028 Transition to DPC

Link to podcast: Transitioning To Direct Primary Care

Welcome to DPC Pediatrician. We’re Dr. Phil Boucher and Dr. Marina Capella, two DPC pediatricians who are on a mission to share our love of direct primary care with you. Welcome everyone to another webinar. I’m so pleased today to introduce Dr. Laura Lindner, who owns Homegrown Pediatrics in San Antonio, Texas.

Dr. Lindner is a native Texan, did her education and training there. And she started out at least before DPC, she was in the fee for service world. And she made the transition in October of 2022 to the world of DPC with her practice Homegrown Pediatrics.

So today she’s here to talk to us about how she made that transition. And hopefully you’ll get some take-home points if you’re in that transition yourself or thinking of making that transition of how do you go from being within a group practice or an employed situation to being going into DPC.

So thank you so much for being here, Laura.

Yeah, happy to join. I think these are just great webinars so that hopefully more folks feel empowered to come and join us.

Absolutely. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about your life. What was your world like prior to DPC?

Yeah, so I did, like you said, all of my training, residency, everything here in San Antonio. And I straight out of residency, I went and worked for a large group practice here in town that had multiple locations. It was physician owned, but multiple locations, lots of doctors. And I worked part-time three days a week,

shared a position with another amazing colleague where we were able to kind of trade off and share a panel of patients. Over time, I feel like I slowly felt that sort of loss of autonomy. I was not a partner and was never going to be a partner in that business and have

any say in how things were working. And what was expected of me. And so over time, I just realized that I need to figure out how to do something different.

Gotcha. So how did you learn about DPC? And what really attracted you to this model? What made you take the leap?

Yeah. So it was actually, well, I guess I’d heard from Andrea Wadley. Like, so she and I actually went to residency together. So we go way back. And so I’d heard that she was doing this thing up in Dallas, but I really thought about it.

And then it was actually on a scout camp out that one of the other moms has a family practice DPC in my neighborhood. And on the camp out, she was like doing a little work. few little messages with patients back and forth. And I was able to really like watch what she was doing.

And she’s like, Laura, you can do this. This would work for pediatrics too. You do this. And I was like, huh, I, okay. And so I shadowed her a little bit and picked her brain and then thought like, yeah, okay. I, this is possible in the San Antonio market for pediatrics because nobody else had done it.

pediatrics in San Antonio.

Gotcha. Yeah. Interesting. So then what did you start doing to really make the decision regarding whether this was truly doable and right for you?

Yeah. So then I reached out to Andrea and I had never really been active on Facebook at all before, but I was like, I need to join your group and learn more. And so she added me into the pediatricians that do DPC webpage and then our Facebook page. And then also I joined the DPC docs one.

And for a while, I just watched and read and just kind of paid attention to what other people were saying. And slowly I was like, okay, maybe this is doable. And so then I sort of did a little bit more reading about like physician burnout. And is there anything that I can do to just

change how I’m doing my current job that would still be happy? Or do I really need to start a business on my own? And I finally decided like, yes, I should go start a business and I can do this and kind of gathered more information. I guess as far as like personal finances,

making sure that I could handle not having an income for a little while. Um, and then also researching stuff within my contract and whatnot to try to see, like, is it actually possible for me to get out of this?

Uh-huh. Gotcha. You mentioned the issue of burnout. So before we delve into more details about how you made the transition, was that kind of the thing that motivated you? Because you mentioned you were working part-time, but even part-time physicians experience burnout. And tell me a little more about that. Was that one of your inciting factors? Yeah.

I think so. So I worked part-time. I was Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but I shared call equally with the rest of the group. And over time, I started charting more, not my days off. Whereas initially I sort of had a hard stop with that. But during COVID, I finally learned how to log in remotely.

And that was like a slippery slope. And I think it was just… I had ideas. I had business ideas. I had efficiency ideas for how to make things better. I was frustrated that my patients were going to urgent care and couldn’t get in

with me because my desk was being told by other people how to schedule folks that didn’t really make sense. Um, and I was annoyed that I wasn’t able to do what I felt like was the right thing for my patients. Yeah. And I think it was that frustration that really say, I want to,

I want to do this and have more control over things.

Yeah, definitely. Okay. So then once you kind of had that idea in mind, you’d done some exploration, some lurking on the Facebook groups, kind of put the pieces together and then felt like, okay, I think this is something I want to do. How did you go about figuring out how to leave your employer at the time?

Yeah, so I was kind of nervous about that. So first I really like I pulled up my contract and I read through it and understand it. And then I went through it with a health care attorney here in town to really understand it.

what i could do what i couldn’t do as i was leaving i didn’t want to step on any toes wanted to do everything like very professionally and cleanly and so in looking over the contract it was important to look at like what what is the non-compete so

i definitely had one and mine was five miles and two years And so then I put a dot on my practice and drew that little radius around it to see like where are those five miles at and then started deciding like how that might could look.

Also, I paid close attention to the non-solicit clause and how I could take patients with me. Yeah.

Sure.

And what, who owns the records and how do you communicate to your patients that you’re leaving? What are you allowed to say? What aren’t you allowed to say? All those sorts of things were what I kind of. like paid very close attention to. Could I buy out my non-compete?

Like I could have, but oh my gosh, that was so much money. So that was not really enough. So those were the things that I really looked closely at as far as lean. And then I also paid attention to timing. So we had a few other doctors that were leaving for reasons, moving out of state, other stuff.

And I was, I didn’t want to leave anybody in a lurch. Yeah. But also I felt like it was fair to let them know in a reasonable time. So I gave them probably more notice than I needed to work on finding a replacement. How much notice did you end up giving? Probably like four months. Yeah.

And I really only had to give two.

Yeah. You mentioned looking really closely at your non-solicitation clause and like who owns the records and things. And how can you get some of your patients to follow you without breaking any of those rules? What did you discover? What do you think would be useful for other people to know might be in that?

Yeah. So I got a really great piece of advice from a healthcare attorney in town and his wife’s actually a dermatologist. He helped her set up her practice and helps a lot of local practices. And so what he suggested is that I should set up my own personal Instagram account, which I didn’t have.

And sort of start inviting patients to follow me, just my chitty chat and clinic, like, Oh, you should follow me on Instagram and put up a little sign just on to my private website. personal Instagram account. So they have to select that they want to follow it.

It’s their choice and I’m not making them do this or whatever. And so then just start trickling out little bits about my family, whatever on the personal page. But then I have all these followers. I can also on my resignation letter to patients, letting them know that I’m leaving because you provide them with notice and

Hey, I’m leaving. If you want to just keep in touch, follow along with my life. You’re welcome to follow me at my Instagram page. So it wasn’t like, come be my patient. It’s just, if you want to follow me. Yeah. And once I was resigned, once that last day of work, I put on my personal Instagram page,

Hey, here are my plans. Yeah. Here’s my work, my new work Instagram page. I want to follow homegrown pediatrics over here. I’m going to open in October. And so it was a very legal and convenient way to not solicit them to become my patients, but to have them follow along with my life.

Yeah, exactly. So they couldn’t know without you actively soliciting them. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. And did you find that that was effective? Did a good number of people follow you and then find out where you were going?

Yes, I think a good number did. I probably within the first six months, I would say maybe had like five to 7% of my following me. Uh-huh. And now I would say it might be like 10% of my former panel. Oh, nice. That’s pretty good. Over time, people continued to trickle in. Yeah.

That even didn’t sign up initially. Yeah. So I do think it helped kind of get the word out because also at first, you can have great ideas about having your website up and people being able to find you through your website, but it was actually hard to be Google-able.

Oh yeah. Yeah, exactly. Until your SEO kind of builds up, right? Yeah.

Right. And I didn’t realize, but I think this is another piece tidbit for other folks. In my resignation, I should have at that point in time asked for control of my Google name. Oh, right. My employer had the login to Laura L. Lindner, MD. Yeah. It was like they owned my name on Google. Interesting.

And that happens to a lot of people that your employer has that and they’re managing it for you. Yeah. You really need to take control of your name over Google. Google. And so luckily I maintained really good relationships with the office managers. They were able to switch the email over to mine.

And then I was able to work on getting homegrown attached to that and verifying over and over with Google and making sure that they, so I do think it would be super useful in your resignation process. To also say, and I want control of my name.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Absolutely. I’ve seen that come up with a couple of different people. So that’s a really good point. And Google profile really makes a difference when people are trying to search for you. So having control of that. Absolutely. All right. Were there any hiccups that you encountered in that, especially that transitional phase,

leaving your current employer and then starting up your own that you didn’t expect or that were harder than you thought they would be?

I felt like it was hard to find space to work out of. And so on that little, I drew my map and then my little radio and it was hard to find where, and I was just cold calling random places that might meet those requirements and then some following up those phone calls.

So I ended up, I’m renting one exam room from an office store. Okay. And so it just, eventually they called me back and it worked out and it’s great. I love my space that I have, but I think I was really nervous about what if I can’t find space?

How do you have a business address if you don’t have a space? And so I had like a virtual mailbox at another business downtown. So I would have a business address. I was a little nervous about just doing home visits. a lot of those would end up being within my non-compete radius.

Gotcha.

And I wasn’t sure if my former employer would try to test that because it really hasn’t been tested in court in Texas. Right. And my attorney said, well, it’s so different doing home visits, doing DPC versus what you were doing before. It’s not competition. but they still could go after you. So I was,

that was something that caused a lot of maybe sleepless nights, but then I found this space and it, and it ended up working out. And nobody cared.

Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Wonderful. How do you feel? I mean, having gone through the process myself only three years ago, there was a lot that I had to kind of piece together to figure out what I needed to do and things like from minutia to like,

getting a CLIA certificate to figuring out which malpractice I wanted to go to, to figuring out the lease of my space and which supplies, because I’ve never ordered supplies before and vaccines. How did you find all the information that you needed? Yeah.

So there was a checklist off of like a bagel or something. I don’t remember, but my friend, the family practitioner, like gave me this website and it was this checklist. It was, I don’t think it was even a maintained website anymore. Oh, okay. But it had the list that I can do.

this PDF of all the things I had to do. So that was sort of my, I just printed it and started working off of it. I think now you have like a startup guide, which is so amazing. That would have been great. Cause I feel like I didn’t really know what I was doing. So I agreed today.

I pulled up my like my Excel spreadsheet is what I have. And it’s just called homegrown to do. And I have a list of all the things that I had to do and like slowly checking stuff off. And I felt like I put it in a logical order,

but it really wasn’t as logical as maybe it should have been. But yeah, so like the cleave, figuring out how to do meet and greets, disenrolling from insurance, You become like an order refer prescribed person within Medicaid. That was a whole project that took a lot of phone calls and like Zoom meetings and stuff.

It was a lot like there were so many little checklists. Being registered with the Texas Immunization Registry, learning how to give shots, like getting vaccines, all of that. And I just kept it on an Excel spreadsheet and slowly… checked things off the list or made a note of when i needed to follow up on that

like some folks like the immunization registry they weren’t going to talk to me until i looked way more legitimate so they wanted a website an address like all this stuff i couldn’t just be like I’m starting out a business that they didn’t believe me.

So I just slowly checked things off and then made my follow-up list each time, like what I was going to tackle the next week and saved all like those logins and passwords. and everything like on that list as stuff was accomplished excellent i remember

when i was going through that phase there were a few moments when i definitely kind of felt overwhelmed just like oh god what am i doing and like the list just seemed so long and at the time i was also working urgent care to try to pay the bills and

i was like how am i going to get everything done and We tend to our minds can catastrophize at times. Oh, my God, what have I done? And is this going to work? And is this going to be a miserable failure? Did you have those moments?

And if so, how did you kind of manage your emotions around that?

Yeah, I was totally nervous and like maybe nobody will follow. Are my prices right? And am I doing the business stuff, everything that I’m supposed to? Like, I don’t have a business degree. I don’t really know what I’m doing here. My nurse used to do all these things for me.

How am I going to do it for myself? Yes. All of that. But slowly you also work on that self-talk of, Hey, but look, these people are telling me I can do it. Yeah. People have done it before. If my MA with like a high school degree can give shots, Mm hmm. Give shots. Yeah, exactly.

I told myself the exact same thing.

Like just that little self talk of encouragement. Like, yes, we we’ve done harder things.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think for me, it helped to just kind of take it one step at a time. Like, okay, don’t look at the whole list. Just look at what you have to do right now and today, because otherwise it did feel kind of overwhelming at times to be responsible for everything that you, I mean,

we’ve been responsible for the medicine, right? In the past and the patient care, but not all of the backend work and office work, right? Yeah. I wanted to go back to something that you had also said earlier that you, looked at your finances and you had to figure out, okay,

am I okay being without a paycheck for a while? What did you figure out for yourself? Of course, it’s going to be different for everyone because sometimes people have spouses who make a lot of money or they don’t. And they’re the primary breadwinner. How did you figure that out?

And what was your kind of worst case that you calculated for yourself?

Yeah. So I’m a single parent and I have two teenagers. I am the only breadwinner and we’ll be sending kids off to college soon. So definitely there was this financial like year, but I’ve also, I have money in the bank that I have saved over the years.

And so I just looked and said, how long can I be without a salary? Yeah. How much money do I have to kind of loan the business as a startup? Um, and so I started up that cost for me was probably about 15,000. I had planned 20 and didn’t end up needing that much. Right.

Like that’s, it’s always nice. And so I think really figuring out how long can you live on your savings. Yeah, exactly. Makes a difference. And that’s going to be different for each family and what each family overhead is. But that’s, I didn’t have like side jobs or anything. I just gave myself a summer.

So I quit July one. I started in October because I felt like, gosh, I haven’t had a summer. Yeah. since college. And so had that time to build the business, but not start seeing patients yet. I was lucky that I would say within, so day one, I had patients that had pre-enrolled.

So I was able to start billing them October 1st. So that was like some income that naturally happened. And I, within six months, had definitely broken even and was starting to pay. And now like I’m paying myself. It’s not, it’s not a problem. Yeah.

Excellent. Well, congratulations. What was your ideal patient panel, given the fact that you do home visits and in office visits?

Yeah, so I wanted to sort of stay part-time. And so I think my panel reflects that. So my goal initially was 150. I’m now like 180. I’m learning that I probably don’t wanna go past 200 because I don’t have anybody else helping me. I have zero staff. And so for me, maintaining time for my kids, whatever,

that that’s kind of where I want to be.

Gotcha. You mentioned you have zero staff. Do you utilize anyone like a virtual assistant to do anything? Okay. How do you balance that? Because everyone has a different threshold, I think, for like what they’re willing to do or able to do or how much paperwork is involved putting on your unique niche or practice.

So how has that worked for you? Do you wish you have an assistant or are you thinking maybe at some point or are you okay where you are?

I, now I go back and forth on it. So initially I was really content not to have any staff. I didn’t want to manage anybody. I didn’t want to be responsible for anybody. And I still have that feeling pretty strongly. Like, and then you have to do other like OSHA compliance.

And there’s, once you have staff and it changes your taxes, you have to worry about payroll. You have to worry about their retirement. Like there’s a lot of other things that get complicated. I’m not sure that I’m ready to complicate all of that. Yeah. Um, like my office is right next to a university and I definitely been,

when I’m like entering in vaccines, sending just like the usual handouts that go to families or visit. And I’ve been like, Oh, this is just busy work. And it would be nice if I could hand off this busy work to somebody else. But then the next day there’s no busy work.

So Yeah, that’s true.

I haven’t followed through a lot.

Gotcha. And I mean, but I think that’s one of the beauties of DPC is you get to decide what works for you. And if you do ever get to that point where I really need someone, then maybe it’s worth it for you to go through all those pain points of being an employer. I agree.

There definitely are those points to consider before you take that leap. Wonderful. It sounds like you grew pretty quickly from the time you opened. You mentioned it took about six months to get a break even and start paying yourself. Was that quicker than you expected or about the same as you expected?

quicker so i started like day one i had 50 patients signed up that was great really helped in bringing folks from the other practice and then for a while i just added maybe like 10 or 15 every month and so it was a nice piece of growth and then now

i’m on a wait list and have put the brakes on for myself because it was just it was feeling like too much But now also I have other DPCs in San Antonio that I can like refer patients to. And so we feel better about going on a wait list because it’s hard for people to know.

So it was nice to be like, no, no, you can’t have me, but look at now you have these other great people. So I feel like the piece of growth was good and steady.

Yeah. You mentioned kind of having some questions about my pricing myself correctly in the beginning. Did you find that you were pricing yourself well, or did you have to adjust your prices at all?

I went up reasonably steadily increasing my prices. I realized that I was desired and that I could. So my initial prices, what I did, that family practice doctor that sort of mentored me here in town, I took her prices and kind of flipped it. So when you practice, often they price things higher as the person gets older.

Yes. in pediatrics our work is more when they’re younger so that was i just kind of flipped her prices on their head and felt like that made sense i think she’s also gone up on her prices as well like we’ve each done that over time i realized so in

the beginning i think i maybe like a lot of us i felt guilty about the prices yeah i felt like will people follow me in my valuable. Is this a product? Am I a product that people are willing to pay this much for? Even if they’re maybe not using it.

And there was a lot of self doubt about that. And initially like, oh, I should give these discounts and I should give these discounts. Like mainly because I just wasn’t valuing myself all the time. I’ve realized I don’t need to give those discounts. So like now I don’t have a family max anymore,

even though I did when I was starting, I still have some families that I discount because I know that they need it and they ask for it. And I’m totally happy to do that. And it’s nice. then now we can do what we want. So I can just say like, yes, you get a discount.

And that’s, that’s awesome. But I do the pricing was something I think that I doubted myself the most on.

Yeah. And that is not unique. I feel like a lot of us, I definitely underpriced myself in the beginning. And then over time, I continue to kind of go up on those prices because I recognize that First of all, my time and my training and all the extra training that I’ve gone through is really valuable.

And I mean, this model is unique still, and it really is above and beyond what people are going to find anywhere else. in the fee-for-service world and that’s valuable. But I remember having the same kind of concerns of like, are they gonna be able to pay? And like, what if they’re not using it?

And just all that stuff. So I’m glad to hear that you discovered the worth of your time and then have gone up because I think a lot of us learn that lesson the hard way and that’s okay, right? We can experiment with pricing.

Yes. Yeah. And we, in that, just like we can do what we want with it, which is really nice as to be able to be flexible and to know that some families might need some extra grace and to be able to give that.

Yeah, absolutely. One last kind of big question for you, marketing. So obviously you, you transitioned from a situation where you had your panel of patients that knew you that presumably liked you and some of those followed over. what did you have to do in terms of marketing even starting with kind of your value

proposition sometimes we think that certain patients love us and will follow us and then the ones you think will follow you don’t but other ones that you never thought would follow you do and so that all kind of ties together with marketing and messaging what are the things you’ve learned about that so i think definitely

nobody has a clue what dpc is yeah So just remove that from the message, actually. So I use phrases like membership-based care. I compare it to Netflix. Oh, you pay it no matter how much you watch or you don’t binge that month. Like that’s fine.

It’s waiting for you the next month when you really are watching a ton of TV and that’s okay. I’m more like car insurance and how we don’t use our car insurance for an oil change. We use it for the big things when we get in an accident, that that’s when we use our car insurance.

And so finding those other relatable talking points for families was useful. I think as far as marketing goes, so I did do some stuff on Instagram for a while. I was pretty active in trying to do education and just put myself out there more. My favorite thing to do.

So now that I’m busy, I’ve definitely backed off of how active I am on it because it’s not much. I learned that you really just have to talk to people. And so being totally willing to sit next to the other mom at the sporting event and they’re like, how are you? And you’re like, I’m good.

And I’m starting a new business. And then just, yourself. Yeah. Like that was super useful. Just being comfortable announcing something new and what is it? And just talking to people about it. And I, that was actually the most productive thing. Just talking about myself with other parents.

Yeah, that’s a really great point. I think that I definitely took some time and I still am taking time to get completely comfortable with that because it feels like the kind of negative marketing that we maybe have in our stereotypical ideas of marketing, right? Of like, oh, I’m trying to sell something to you. But really,

if what we’re doing is just talking joyfully about the thing that we’re doing, and if it lands on the right ears, it lands on the right ears. And if it doesn’t, it’s completely fine. It’s not like I’m saying, hey, come buy my product right now. Like, right.

It’s just saying like, oh, I’m really excited. Yeah. I love my job and that goes so far being able to love my job or when you’ve just gotten back from a newborn home visit and you run into somebody at the grocery store and they’re like, how’s it going? It’s great. I love my job.

I just got to go see a baby at their house. Like that goes so far. Nice.

You’re really better at it than I am. I can still learn from you. Excellent.

So that was definitely, I think talking about myself was, that’s the number one thing. There was like a neighborhood magazine that did a little one pager about my practice and like took some pictures and then out there. And that was helpful for patients that knew me from my old practice. Yeah.

but maybe they were another doctor’s under another doctor’s panel, but they had seen me fairly often. So like my letter didn’t go out to them, but then they saw my picture in the little neighborhood magazine. And so that was, that was pretty useful. And say, if you can find friends,

that are willing to just talk about you as well. There’s like a local mom Facebook group. I’m not on it, but people will ask for a pediatrician. And I had people that were willing to talk me up. And they would tell me like, hey, your name just got thrown out there.

And I would immediately see a bump in people requesting meet and greets. So asking friends to also talk you up would be useful.

Yeah. Wonderful. You just mentioned meet and greets. And so I briefly want to talk about that. Some DPC pediatricians do that and some don’t. What have you found? Like, why did you decide to do meet and greets? And have you found that it’s worthwhile?

Yes. So I decided to, because I really wanted, especially my former patients to understand what they were signing up for.

Yeah.

that it’s membership based. You’re going to get that payment every month and whatnot. And what they’re getting, what they get access to me all the time is, is what they get for that fee. And so I wanted to really be sure I was talking that through with people,

but now it’s most of the people I don’t know beforehand that are doing that. Yeah. So before it was like my former patients and I wanted to be sure they understood the model. But now also I want to be sure that we’re a good fit.

There’s been some folks that like really have a different stance on vaccines than what I do or that maybe live super far away. They just want to be sure that they understand like, okay, here’s what I’m offering you, right? And here’s not what I’m offering you. And so I, I’m a total fan and doing home visits.

I want to be sure that I have a good feeling. Yeah. Before I’m walking into their house for the first time. Sure. A newborn home visit. Yeah. Because it’s not like we’ve met other times first. Safety wise, I want that good feeling.

That makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah. Wonderful. I had lied, unintentionally lied a few questions ago that it was my last question, but another one came to mind. I think one of the fears that pediatricians face when thinking about launching their own DPC or making the transition is fears about money and fears about,

am I really going to be able to make as much money in DPC as I did before? And of course, for some people, it’s more important to work part-time than to make a lot of money or to have flexibility than to make a lot of money. What would you say regarding that?

Do you feel like your hopes were realized from a financial perspective.

Yes. So with, I would say a year in, I was paying myself the same as what I made before. Nice. Two years in, I’m definitely making more and I have control over that and my life. So it’s my lifestyle is better. And also I feel like I’m able to value myself. So yeah. Part time employed physician.

I don’t think that I was paid what I should have been paid. Yeah. My previous position. Right. And so now, yeah, like I’m definitely able to pay myself and pay myself well.

Yeah. Wonderful. I love that. I think it’s definitely possible. I don’t make as much as I did necessarily in the other world, but I have lots of benefits. Like I can go to a lot of conferences and spend a lot on education and growth and that’s all under the business.

So if you actually look at like the amount I’m spending on that, if it had been coming out of my own pocket before that, It really is pretty equivalent. And for me, I don’t want to necessarily pay a lot more taxes. And so I like keeping my salary at a certain reasonable level. So there’s that.

But I love that. I love that you were able to reach those goals. And that’s really reassuring to others. Maybe is there one last thing that you can think of that if for someone else who’s where you were two, two and a half years ago, thinking about Should I make this change?

What piece of advice might you have for them?

I think the main idea is to realize that we can change. So that I think was the biggest like moment is like learning, Hey, I’ve been doing this one thing for 13 years, but it’s okay to change and try something else.

and i’m so glad that i did and my level of personal joy is so much greater now than what it was my patient relationships that i know these families so well and that’s just so special like i knew my feelings well before but this is a whole different

level and so i think just even those rewarding relationships like it’s not just monetary But I think that that’s, it’s good to try new things and to be brave enough to say like, yeah, I can change.

Wonderful. I love that. And that’s absolutely true. I think too many of us think, oh, I could never learn the business or I’m not good with money or whatever. I’m not good with marketing. And it’s like, maybe that’s true, but you can change.

And one of the ways in which you can change is that you can find people who will help you with those things that you’re not strong at, right? So some people will hire. I mean, it’s not like I know everything about accounting. Like I hired an accountant after I got to a certain level.

And then I hired a tax advisor once I got to a certain level. And I hired a medical assistant, which for me was important. Once I got to a certain level and then that way, like, I don’t have to do it all, but at least we’re smart as physicians.

We were some of the brightest people in the country, right? We had to learn so much, go through so many challenges, do a lot of hard things to get here. And if we had that capacity to get here, we have the capacity to do so many other things. So thank you for that. Yes. All right. Well,

on that positive note, thank you so much, Dr. Lindner, for spending time and sharing your story and pearls of wisdom about making that transition from the fee-for-service world to DPC. I’m so glad that you’ve found success and joy and positive things for your patients through DPC. Thanks so much.

Well, thanks for having me and thanks for organizing all of this and setting up your startup guide and everything. It’s so wonderful that these are options now.

Absolutely. I wish I had, I’m creating what I wish I had had when I started. Thank you. All right. Take care.

You too. Bye-bye.