SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to Cut the Tie Podcast. Hello, I'm your host, Thomas Helfrick, on a mission to help you cut the tie to whatever it is holding you back in life from success. And you better define that success yourself because if you don't, you're chasing someone else's dream. And today I'm joined by Janet Gray, MD. Hello.

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

Hi, Thomas. Oh, you know, you can call me, you can call me Jeanette if you'd like, but whatever. Let me spell that.

SPEAKER_00: 0:22

Yeah. MD. See, once you introduce the MD, then you say, all right, Doc.

SPEAKER_01: 0:26

Yeah. There you go. You're under discussion. Well, I'm really happy to be here because truthfully, I don't think I've ever been interviewed regarding the business of medicine. And people don't realize that.

SPEAKER_00: 0:39

And we're going to dive into not only just the business of it, but also just your journey as an entrepreneur, you know, doctor. I think a lot of people don't realize many doctors are entrepreneurs, even if they work at a hospital because they're typically not on staff. They're just contracted in and they have other things. So uh it's not a typical entrepreneur path, but you have an interesting story. So why don't you just start with uh, you know, to introduce yourself, where you live and kind of what you do right now.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03

Yeah, well, um, you know, I'm an internal medicine doctor and I've practiced integrative medicine for the last 25 years and specialize in biodental hormone therapy and weight loss for men and women. And my new practice, uh Perfect Balance Health, is emphasizing just hormone replacement therapy and weight loss for men and women, as opposed to the larger practice where I had primary care medicine with alternative holistic modalities like naturopathic, chiropractic, acupuncture. So I had a much larger scale operation before.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39

And I and I even probably say you probably could just have done just the I mean the men's side's got so much PE money behind it, like you know, game day is. But the women's side, my wife is is going, is trying that. It's incredibly complex relative to men who like just you know take your estrogen blocker, shoot this in your ass once a week, and take one thing to keep your nuts for sure again. And it's it's easy. We're pretty it's like that. Like there's stuff out Don't let those nuts, don't let those nuts shrink. Absolutely. I went nut shrinkage for the first six months, and I was like, you know what? We're not doing that. We're gonna spend the extra money to have normal size balls.

SPEAKER_01: 2:14

Yeah, there's ways, there's ways to mitigate that, but that's another story.

SPEAKER_00: 2:18

But yes, my women side way more complex. Specifically, if you get into like the hormone, like not the I'm sorry, the testosterone side, which is even more complex. Um, I could go on more and more about that. Um, but but is is is the idea of I live this cut the tie, that was one for me was why am I tired? What's going on? No sex drive. Like what like what the hell? I don't drink anymore. Like, you know, and and and I don't think a lot of people realize, and I want you guys listening to understand this shit matters for your mindset, your state of mind, like your ability to execute function in the world. It is so critical, and you'll feel younger for so much longer. And that that's 100% true. You may break down the same, you can talk about the medical pieces behind that. But anyway, um, before we begin, I want you to first though uh start with kind of how you define success.

SPEAKER_01: 3:07

Yeah, you know, there there are many ways, obviously. And for me, uh success has been to have a practice, an integrative medicine practice that mainstreamed the model. So I took insurance, I wanted the majority of people to be able to benefit from a model that I believe is the best model, you know, more options for people, more holistic approach, more individualized treatment. And so, yeah, it's um it's been a little tough being doing something that's a little bit off the mainstream.

SPEAKER_00: 3:42

Are you uh have you resided into, you know, away from the insurance side you're saying? And you're just doing it on your own. No, I'm gonna Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:50

I mean, the like I said, my dream was to really mainstream this model. And I believe the only way to do that is to accept insurance. But now what I'm doing is focusing very much just on the hormones and weight loss and not taking insurance, but I do it in a way with a membership where it's much more affordable. And I think that a larger percentage of people will be able to afford this model, at least for their hormones.

SPEAKER_00: 4:16

I mean, I I pay cash for mine just because the insurance is like, oh, you can't order that until Friday. I'll be like, well, I need it Thursday.

SPEAKER_01: 4:23

Yeah. And if you you've got to be your own advocate, and if you want the type of care that you want, sometimes, unfortunately, you have to go out of your insurance and it's just the way it is, just like getting supplements or eating well. No one pays you for that.

SPEAKER_00: 4:36

It's it's it's the own advocate. I didn't realize how important that was. Uh yes, to give me perspective from my side, I'm sure you you know this, but you know, if many men will go to their urologists, let's say, and say, hey, you test my testosterone, and they're like, oh, it's 400, 450. And they're like, that's normal for your age. Right. And that's that's the answer you shouldn't accept. And and women have their own set. I don't want to pretend to know all that complexity.

SPEAKER_01: 4:57

No, you're you're nailing men.

SPEAKER_00: 4:59

But men's side, by the way, yeah, that might be normal, but it doesn't mean you have to stay there because you go to like you know, my urologist, I said, Well, that's great, but I feel like shit. And she's like, Well, we can go up to 750, and this is just an arbitrary number. And I said, We've got 750. And I said, You know what? I still don't feel any print. And I we pushed 1200. I go, I actually feel great now. And I was thinking, all right, that's what matters because that's where you might have been closer to.

SPEAKER_01: 5:22

I'm glad to hear that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:24

And that's from a urologist, that never happens. You usually have to go to a clinic for that or something like that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 5:28

Well, I wrote a book, The Truth About Sex Hormones. I'll show it right here.

SPEAKER_00: 5:34

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_01: 5:35

Yeah, we just came out, just came out a few weeks ago, and it answers a lot of the questions you just mentioned. I mean, everything from self-advocacy to knowing what to ask to not accepting normal as optimal and not having your care individualized because a number is just a number unless you pair it with how are you feeling? What are your symptoms? What's going on? And what is your goal? You know, what's your journey for health and wellness look like? So, yeah, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00: 6:05

So let's dive into your journey just a little bit. Uh, you know, your definition of success, you had a crazy journey. So let's dive into that a bit uh and talk about maybe some of the major ties you've had to cut to get to where you are today.

SPEAKER_01: 6:16

Well, first though I start with is that I was trained in traditional Western medicine. You know, I went to UCSF and then finished my residence in internal medicine at UCSD. And I am very grateful for the great education that I did get. I feel like I have a great foundation. However, after about a year out of residency, I was working at a clinic where I met an acupuncturist and a chiropractor, and I had patients saying to me, you know, I want more from my health care than I'm getting from a primary care doctor. It's not, it's not enough. It's not satisfying, it's not taking care of my issues. And so after that, within the year, I opened up the center here in San Diego and I practiced integrative medicine for 25 years. And I knew, and it was obvious, that I was breaking ties with the traditional Western model. And I just had to accept that, you know, I'd be considered by many of the medical doctors in my community, you know, that fringe doctor that, you know, does some of that natural stuff. And the other main area that I kind of went rogue was when after starting my practice a year or so later, I started um using biodental hormone therapy for men and women for menopause, perimenopause, andropause, you know, men's menopause. And soon after that, about a year later, a big study that maybe you've talked about and some of the uh guests know about is the Women's Health Initiative. And that study was a huge study of like 160,000 women trying to show how great estrogen was. Well, it backfired. They were using pregnant mares, urine estrogen and synthetic progesterone. It was, well, it was a bad study. But however, what happened was that immediately the press got a hold of it, and literally overnight, doctors stopped prescribing hormones to millions of women. And from that time on, um, 2002, um, when the study was stopped prematurely, and and it it then women and men, but women in particular, were suffering from hormone replacement uh deficiency. And I was still doing it because I didn't believe that the study was true. You know, I would say, how is it that, you know, a woman lives till 50 with estrogen and doesn't have an increased risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, or stroke, but suddenly you get on hormone replacement therapy and menopause, and now you have an increased risk of that. It just had no sense to me. However, that was the going mantra.

SPEAKER_00: 8:58

And the uh my neighbors have talked about this, uh that said something like they will prescribe it because she had had breast cancer. And I'm like, And even that medical behind it, like is that does that really matter? Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:09

Well, even that's being really questioned. I mean, you got there's there's there's levels to this. But what I will say is that generations, I mean, we're talking two and a half decades almost of women have gone without getting proper treatment or sufficient treatment or a length of time that they needed. And and now, mainstream, let's say last year, for the first time, I heard from AMA and the uh medical uh menopause society say, you know, maybe we made a mistake, maybe the study really wasn't that good. Okay, yeah, maybe, maybe hormones actually protect against breast cancer and heart disease and osteoporosis and all these heart disease, all these conditions. So it's been, it took 23 years for that storyline to turn around.

SPEAKER_00: 9:58

That's insane. Um, and you know, it's it's usually at someone else's agenda. We have the politics of that piece of there. Uh the same thing was on the men's side, too, for that matter, is right. They're all causes heart problem. My biggest risk is there are too much red blood cells. And I probably shouldn't have.

SPEAKER_01: 10:12

And that's easy to take care of. Just go donate blood.

SPEAKER_00: 10:15

I still haven't done it in here.

SPEAKER_01: 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:17

But I don't drink.

SPEAKER_01: 10:18

I don't smoke. So that's it. But you know, to your other point, you know, that it is very important to make sure your doctor's checking the right levels and the right hormones because, like you said, your range, you felt better at a certain place. But if you check free, calculated free testosterone, it's even more accurate than total.

SPEAKER_00: 10:37

Yeah, and it was part of it, it was it never changed. I'm like, well, that should change. But think about it. Anyway, uh so in your in your uh to get in here, talk about maybe some of the the biggest tie you had to cut or the biggest thing you, you know, you had to go through to uh find the, you know, to find this where you are today.

SPEAKER_01: 10:55

Well, like I said, I think um going against the WHI and then, you know, being a doctor that prescribed natural biodentical hormone therapy when everyone else was saying don't go on it, or if you do go on it, go on it the the shortest period of time possible. You know, I, you know, I would go to conferences with, you know, medical conferences because as a doctor, you have to do about 25 um units of continuing education. So I still was in the mainstream model and I just felt like I didn't fit in. I felt like, you know, they were, you know, judging me, you know, for my decision to treat patients for better quality of life and a better vital vitality. Um, but what I did is I went to other conferences too, you know, integrated medicine, anti-aging, hormone therapy um conferences where I made friends with integrated medicine practitioners, acupuncturists, chiropractors, naturopaths. So I had a support group. I had a good group around me, but it was it was pretty obvious, you know, that I was somewhat ostracized by the uh medical community.

SPEAKER_00: 12:01

Do you take a step back though and go, well, if I'm not taking insurance, and you only people gotta gotta be right with is probably the DEA, so you can get the right prescription levels correctly.

SPEAKER_01: 12:10

Yeah, well, um testosterone's a a um a um three, right? Schedule three. It's three. Yeah, it's a three versus a um level two drug.

SPEAKER_00: 12:19

But wait, my my point be in some states, right? Like, you know, it a nurse can do it, others can't. But there's just because people are judging you, I guess is my point. This being a title, you can ultimately not care because you're you're I'm a professional operating outside the system, but just doing the things I need to go do to keep my licenses.

SPEAKER_01: 12:36

Yeah, good for the most part, yeah. It's you have to just move on, know that you you believe in what you're doing. You have I had passion for what I'm doing, I believe in what I'm doing, I think it's the right thing, you know. But you know, sometimes you get a little, you know, rub against somebody like, hmm, okay, that didn't feel so great.

SPEAKER_00: 12:54

Well, but but does it, does it, I mean, if you're building in, there's a the real measure is, and I think and it's more of my questions, so it's like to actually the next one, which is the impact.

SPEAKER_01: 13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:03

Tell me about the impact you're having on actual, I don't know if they're patients, clients, or how you want to describe them, but the point is people who need this, who's getting the dough from those who are shunning you.

SPEAKER_01: 13:12

Yeah, no, I saw thousands of patients over the years and introduce them to the integrative medical model. And I think once people appreciate what it has to offer and how it is more holistic and individualized, they don't want to go back. You know, they start saying, I I'm not accepting medicine as the status quo, the disease model.

SPEAKER_00: 13:35

Yeah. I and I mean, I I I would it'll happen not in my lifetime, probably not even my kids, my kids' kids, where uh because it just, you know, where to go. At some point it will become preventative because there'd be enough data in real time to measure blood to be like, hey, listen, right now, you know, you might want to take this zinc thing because you're short and in or this or whatever it is.

unknown: 13:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:56

It's being so active. What happens? You get into it. Right. Exactly. It's being proactive, not reactive.

SPEAKER_00: 14:02

Correct. And I think that will actually extend human life and quality of life. You we still might die around 100 or 90, but at least the maybe your cognitive abilities and stuff will be better through your 70s and 80s.

SPEAKER_01: 14:12

Yeah. Yeah. No, right now we've extended life to some degree. Like women in the 60s lived to 70 and now they live to about 80. But the percentage of time spent in disability or disease is significantly longer even than men. And so, what's the point of living longer if you're going to have the last decade of your life, you know, not a good quality?

SPEAKER_00: 14:38

Can't Dr. Convorkian yourself, like, no, listen, it listen, it's terminal. I'm gonna say goodbye to everybody today. We're not gonna drain bank accounts for two years. Love y'all. Right. Let's just go do it, take a nap and be done. I know if I'd actually do it or not, but like at some point you might be like, what am I facing?

SPEAKER_01: 14:53

No, well, that's right. In my book, I talk about that's TV. We're not going that dark today. Yeah, no, let's not get too dark. But in my book, I talk about lifespan versus health span, you know, the concept and lifespan's on the x-axis. And of course, you want it to go, you know, as far as it goes, but um lifespan or quality of life is on the y-axis, and you really want that to go as long and as high as it can be until the very end, squaring off that curve. And it's it's just a way of thinking, it's a way of seeing the your health care, you know, and uh, and it just makes logical sense to me.

SPEAKER_00: 15:28

Yeah. I mean, I mean, one of the reasons I stopped drinking was not because I was an alcoholic or had a problem with it or got DUIs or anything like that, or screamed at people when I was driving. It wasn't in it, I was just a fun social drink. I figured my last 10 years of my life will be healthier if I just stop now for any reason.

SPEAKER_01: 15:43

No, I mean, yeah, alcohol's a toxin. There's no about no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_00: 15:46

A pint of it kills you. I was gonna throw that out there to everybody. You have a pint of pure alcohol, it's game over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:51

And and and using it on a consistent chronic basis, you know, knocks off those uh those neurons in the brain, you know, gradually. But you know, I believe in moderation and you know, life is too soil.

SPEAKER_00: 16:05

My point view is only I want the last 10 whenever they are, be as good as they can be. Um things like that matter, right? You know, um compounding interest idea. Uh what currently in your business uh are you having struggles like you know, the you know, the the metaphoric tie? What what what are you struggling now?

SPEAKER_01: 16:22

What's the tie to cut? Do you think there's a tie to cut now? Um I think we have a ways to go where the concept of wanting medicine to look at quality of life as well as longevity and being proactive, individualizing care is still a little ways away. It's just we're not there yet. So doctors still kind of roll their eyes, you know, when we talk about, you know, doing things like the hormone replacement therapy for quality of life, if not for longevity. They're just not getting it.

SPEAKER_00: 16:57

I almost don't want them to look at it. And the reason is because it'll become part of an insurance system.

SPEAKER_01: 17:03

And well, that's a whole other issue. Yeah, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_00: 17:06

It is. I mean, as soon as, you know, it costs me$33 every 10 weeks for testosterone. I'm like, as soon as insurance gets involved, it's$9,000, I'm sure, and I'll pay 60. I mean, it's gonna be it's gonna be ridiculous. And I and so I'm not even sure I want them to. I want to understand.

SPEAKER_01: 17:21

How can I internal medicine?

SPEAKER_00: 17:23

I just don't think I really want that institution getting involved.

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

No, I hear you. How can we have the best of both worlds, right?

SPEAKER_00: 17:30

I want people to train from the system that understand people. Right. Anatomy and organs and internal things and all that. Right. Emotional sides of it, which is often completely dismissed in this whole thing.

unknown: 17:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:41

Um and and the anyway, so I'm sure I want that. Correct, ignition or or for the the less rub. Yeah, I hope the future generations like I'm trained medically, I don't give a shit about that. I'm doing this, but I needed to get that to get that license to be able to prescribe this or own that or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01: 17:57

Yeah, no, no, it's true. But there is a big movement where a lot of people are, you know, they well, with social media, internet, people are, you know, they can look up everything. They they can know, you know, anything I know practically. And there's a lot of people that are getting certificates in different types of health care without necessarily having to go to medical school. And they do a lot, they do lab tests, they do all sorts of things. So that's a movement.

SPEAKER_00: 18:21

Uh I I agree. And what I am concerned about though is one threatens the other's business. And then there's some crazy legislation, but that now thorough hormone representation therapy is illegal. And that would be like when you're on it, you're on it pretty much for life. That would be devastating to those who if I'm like 65, that happens. I'm like, I guess I'm moving countries because yeah. Because that's like that again. That's possible. And that actually concerns me a bit on this point.

SPEAKER_01: 18:45

Well, you know, the fake pharma has been fighting into um uh compounding pharmacies because they don't want them making a semi-glutide for weight loss and the bioidentical hormones. So there is a fight going on.

SPEAKER_00: 18:58

Well, there is because uh uh you know, and and I'm not sure, I'm not one who's gonna be the first adopter of that. Luckily, I don't need it. There are use cases I'd be like, that person's obese, they might want to just dive right in on that and screw any cancer sting down. Like you're gonna die from that for sure, otherwise. Um, but the the you never can trust the the science because one's being used to protect the wallet of another huh most of the time. And it's like, does it work or not? And you know, 10 years from now, does that guy who lost 100 pounds live longer? Did he develop something? I don't know. Right. Well, it's it's it's so much data. Only time's gonna tell on that. But if you see people blocking it, it must be effective.

SPEAKER_01: 19:35

It definitely there's no doubt about it that it works. And I I think it's a great tool as long as it's used in conjunction with good quality of or lifestyle choices and changing behaviors if you want it to be sustainable.

SPEAKER_00: 19:49

There's there's an analogy with that. With with uh, we do my agency does a lot of, we do a marketing agency, we call it elite generation, which is the symptom. This is the the geop is the tool that maybe does the outreach to the market from an analogy standpoint metaphor. If you don't have a system around it, like better habits, how to control your ADHD with impulse, like whatever the things that cause you to eat like crazy or do like crazy or not exercise or whatever, you're gonna you're bound to reach BP. Right. And so yeah it's it is a tool as part of a bigger system.

SPEAKER_01: 20:17

Exactly. But the problem is there's these weight loss mills and hormone replacement therapy mills out there. Literally you can go online, answer a few questions, never talk to anybody, never get lab work and get a prescription. I mean that is scary.

SPEAKER_00: 20:32

So that's and that's then that right there is the one that needs to be shut there still should be smoker because that's the one that's going to ruin it for other stuff. And just like you know the war on drugs where marijuana is now a CH1 drug which makes zero sense right at all. Methamphetamines are equivocal, really? Yeah.

unknown: 20:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 20:51

Bethetamines are great for ADHD, but methamphetamines that was someone else's agenda that got thrown in there and it you know and I'm not trying to be political at the show but but the truth is that's what's going to happen is someone's like, well we're gonna all this is getting thrown in there now and now the medical professionals of the world have it back and they will they'll gate it and guard it and you'll be like I'm going to Mexico I guess to get some but you know this is the irony though is that you know testosterone is not FDA approved for women yet there's no there's no product yet on the market to approve it. Like that that's the problem, right?

SPEAKER_01: 21:26

There's no clinical trial that allows it to be I mean less than 10% of the NIH budget goes to women's health studying women's health and less than about 0.03% goes to studying menopause. So that's just one body that does a lot of research but that gives you an example of where our our you know energy is and what we value.

SPEAKER_00: 21:48

I mean and and women's complexity you know is it's so it's off the charts different than men's honestly like I'm not kidding guys if you're listening it is three things there's a cocktail you're gonna get to make it work and it's gonna be a balance yeah and some weeks are different and others right women's it's like a day to day week to week shit if you had a hysterectomy and you don't know when things are going on down there as much that it's even crazier and it's insane.

SPEAKER_01: 22:13

So to try to do the testosterone makes that's the complexity that no one's even studying though women do need it for sex drive muscle whipping it's so important for not breaking hips and shit like bones add muscles yeah bones add muscles that helps with how do you so here's one of the challenges like I live in Georgia you live in uh Arizona San Diego uh San Diego you're in San Diego I'm sorry California same federal requirements for drugs and everything else same requirements for board certified you can't help someone in Georgia no I'm actually working on getting my my license in multiple states so that the telemedicine sees no boundaries but right now it does well for up to schedule three schedule two you still got to or Bob you got to go in person I found out for my PhD study and I'm like are you serious? I got to be at charged read it no it's it's ridiculous it's crazy anyway I'm not gonna go you you got me fired up on that one I know let's get going for you to hey you look great you feel good like yeah I could have done that with an internet survey um exactly right I'm which I did prior to going anyway well I'm glad you found the path and I'm glad you appreciate what women go through because the men you know we're women are more than 50% or 50% of the population but men are in women's lives so we're all affected by menopause perimenopause and craziness. Now you talk about men's menopause men men and menopause yeah I call it um andropause is that when you're this is I'll describe the guy because I I now see the guy that needs testosterone he has skinny legs he's lost his ass he has a belly with bamboos yeah well that would be a more extreme I would prefer I I like to see guys in their you know mid 40s come in and get lab work and see where their testosterone is before they start showing signs of an element because I see the same guy same age that's jacked up in the you know not like you know monkey steroids 80s but when he he looks fit and he's in the geling he's crushing it.

SPEAKER_00: 24:12

Good for him.

SPEAKER_01: 24:13

Why not use the tools that are available to us to maximize peak performance and optimize your quality of life.

unknown: 24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:21

You know it's my I'm 49 my you know I always ask the question I'll ask it to you can if you you know No I'm not gonna tell you my age. No I'm kidding no no it's that you if you can go back on a timeline um what we should do differently and my answer is you know the moment after my child was born I would have done ADHD stuff then. Because then then I have um then everything else after that does you know and I would have done testosterone in my uh early 40s. Even if I did eat it I would just gotten to a level and then well optimized. Optimized and uh so my next question to you is if you could go back anywhere in your timeline, when would you go back? What would you do differently?

SPEAKER_01: 24:56

Yeah you know it's funny because when you look back obviously you've got 2020 uh hindsight so it's it's hard then yeah mine is not 2020. It's it yeah well mine's about 2025 for the record but anyway but you see things differently and I think with what I know now I probably would not have bitten off so much in terms of wanting this large integrated or I should say an integrated medical practice that grew into you know seeing over 2000 patients a month. You know it was it was a lot and I and I said I can do this I'll take insurance I'll make it work. Well it was a lot of work and I think I probably would have gone just solely into hormone replacement therapy and weight management sooner. Yeah because it is a lot it's a big it's a big beast to conquer.

SPEAKER_00: 25:47

You know I like about it is you know when we when we work with or I work with clients to help them with their business model and growth strategy the biggest piece is you have to solve a desperate problem for somebody. Like something they're really almost pay anything for to do. Doctors fit this but it's usually like oh shit I have cancer now what? Yeah if you could be on the front side of that it's on the same definite problem avoidance of this look better feel better right whatever it is it is it is such a beautiful place to be because it's more rewarding than the negative side of it. You're seeing you're actually on the pot like people are like oh I want to be a you know animal doctor, veterinarian growing up and like you do realize 90% of what they do is put things down. Like they're dealing like you're seeing these lovely kitties you love that you're gonna be dealing with them sick, hurt and you're gonna say I have to you're gonna hate it. Like you like and have an understanding of where you are is that a fair assessment of like your value and how you feel that yeah no it's a it's a good analogy.

SPEAKER_01: 26:41

I mean I I yes I much prefer wellness medicine and I always practice that way. So even though yes occasionally there would be the person who gets cancer has a disease but we really did work on the you know that the wellness model you know where it's let's stay ahead of the curve let's stay ahead of things.

SPEAKER_00: 27:01

Name one ICD 10 code that is on the wellness side ahead of time. That is not what? That that it's on the preventative side.

SPEAKER_01: 27:08

Oh yeah. Are there any no you always yeah the ICD codes which are the what we use for billing insurance, right? Um yeah they're mostly diseases. You have fatigue you have you know you can't just say wants to feel better like testosterone unless it's below normal and we call that hypogonadism there isn't a code for optimizing peak performance.

SPEAKER_00: 27:33

That's what I'm saying there's there's no code that takes you the other way there's only there's now a symptom issue now we have a standard we have to meet of which does not apply to everybody. It's the disease model. Disease model and and and that's I think a very core piece that we're not going to solve here. But it but I think it starts with uh you know alternative ways to pay for things. So if you're just directly to customer there's no your billing cycle is super easy. You give me a card we pay for it gun. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 27:58

Is it birthed to having a whole department and collection it's expensive to run that model very expensive.

SPEAKER_00: 28:04

As soon as you hire an$80,000 a year person to run it plus two people to go through it now all of a sudden I have to charge a lot more.

SPEAKER_01: 28:10

Oh and insurance companies you know I could go on about this one too but you know you you you a normal business might have a 30 day net you know you do a service you get paid here you might not get paid for three or four months and they'll stall they'll say oh we need a documentation they're always finding a way to not pay you oh yeah exactly I I don't know about that only the yeah I I can't even that's the other side that's the tough side of running a medical practice.

SPEAKER_00: 28:38

Yeah absolutely and and also why then it it facilitates into you need to do 2,000 patients a month and have a then the patient feels like you're just running them through a mill, right?

SPEAKER_01: 28:47

And you may not have done that, but you just can't avoid it to build a business otherwise well what I did is I had now like five nurse net and uh naturopaths I had a few nurse practitioners I had a few acupunctures a few chiropractors. So everybody kind of saw different people. So it was nice because they'd be here to see the chiropractor but I could say hi, you know so it was more like a family feeling.

SPEAKER_00: 29:09

Yeah yeah that would be better. I'm sure the insurance companies were always challenging you though for what you were doing with them because it's like looking oh yeah oh yeah that's what there's no way yeah yeah there's no way you couldn't have it because there's like I said like we said there's no code for being preventative. And so if you put it in the wrong one then they're challenging they're all and then it's a problem.

SPEAKER_01: 29:30

So right or you have to fudge it a little bit. You're feeling fatigue aren't you? Oh okay let me write that down.

SPEAKER_00: 29:36

You know it's funny you do that and six years later somebody else oh you you felt fatigue and had an errith heart attack you're gonna have to go for full things before you do life insurance mic right oh no exactly every it comes back I'm like uh no neural aren't issue until I had to take the mRNA shit oh man yeah or like you know if you want to get a coronary calcium score which is a test to look at plaque in your in your heart that right great and that's being proactive but you can't get it paid usually by insurance unless you have heart disease risk factor family history et cetera I will tell you I I'm gonna leave leave the medical thesis here I I'm enjoying this kind of complain session thank you for listening in so um because you have you you're I'm you're validating some things that I that I do I'm not from the world but yeah good when I started my business my wife also lost her job like within a so we had no medical so we went to Medicaid is that right medicate and I was like oh God poor people insurance this sucks like you're you're dreading it once I got on it I started going to clinics that took it best coverage I'm at I still go to them I started then they found whatever a little really I did all the nuclear tests the Dopplers all that stuff because it was covered it became preventative because it was covered and I was like why isn't I would never have done that on private 100% with no way. Right. And as soon as I had that I was like oh well I mean I have this let's go see and nothing everything was fun like just you know stair master or I'll give you pills I'm like I'll do stairmaster that's fine. And and the point being is that's how it should really work.

SPEAKER_01: 31:03

Um and it and it does it otherwise because I'm like out$22,000 a year to be preventative with something that's child so uh yeah no we there will be lots of examples of that um osteoporosis screening in women you know they don't want to do a DEXA scan until you're 65.

SPEAKER_00: 31:23

Well you've been 15 years menopausal with if you weren't on estrogen you probably lost half your bones by then premenopause like my wife in is mid 40s is is likely going like her mom did it like genetics matter uh you know ADHD matters from genetics the apple falls really close to the trio though right so it's I'll think random shit. All right enough of that uh question for you uh uh just I'm gonna do one rapid fire question for you okay what is the one book beside your own that people should read all right I thought I had that answer down no you well you already got one and you can introduce it I I'd love you can say what what your book was but what's one book that someone should read uh around you know the the idea of wellness and and human or for women specifically the HRT the well the one book I really do like is Peter Atia's Outlive.

SPEAKER_01: 32:15

I think that's an excellent book it's a lot to take in but it really does cover the concepts of quality of life as well as longevity and why the main causes of death, you know, namely heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and cancer can be mitigated or even prevented if you start early enough and hormones are part of that.

SPEAKER_00: 32:39

Yeah uh the uh the final question I have I ask all the guests are you know if there was a question I should have asked you today and I didn't what what would that question have been?

SPEAKER_01: 32:48

Um I was thinking about that kind of question and I think if I would um if I would do it all over again how would you answer it? Yeah and I think I would I mean it's it's been a privilege it's an honor to be a doctor you get to touch people's lives in very special ways and yeah and the integrative medical model that I worked on was very rewarding. Like I said maybe I would just quit a little sooner but other than that it's been a great journey.

SPEAKER_00: 33:18

Awesome. And I like that you know no matter what happens in life it happens for you. It's hard as it can be at times right uh but you learn from it and you go, you pick yourself up and go and I love it. So who should get a hold of you and how do you want them to do that?

SPEAKER_01: 33:32

You know I I tell people I pretty much can see anybody um primarily though I would say people in their mid 40s and beyond and there's really no age too too old to consider some hormones like testosterone men or women and people that want to lose weight in a holistic comprehensive way that hopefully is um um sustainable. And you can yeah how did you do that? Yeah um at PerfectBalance Health it's perfectbalance health is the website and um the book is called the truth about sex hormones and I really I encourage people reading that because then you'll know exactly what my philosophy is and you'll understand why I feel that hormone replacement therapy is so critical to your health wellness and longevity.

SPEAKER_00: 34:22

Yeah. I appreciate you being on day thank you so much. Yeah thank you very much we could go on and on about things though couldn't we're all that you get invited back at some point in fit when uh listen anybody who's still listening still watching thank you this is your first time here I do hope it's the first of many if you've been here before you've heard me say this get out there go cut a tie to whatever's holding you back. And if that's uh you know hormones, if it's drinking if it's not knowing how to do marketing it doesn't matter. You got to learn how to cut ties that should hold you back from success. But you got to define that success for yourself first. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_01: 34:53

Thank you