EP146 Making it Real: A View of Healthcare You've Never Seen

Are you tired of being rushed in and out during your medical visits?

Do you feel that not all of your questions are being answered during your consults?

Unfortunately, it’s common for people to feel this way.

That’s why we’re speaking with Registered Dietitian, Maggi Birdsell, and Family Nurse Practitioner, Heather Peters of Elevation Health about how they began their healthcare business after realizing that they had little to no time with their patients.

If you’re wanting to learn more about a unique model of healthcare and how they do things differently to serve their patients, then this episode is just for you.

Maggi’s background…

Maggi is a Delaware alumnus who studied Nutrition and Dietetics. She has experience in clinical nutrition and has worked in public health for 9 years.

The biggest takeaway from her experience?

The relationships she built and the desire to have repeat connections and see people grow as they improve their lifestyle and their health.

Elevation Health emerged out of friendship. The opportunity to combine the primary care side with nutrition and feel like there isn’t such a segmented avenue of a person’s health and health care.

What first started out as being acquainted through their husbands has led to 11 years of friendship and 2 years of successful practice and business.

Heather’s background…

Having started in her 20s, Heather has experience as an RN both in hospitals and schools which allowed her to get a good feel of the public health system.

Feeling like something was missing, she decided to pursue her Nursing Practitioner degree and began working in traditional primary care practice. Although she loved what she did, she quickly found it restrictive for the kind of care she wanted to give to her patients.

“People started feeling like a number and then a name. I was being rushed and I valued taking care of the ”whole” person.” - Heather

She became overwhelmed and thought there had to be another path where you can take care of people and actually spend time with them.

Heather explains that oftentimes diagnoses are related and you can typically find an underlying cause that ties them all together. She believes in finding solutions that treat the whole person and not just the one thing.

And that was refreshing for her and her patients.

What is your model of health care?

We practice under a model called direct primary care where all of our patients are members of our practice. They pay a monthly membership (no more than a cost of a cell phone bill) and under that umbrella, we provide them with primary care such as:

• Wellness visits
• Sick visits
• Lab work
• Etc.  

“We’re the medical home for our patients.” - Maggi

It’s the version of primary care that we take that’s a little bit different. Because we have the opportunity to take the time, nutrition and lifestyle are at the center of the treatment plan.

Our niche lies between traditional medical care and all things natural (no prescriptions) but we make sure that lifestyle and nutrition, access to those things, and tools are available to carry out the treatment plan.

A unique approach…

When you work in traditional medical settings under an insurance company you are limited. Sometimes you can only discuss 3 problems at a time when a patient may have 5 or sometimes you can only spend so much time with the patient because the employer or company won’t pay you if you spend more time with a patient.

You are time-restricted in what you can do and the reality is that It always boils down to numbers and money.

How did resources and a tool like Meal Garden help get your business up and running?

We had some good mentors for all the things needed for a medical practice. We also own and provide access to the fitness center for our members, offer nutrition programs, and have the retail sector of the business where we offer high-quality supplements online and in person.

The first 6 months were realizing how we needed to extend ourselves and what platform we needed and during that process, I came across Meal Garden.

"I had always struggled with translating what I'm telling people how to do something (in four walls, from my office) - which is a little bit different than the reality of doing it in your kitchen, you know, or transcribing that to the grocery store." - Maggi

MeaI Garden allows me to connect the advice and the coaching with the nutrition prescription and what that looks like in their kitchen by taking recipes and meal suggestions that I had and putting it into a beautiful, branded platform content for exporting.

Being able to say this is really what you need in terms of calories, carbs, protein and this is what it looks like by showing a meal that matches it along with a grocery list.

Some words of encouragement from Heather and Maggie for creating and manifesting what they have built…

Go for it and never look back!

I just didn’t want to sacrifice my health and my wellbeing for the sake of trying to work so hard and missing out on family time. Our time is limited and it’s important and doing this allows me to spend time with friends and family and do things outside of work.

“Your patients feel you. Your patients are longing for time with you too.” - Maggi

The number one thing our clients love is the accessibility of having direct access to their providers and the extended, no rush visits.

For those that want to learn more about Heather and Maggi, Elevation Health, or stay in touch with them, you can do so by visiting their website or via Instagram and Facebook.

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