summarize it or, you could tweak it and edit it and add certain things into it.

So it goes so much faster than you having to chart. Partly during the visit, also afterwards. So that is such an amazing thing. We had a client of ours we ended up connecting up cuz we have connections and and we connected her up with this one place and they’re doing chart noting for her and oh my gosh, she’s this is saving my life.

She can’t imagine now not having one. . And then the and in terms of ad virtual assistant being able to help with other kinds of admin things, it could also tie into marketing related kinds of things. So for example, have you ever felt like there are tech things that you don’t do very well, but it would be nice to be able to hand off to somebody else who’s good at doing it.

And, but it doesn’t really seem like it’ll make too much sense to hire someone to come in your office and help you with that on a regular basis. And and so you could hire that out. For example, if you would like to stay in touch with your patient base by email and then you would like to put together something to send to them, the text side of that, or even sometimes the writing side of that can be done by virtual assistant.

In terms of the talent range of the virtual systems, there’s a range, a huge range of talent range. There are those who are strictly, like very good with rote kinds of things like data entry and, those kinds of things. And. The way you do it over and over again. They’re really good at doing, but they don’t, they’re less of strategic thinking kind of people, or they might not be able to do things like marketing and that kind of thing very well.

But then there’s a ra there’s also people who are jack of all trades and they do a mix of those kinds of things that I just mentioned to you right now. And then there are also people who are very zeroed in on one particular kind of thing, whether it’s okay, so I will write up your.

Their, your newsletters for you, or I will do this thing for you, ev all the time. Very specific, more high level kinds of things. So there’s a whole range of talent and experience and and what you could hire a virtual assistant for. And so as such, cuz like one of the most common questions I get asked is like, how much does a virtual assistant cost?

And it’s, so as such it ranges quite a bit because of the level of talent and also where you might be hiring them from. So you could be hiring them from your own country or you could be hiring them from other countries, including. Like the Philippines or India, where places where there’s some really good talent.

However, the the cost of living in terms of the what people tend to make in your country is it might be significantly more than in their country. So they’re actually getting paid pretty well when they’re working for you, but then for you, it ends up being less than hiring somebody from your country.

So it ranges in terms of how much the more charges it range. So much because of the variations of those factors that I just shared with you, the level of talent, what exactly you’re doing for you and where you’re hiring them from. So now what about the. So if you have an interest in hiring someone what are some considerations, right?

It’s oh, I’ve never thought about this. What if I could? Cuz imagine if you could even just take a few hours off your plate even once a week, right? Like even if it was like, if you had three hours. Back in your life to do whatever you would like to do, whether it is seeing more patients and making more money for the practice also, or it isn’t, maybe it’s like you could actually go home earlier, , you could put your feet up and relax a little bit, take a breather for, what would that, what would that mean for you if you’re able to do that?

Just be able to have more time back in your life. Whether it’s a few hours a week, whether it’s 10 hours a week. Whether it’s 40 hours a week it’s like that, that somebody else could. Doing something for you and then you’re able to do more because of it too, right? Like you’re able to accomplish more, you’re able to grow more, you’re able to help more people because you have support instead of wearing so many different hats and trying to do everything yourself, and then feeling burnt out and feel, still feeling like you’re not doing anything.

Any, not anything, but you’re not doing like everything really. Because it’s really difficult to do that. So let’s talk a little bit about if you have an interest in hiring someone, what are some considerations? For one, it’s, I think the one, some of the most the biggest mistakes is, To just get excited about it and then be like, oh, let me go look this up and see who I can hire and then find someone and then hire them and yay they’re gonna take things off my plate.

And from experience. So I have. I’ve been hiring virtual assistants for, let’s see, I think it’s been at least 15 years. And when I first heard about one, this is back when the concept was more new for most people I thought, oh, that sounds like a good idea. And then I went and hired my first one and I didn’t think too much.

I didn’t realize you had to think about all, certain things. And so I just hired them and I thought, oh, this person’s gonna be able to help me, and I’m going to be able. To free up all my time more of my time. And I then I realized, oh, like they don’t read my mind, or, oh, they’re not really equipped to do this kind of a thing.

And so part of that was because I didn’t know a lot of things when I first started hiring virtual assistants. And one thing I wish I knew was that. to be really clear about what you’re really looking for and also understand what a virtual assistant can or cannot do for you. I had certain thing expectations and I didn’t realize that, that the person I hired wasn’t really a, like a fit for that kind of expectation that I had.

And so the first step is getting really clear. Who you’re looking for and what exactly they’ll do for you. And this is much, many times it’s much easier Seth than dad because it’s like you don’t know what you don’t know, right? . That’s something to get really clear on and also be clear about the distinction of what you could hire one for and what may not make as much sense and that kind of thing.

So that’s the first step. Then the second step is then where, as far as well, where to find somebody like that. And there’s a range of where you could look for, and so there’s. You could either be hiring someone directly or you could hire from a company. And if you hire from a company, though, many times there are it ends up being, if you’re looking at costs and that kind of thing, it’ll be higher costs just because, you’re, there’s another middleman they’re involved.

And then there are also like sometimes. Find more of a jack of all trades more if you are hiring someone more directly than go through a company in particular. So then it becomes who best to hire and then Have it really work well for you, right? And what’s your screening process?

That and I didn’t know ha half the things I should have asked back then, , now I know what to ask and evaluate with that. In fact, that’s something that we cover or clients come to us for when they’re wanting to hire, whether it’s a virtual assistant or a for their practice, or it is just an admin person with, for the.

Within their brick and mortar practice or an associate into their practice. Many times when you are hitting a point in your practice where you would love more support and would love to hire out, it’s not like you, you had learned these things in school about what to look for and what to pay attention to, how best to screen someone.

We had I just spoke to a practitioner yesterday and she’s I didn’t really think much of this back then. And then she hired and then, She realized after the fact, she’s oh, I wish I knew these things that now you can help me with. So in fact, she signed up to, to work with us in our four weeks to a new hire program that’s coming up, which is gonna help with both being able to get a new virtual assistant hired and smoothly the process for that and to shortcut that and also our connections too.

I can introduce you to, to the best kind of possible scenarios for you all in terms of where to look for someone and things like that, depending on what exactly you’re looking for, as well as the screening side of things. So this is all, this is for the virtual side of things and for brick and mortar side of things.

So I’m really excited about that coming up. In any case and also like templates from our our recruiting business set that I’ve had as another business and where companies paid us to find the right hires for them. So we had templates and frameworks for like whether it’s interview and what to ask.

Like people tend to tell you what they want, what you wanna hear, right? So things like that, to help you with navigating in such a way that, that you end up finding somebody good and you could suss things out well before you hire them. You could spot, spot for laziness or unmotivated kinds of things that through the process that normally doesn’t show up in the process unless you have certain screening things in place.

In any way, in any case, what I was gonna mention to you, So that’s the second step is where to find them, where’s the best place to find them? And then third step is then finding the right fit and screening for the right fit. And then the fourth step is how are you onboarding them so that they end up Doing really well for you.

So many times the most exciting day of hiring is the day you hire them, but then you know how it turns out can have an effect. It depends, like what you do when you onboard them has an effect on their success. So you could have somebody who’s amazing, but then you just throw them in and you expect them to do certain things and then they might actually feel overwhelmed or they might feel a little bit resentful, even though they’re not telling you that.

And then it may not actually work out as well. This goes for all hires. It’s not just virtual help. But and by the way I, one thing that you may not know about me, So now I’ve run two successful businesses and I’ve never met a single one of my hires in terms of people, my team who’s worked for me.

And for those of you who are feeling I ca you know, I can’t possibly fathom hiring somebody who I won’t be able to see in person and manage them and that kind of thing. It’s totally doable, and I’ll talk a little bit about that in a moment here, but, What I was saying, back to what I was saying about the onboarding side of things.

So what I’ve learned over the years is that sometimes you could have an amazing hire, but you could screw up the onboarding and then they might end up not doing as well as you would like, they may not be as productive as quickly as you’d like, as well. . And so part of it is do you have an a good onboarding plan in place?

And for example, we have frameworks for things like this, like a 90 day onboarding plan. And so that way you’re able to be able to Have them ramped up quickly and taking things off your plate and you’re feeling like, oh, this is so nice. I’ve got hours back in my day, or hours back in my week.

So that’s really amazing when that can happen. Let’s talk a little bit about, I was gonna talk about the most common concerns for hiring a virtual assistant. . One thing that I often hear is I don’t know if I could trust someone. And the truth is that whether you could trust someone or not, it’s a consideration for you, whether you hire them virtually or in person to work with you side by side.

And this is one of the biggest things that I see hold back a lot of acupuncturists and other holistic health practitioner practitioners to growth, which is this thing of I can do this so much better myself, or I can do this much faster myself, so I might as well just do it. Or this fear of trust kind of a thing, right?

And but making decisions based on a small percentage chance of someone not being able to be trusted is small. Think. and we can go about practicing and being distrusted people and stay small and then continue to have a smaller practice than you could really have. And also just what happens when you’re sick, like certain things don’t get done.

What happens when you go on vacation? Again, certain things don’t get done right and all the weight is like a lot of the weight is on your shoulders or all the weight’s on your shoulders. So the upside is really getting back weeks. Time, getting back time in your life, which could add up to weeks of time in your life back in, in a year, right?

So it’s much greater, the upside is much greater than the downside of the fear. So it’s just a matter of having a good certainly being intuitive and going with your intuition, that’s really important too, and having a good approach in place to, to find and. and then also get someone hired.

And then as far as another concern that I sometimes hear is that I’m not sure if I can afford one right now. And so many times this is a concern because of the fear of not being able to cover the expenses of a hire or feeling like you could take home more. if you just like yourself, if you just kept it all in your pocket and not hired anyone, right?

But the reality of it is that a good virtual assistant, or any hire for that matter can take things off your plate to allow you to actually make more money. It’ll free you up more with more energy and time so that you can make more money. Because how much money do you make an hour if you were seeing.

It’s usually a lot more than what a, a virtual assistant or any, anyone you hire would end up being right. But the unfortunate thing is that many acupuncturists and other holistic practitioners end up waiting too long and then get to that point of where they’re really burnt out, stressed, and then they feel like I really needed someone yesterday.

Instead of actually looking ahead and thinking, oh, you know what? I think it would be good to have support coming up here in the next year. So maybe let me start looking at this cuz I’m getting busier my practice or I’m wearing too many different hats, spread too thin. And so I’m going to start looking into this as a possibility and then learning about this, understanding this because remember how I mentioned to you that one of the biggest mistakes I see when hiring a virtual assistant is it’s not really Understanding the distinction and of what what to look for and then how best to really find the right person for you and suss that out.

And so it’s good to learn about this before you actually go about doing it. And same thing with overall hires. It doesn’t have to even be virtual assistant hire, but it could. , anyone you’re thinking about hiring within your practice in hi in your brick and mortar practice as well. So with that, if, for those of you who are interested in my more in-depth webinar free masterclass on this topic then feel, I’m gonna drop a link in the comment below, and so in the chapel, Section below.

So you could see, you could click on it and then watch the more about it. So I go into to answering more of your most common questions about this, how to hire a virtual good virtual assistant and take things off your plate. And then for those of you who would like free six and seven figure practice makeover chips, you can go to introverted visionary.com.

And feel free to ask us about the four weeks to a new. Program coming up as well. If that’s something that is like you’re looking for hiring you, maybe you have hired before you had a bad experience or you have hired before and you would just like to hire someone different now and you would to actually have a good process in place to save you time and energy from.

The process and also to be able to find the right fit. The, in ha have things working for you to find the right fit to. or you are hiring your first hire for you’re an admin person or associate, then feel free to, to reach out to us. So with that look forward to you having more support, feeling more supported, and and doing what you enjoy the most.

Which for many of you it’s mainly seeing patients or doing other things. So with that till next time.

Super Foods – Helping Patients Get Better Results with Small Changes

And today I’m gonna be talking about super foods and this is how you can get better results for your patients.

Click here to download the transcript.

Okay.

Hi and welcome. My name is Tsao-Lin Moy and I am a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist with a brick and mortar practice in Union Square in New York City. I would like to thank the Acupuncture Council for creating this opportunity to livestream information to you. And today I’m gonna be talking about super foods and this is how you can get better results for your patients.

By informing them about making these small changes and you’re gonna have, to their diet and some of their lifestyle. So we are going to go to the slides. . Okay, so super foods, and this is about getting better results for your patients and really it’s about being smarter about eating and doing it.

So they’re going to get these results. Now, every year people gain between seven to 10 pounds of weight between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that’s a lot because what happens is in the new year, We have everyone that makes resolutions that they wanna lose weight, they wanna get healthier. But after about six weeks, maybe two months, most people give up because it’s too difficult.

So if they’re not seeing the fast results, if they’re not getting encouragement, , they’re gonna stop. So here is an opportunity to give your patients these tools. Now, the US is one of the most unhealthy countries in the world with an almost the highest in healthcare cost. And as we know as practitioners that for the most part, many of our services are not covered on insurance, and patients have to pay out of pocket.

And it looks like the cost value is like, 4 trillion right, is spent on healthcare, but the quality of people’s lives is not getting better, and in fact, it gets worse. Oftentimes the solution from allopathic medicine is to end up being on multiple medications. And one of the. Main causes of death in the US is heart disease with a lot of the comorbidities of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, right?

And looking at the simple things that I’m gonna cover, that it’s gonna support your patients and yourself, they’re gonna be really easy to incorporate and help to cultivate a healthier lifestyle. . So the topics the topic is food is medicine, and I’m, we’re looking at super foods. I’m gonna talk a little bit about mushrooms.

Mushrooms have a lot of magical properties, including magic mushrooms, which I won’t talk about. Magic mushrooms just at the magic that they can produce with health. I’m gonna do an example. Different greens. I’m gonna cover also a little bit about sugar and just dairy. So this is going to be an overview.

It’s gonna stimulate you guys to do more research on your own and maybe take a look at, where you can make improvements so that the food that you have and that you’re consuming is gonna be the highest quality and nutrient dense. . So mushrooms. Mushrooms and their medicinal magic. Okay, so in this picture we’re looking at there’s Lions Main, there’s Cortis, there’s Turkey Tail, there’s Rei Chaga Maya Taki, and Shiitake mushrooms.

Mushrooms are actually from the Fungi Kingdom. Genetically we are closer to fungi than we are to other plants and so I’m not gonna go over the whole Fungi Kingdom. My suggestion is, if you haven’t already watched it, is to go and watch the movie. Fantastic fungi. There’s gonna be so much information about how mushrooms and mycelium interconnect us throughout the world and how much that we and the environment really relies on mushrooms.

There’s something called micro remediation. And this is where the mushrooms are able to clean out toxic waste. Really helping to be help our environment, right? And for us does the same thing. Mushrooms are extremely helpful and medicinal for with their properties. So most mushrooms, they have many healing properties.

One, we know they boost the immune system. They lower cholesterol, regulate blood sugar, improve memory have cancer fighting properties they contain. Proteins, minerals and are packed with antioxidants. Now the seven strains, which are highly beneficial, are often found in a mushroom powder supplement.

And I put together, I just said STAT seven. Paul Stat is a very well known mycologist and he has a company and. He has different packaging is where will contain the Cortis, the Turkey tail, REI, makihiki, and Lions Main. Now, Cortis is also known as Caterpillar fungus, right? And it’s good for energy, for memory.

The Turkey tale research is done used for. Cancer. Also REI we know is the Lingerer in Chinese medicine, which is also used for immune and also helping with cancer. Myat. Taki this mushroom is good for blood pressure, cholesterol also blood sugar. And again, the same with shiitake mushrooms, also very healthy.

You can cook with them. Lions. is one that’s known for memory and they look at neuro regenerative properties. So maybe looking towards how it can help with motor neuron regeneration brain with like dementia Parkinson’s many issues that we’re having right now with brain fog, right post or during with from viruses and pandemics.

And then we have chaga, I put a little asterisks with Chaga because you. All of these have healing properties, but there’s also a tendency for let’s say western people to think more is better. And the one thing with the Chaga, you have to be careful because in super large quantities it can cause problems with the kidneys.

So we’re always looking at moderation and. Best way is if you can cook with the mushrooms. So most mushrooms, they’re gonna work through the middle j the spleen, the stomach, the liver. They’re also good for the lung and the heart channel. They’re good for gut health and help to regulate blood sugar and cholesterol.

And in turn, heart. With mushrooms, you really have to break them down, like cook ’em because they contain something called chitin, which is protein. They’re also very high in fiber. So we don’t really want to eat raw mushrooms. I think the little button mushrooms are okay to eat raw in a salad, but for the most part, you really need to cook.

So here what I’ve highlighted is Mya Taki mushroom. So I’m just gonna go through the Maya Taki mushroom, also known as Hen of the Woods. Now, this mushroom is known to reduce cholesterol. , it helps to clean out the blood. It’s anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, and also helps with type two related diseases, other kinds of problems that show up from type two diabetes.

And I put on the bottom of this the different references for the research that’s done. I actually have a friend who. He had done some research, he had diabetes, he had high cholesterol, hypertension, like all of those three that we see so prominently in here in the west because of our diet.

And he had read about the benefits of the myat Tai mushroom and decided he was going to just intake more my Taki mushroom. And he. He made. So about one third of his diet was coming from mushrooms and ended up losing like 60 pounds and then got off, was able to get off the cholesterol, the high blood pressure medication, and also reverse his diabetes, right?

So this is really huge. This is a huge thing. So if we can avoid or minimize the amount of medication, That we’re taking this is gonna be a good thing, right? Because as we know, medication actually can cause inflammation in the liver and also cause problem with the kidneys. So oftentimes the medicines that we take and the pharmaceuticals, they have a lot of side effects, right?

And so if we can, whatever we can do on our own that’s simple would be maybe start eating some mayak mushrooms. So are there certain foods that are better to eat along with mushrooms for enhanced nutrition? Absolutely. Onions, garlic, shallots, leaks, chives. They’re excellent accompaniments for cooking with mushrooms.

So in Chinese medicine, onions and garlic are used in soups, right? We know like a miso soup cuz they open up the sinuses and the lungs. They also belong to the album genus, and those properties are also filled with vitamins, minerals, plant compounds, and antioxidants. Great for supporting immune fun immune function.

right? And reducing. They also reduce cholesterol and blood sugar. And also garlic and onions are great for flavoring. So if just in case the theme is , reducing your cholesterol, your blood sugar blood pressure and improving The your gut health. So all of these things that if we can do this, will be just, even one food that you can add in to your diet, make some changes.

It’s gonna make a really big impact and. From what I notice is that you have to give your patients really simple things that they can do. If they’re given a really complicated eat this in the morning, this in the afternoon, you have to something, then they’re gonna give up. So really like an easy thing is, have them start eating mushrooms, right?

Just say, start eating mushrooms, not with butter. But really give them a couple of easy recipes. You can roast mushrooms, right? With just a little bit of olive oil and salt in the oven. And they’re very TAs. So one of the problems in the US is sugar. So this is a, the US is the biggest consumer of sugar on the globe, and according to sources, the country’s per capita, sugar consumption is about.

30 teaspoons a day, right? And that translates into more than 10 times what the lowest recommended in intake is, which is about three teaspoons. And this translates into as it converts from grams to pounds to ounces, about over a hundred pounds of sugar per year, per person, right? Of course some people eat less.

But if you start looking at how much sugar is in like drinks and different kinds of foods that we really don’t realize, like how much that we’re consuming, right? So why do we need to cut sugar out of our diet? In the US we’ve got a lot of diabetes, 10% at least, of the adult population, which is about 34 million, has diabetes.

And then we’ve got. 34, almost 35% have pre-diabetes. So we’re already we’re trending, right? This is trending sh insulin resistance and sugar. Problems regulating sugar affect the endocrine system. We see this with a lot of problems with fertility. , a lot of women or a lot of people overall, obesity is a big problem in the us.

So we start to see problems with metabolism. The standard American diet known as the SAD diet, is really high in like animal products. A lot of animal fats dairy meat processed. Sugars and a lot of sugars and so we start to see like we need to make changes, but then all, so it’s not just stopping eating those foods or curbing it is really, we need something to help to clear out the system.

Sugar plays a role as a stimulant and it increases inflammation, right? And it can actually cause problems with yeast. It will cause problems with imbalances in mood and reproductive hormones. With a fertility. Polycystic ovary syndrome is a really big problem and we see more and more women are being diagnosed with it and often they have insulin resistance and this is what interrupts their endocrine system and reproductive hormones.

So we really wanna look also can we make substitutions? So there are a few things you can do, of course, like cutting out sugar as much as possible is really you. Is gonna be the best thing that we can do to go on like a sugar fast. But oftentimes people are looking for a substitution.

So if we compare sugar to maple syrup, I know that there are a lot of recipes that say, oh, use maple syrup. So maple syrup. Comparably in calories and carbs. It has a lower glycemic index than sugar. And it also tends to be a little bit sweeter. So this is something that maybe you’d end up using less of if you use that as a substitution.

But I also looked at a comparison of something like how’s molasses, what is molasses in terms of compared to. Maple syrup, because sugar has empty calories, sugar it’s processed. It doesn’t really offer anything other than the sugars. So when we look at maple syrup, because it comes from a tree, it’s going to have other.

Properties from the tree plants like antioxidants but then looking at what does molasses contain because molasses is also sweet. It has a sweet it’s also very bitter. But it can be used as a sweetener and things like, Coffee if you want to, or even hot chocolate. Black strap molasses is like really high in iron.

So if you have people that tend towards anemia, this would be like maybe a spoonful of the black strap molasses. And looking at in this slide how it contain, Calcium, right? Iron very high in iron, molasses, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, b3, B five, b6. If you’re going to have a little bit of a sweetener itch, this could be like to really kinda look at, am I gonna have some healthy things that are gonna come with it.

So not just the sweet. And again we’re looking at maple syrup also has. , right? So if you, if we’re gonna choose something to suite, we’re gonna look at not just the fact that it’s gonna be low on the glycemic index, but really what else can it offer? . Now getting to greens. So all greens are full of antioxidants, right?

But they’re not all equal. And I actually came I was in actually a Asian. Food market. And I happened to pass by this, sea of green and I saw these little flowers and I, wow, these are really beautiful flowers. And it happened to be like the flowers from the Chinese broccoli tips.

And so I bought them and I was like, oh, it’s really interesting. I don’t always see the flowers. And they made me really curious about what are the benefits of Chinese broccoli. And what I found out is, Chinese broccoli is one of the most, most nutritious vegetables, and one of the highest calcium content has the highest calcium content of any food.

Rich in iron, vitamin A, c, and E high amounts of beta keratin, and that helps with. Eyes for as we age we get macular degeneration. And it’s also a rich source of fiber. Now, regular broccoli is also high in many nutrients, including fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, iron and potassium.

However, having bone health, we really wanna look at if we eat a little bit of the Chinese broccoli, That, comparing it to another green, that this may be a much healthier choice. Easy to do one green, just change it right. . Another also I looked at was the celery. What is celery?

Celery contains a lot of plant compound. A plant compound a, which is a role in traditional Chinese medicine is anti-inflammatory, right? We know that. Celery is very cooling. It’s a diuretic, right? Helps remove the toxins from the body. Studies actually show it has its antioxidant and has anti-aging properties.

Actually looking at it, it also has some neuro stem cell regeneration properties too in, in some of the research papers. The aspect you can drink celery juice, right? In Chinese medicine, drinking raw green juices is not so great cuz maybe too cold. The, in terms of nutrition it’s high in vitamin K and also modest source of B, the B vitamins.

You can chop it up and saute it. Just add it into maybe some other dishes that you have really think about just adding some more of the celery and in particular the Chinese celery is a little bit stronger in terms of flavor, so you can experiment with that. . Okay, so here we are with dairy.

The American diet has a lot of dairy and cheese, right? a lot of milk, a lot of milk products. And the thing is at least 68% of the world’s population has difficulty. Digesting dairy and milk. And so what happens is it is like a point of inflammation, even if we don’t, even if it’s not acute, right?

Oftentimes people feel like, oh I can drink milk. I don’t get a stomach ache. I’m fine. , if you have an intolerance, the symptoms actually will show up later on, right? Not everyone can tolerate dairy in their diet, and in fact Being intolerant to dairy is one of the most common food sensitivities among both children and adults.

And for the most part, we consume dairy when, with in our drinks ice cream, right? Lot of desserts, creamy, creamy foods. And so an intolerance of a food usually is gonna involve a delay, a delayed biological. So a lot of patients have i b s, they get abdominal pain, gas and bloating.

Of course you can, we recommend having foods that are are fermented or eating a probiotic to help with digest with digestion. But if somebody’s still eating dairy and it’s causing irritation they may think that it has nothing to do with it because it may not be acute. , but these symptoms, because there is a delayed biological reaction.

The important thing is like maybe to cut it out of the diet we see a lot of skin problems, eczema, psoriasis, right? Rashes, just itchy skin. We can blame it on the dry weather or we can blame it on something. . But if the patient is eating milk products, that more than likely that is contributing to the skin irritation.

We also see a lot of headaches and migraines. . And that can also be attributed to sensitivity to gluten. However dairy is really sneaky, right? Because we can put it in our coffee or tea or some in some other way. And we don’t really think of it as like the problem because it could be, we had it a couple days ago.

Dairy intolerance can cause a lot of weight gain swelling, a lot of inflammation. Also things like anxiety. , right? Any kind of food intolerance creates inflammation and then can actually affect our chemistry, fatigue, joint pain, even difficulty breathing, right? Because the inflammation is going to irritate also the lungs.

All right. I’d be very interested this is the end of the slide. If have any comments or questions what are you doing with your patients if there is something that you want to learn more about. I have started to do a lot more research into all the food that I eat.

Certain things when you’re making choices to really make those switches. And so the more you, the more you research the smarter you are and you can share with your patients. So I would like to again thank the American Acupuncture Council for the live stream. And I hope to see you in the future.

And I’m not sure who the next person is gonna be on for our presentations, but I hope everyone is gonna have a really happy holiday and a very healthy 2023.