Jeremiah Velasquez: Welcome back guys to another episode of Hormones Happen. I'm your host, Jeremiah, also known as the Optimized NP on TikTok. I've got a really special treat for you guys today. I Timberley who owns her own direct primary care practice. And I we've talked about it before, but we're gonna kind of flesh out what is a DPC practice ⁓ and why it so integral to healthcare in general. Timberley, thanks for with us.

Temberly Long: Hi, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Jeremiah Velasquez: of course. ⁓ know, what got you started as in, you know, as a nurse practitioner? What is your nurse practitioner journey looked like up till now?

Temberly Long: So I graduated with my doctor of nursing practice in 2015, so almost 11 years ago. And when I was in school and going through all of that, what I knew is that I didn't want to do family practice, oddly enough. I didn't know where I wanted to focus, but I didn't think I wanted general care. And my last clinical rotation was in an incredible hospital model with a great provider that was precepting me, and I fell in love with family practice. And so I've been doing that I graduated over 10 years ago.

Jeremiah Velasquez: And so what led you to saying, you know what, I'm done with insurance. It's time to actually explore cash-based direct primary care services.

Temberly Long: So like so many other clinicians, I think I was just enamored with the entire process. And so everything I was given, I wholeheartedly, you know, it's all factual, the studies were done, and I kind of follow those. When all the COVID stuff came, things just weren't really adding up. And then that started this little journey into the rabbit hole. ⁓ that's when I really discovered that medical industrial complex. And was disgusted with the fact that all this information that we were being provided, that we were then turning around and trying to educate our patients. And so many of those things were wrong, frankly. A lot of it was unethical or just not in their best interest. And then when we were doing that, plus having to jump through these impossible hoops of trying to appease insurance and seeing how our outcomes were worsening because of all of those regulations that insurance was putting in place, care was... we were then turning around and trying to educate our patients. And so many of those things were wrong, frankly. A lot of it was unethical or just not in their best interest. And then when we were doing that, plus having to jump through these impossible hoops of trying to appease insurance and seeing how our outcomes were worsening because of all of those regulations that insurance was putting in place, care was...

Jeremiah Velasquez: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Temberly Long: by far worse, you're cramming in more patients and they're not getting what they need. by far worse, you're cramming in more patients and they're not getting what they need. We were spending more time on paperwork and all of these things just started to accumulate. And it got to the point that I started to realize that I was doing, what we were doing just wasn't the right thing. And I think most of us go into medicine truly wanting the best for the patients. But when we're all burnt out and we're unhappy and And then that's also coming across to our patients and our communities too. I realized that we were in need of a radical change and didn't know what that would look like exactly. I just knew that there had to be something else, a better option. And I discovered ⁓ people like Keith Smith and these providers that doing these more of a cash base and completely just circumventing the insurance and how care was Outcomes were far better. Everybody's experience was improved. And then I started to kind of put those pieces together and see how I could bring that to Wyoming. We have direct primary care clinics here, a couple that are full. I mean, they're doing great. But again, it's still an concept and I really want to get that word out to everybody.

Jeremiah Velasquez: We need to, we need to. You know, as practitioners, as people that want to help other people, paramount that we let people know, guess what? You have choices, you have options. Now, we get too far into it, why don't we backtrack and you tell us a little bit about your clinic specifically, where you're located, what you and how people can get ahold of you.

Temberly Long: Sure, so I'm in Casper, Wyoming, which is pretty central Wyoming. And my husband and I both are from a really, really small town. And so I really love the idea of taking care of ranchers and these guys that don't have time to sit in a waiting room for hours. They can't make appointments weeks in advance and then taken care of now when they need it. And so being in central Wyoming. allows me to be able to service a lot of the counties around here. And then also because we're not doing that traditional medical model anymore, I can do a lot more in regards to telehealth or texting, email, that direct access and communication, which can help considerably.

Jeremiah Velasquez: like a concierge type setup. ⁓ what people don't understand is people think like, ⁓ man, you have to be rich get that kind of care. But the reality is you couldn't be further from the truth. ⁓ This more, ⁓ in opinion, from looking at numbers and data, more affordable than using insurance when you actually look at coverage versus what you get. Because let me ask you this, Timberley. How long is your average appointment with your patient?

Temberly Long: Yep. Right now it's about an hour, 45 minutes to an hour.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Insane. Where else are you gonna find that? Where else are you gonna find an hour appointment? I mean, you're lucky to get 10, 15, maybe 15, if you're lucky, minutes with your general practitioner in an insurance-based clinic. It's a hamster wheel. And so with this DPC model, what are some of the benefits that people can expect that may only know insurance?

Temberly Long: So my membership is a monthly membership fee. It's $125. Within that membership, you have unlimited office visits. And so if you need to be seen multiple times over the course of the month, there aren't any additional co-pays with that. I have point of care testing, strep tests, UAs, all of those types of things that are included with your membership for doing skin biopsies, something like that. The pathology will cost... you extra if it's advantageous to use your insurance you can but in regards to the procedure itself in house I'm not charging anything for that. DOT exams I don't charge anything extra I also draw labs which are ⁓ discounted about 90 percent discount from what you can get anywhere else ⁓ I'm contracted through Quest which is a national lab and so we we know that the results are coming back ⁓ we're

Jeremiah Velasquez: huge.

Temberly Long: cutting corners by any means, but by getting rid of that middle man, we can get rid of all of that massive administrative waste that costs so much money for people.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Absolutely. of the things that really bugged me the most when I was in primary care, I did primary care in a prison actually, so very regulated. Okay. And so the thing that really bothered me ⁓ is was based off protocols, right? It was based off decision-making trees. It was off just algorithms. And the reality is many people actually fit in these little diagrams? No one, because we're right? We're not study populations, right? We're people. so It was so frustrating to know, hey, I really know that this is gonna be a great treatment for you, but unfortunately, not even possible for you. We've gotta try A, B, and C before we even consider it, ⁓ then we still might not get it. And was one of the most frustrating things for me is why did I do all this work ⁓ to these, ⁓ you what people would say high-level decisions and not be able to actually implement them? But with that's very different, right?

Temberly Long: Exactly, yeah. So we can, we find what does work and then we can go with that. So we don't have to follow, you know, again, all of those little steps. I don't know how often in practice would you tell people, you know, the studies say we're supposed to do this. But what we found in real life, in practice, is that that doesn't work and it's a huge waste of time and it's a massive expense. So being able to practice medicine to our scope. the way that we were trained as clinicians in school, whether you're a PA or an NP or an MD, we were trained so far above being just a referral center, basically. We come in and we weren't doing anything special. Like you're saying, you were just kind of following that algorithm and we need to break away from that and actually start providing good care to people and affordably.

Jeremiah Velasquez: you Absolutely. when you first started your practice in Wyoming, correct? What was the general consensus? were the thoughts? What were people saying? Were people a little skeptical?

Temberly Long: Yeah, and they still are. So a lot of my peers especially just keep saying it doesn't work. It doesn't work, it's not gonna work. And ⁓ does. It's proven to work in other places. It's worked for decades. It's just unfamiliar around here. ⁓ I completed my first quarter and it was really, really successful already. So it work. And regards to patients, patients that once they start in that DPC route,

Jeremiah Velasquez: I that.

Temberly Long: don't know if they ever go back to a traditional hospital system again, because it is truly that great. But it is just trying to educate and get that word out there and get to truly understand what it is. This isn't something that you can advertise easily, because it really is about more relationship. And so just trying to get in contact with people so that they can ask questions and you can really try to prove this model.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Right. And one thing that I hate is I hear people say all the time when someone's starting a new DPC, it's just not going to work. Sorry, the pop, you know, the population's too heavily Medicaid or Medicare. It's like, get out of here. It is so applicable to every population. And guess what? The people that just don't listen and just continue moving forward, they thrive. I've talked to a lot of practitioners. I've talked to over 50 practitioners, you know, half of them insurance, half of them DPC. I will tell you that the DPC are always happier, right? The DPC are like, yeah, I have plenty of time to do a podcast and we can schedule this stuff. Like I make my schedule, it's beautiful. Insurance like, ⁓ my God, this is such a freaking nightmare. Can I go DPC at this point? you know, thing is I do think there are some use cases for insurance. I'm not saying no one should ever have insurance for whatever catastrophic things happen. But when we're talking preventative medicine, I really think that need to be in control of our health.

Temberly Long: Yeah.

Jeremiah Velasquez: as people, we deserve to have say in what we do. And we may say, know what, I know that according to these algorithms, I need to do step A, B, C. I don't really want to, I really just wanna do step D. That's what I feel comfortable with, that's what I wanna do. And I think that that's our right, to be able to choose what we do for our health, as long as we're making informed decisions.

Temberly Long: Exactly, exactly. you I ⁓ you do a lot of peptides. I'm not functional medicine by any means, but I love things like peptides and I do work with some compounding pharmacies so that I can provide that as an option for people. A of people take me up on it. A lot of people love it. ⁓ But it should be an option where it's not ⁓ in other model. Things like hormones, which again, you're really with in primary care. is.

Jeremiah Velasquez: You Yes.

Temberly Long: almost impossible to get anybody on like a testosterone replacement. It is so difficult. You know that's what they need. You know that's what they're going to benefit from. you're just kind of falling into that same trap. And that's been difficult as well because I've always been a little bit of a contrarian. So when I was in practice, you know, I like to kind of push that envelope where I can. But the difficult thing now is realizing that I don't have to kind of do it under my breath or

Jeremiah Velasquez: Yeah. you

Temberly Long: anything like that. So now I can openly just sort of practice the way that I need to and that I should be and I'm trained to do. so that's been a little bit tricky is kind of learning still that I don't have to fall those tiny little parameters. But that getting better now that I've been in it for a few months.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Pray. Yeah, you build your confidence up, right? When you're first starting, kind of like starting over. Like if you remember back when you first graduated, it's like you're hesitant to even prescribe a Tylenol, right? You don't want to cause a liver failure. Now transition to this DPC where it's like, wow, I do what I want. And it's kind of like that hesitation again, like, okay, am I doing right thing? And then you see the patients just thrive and you see just how thankful they are.

Temberly Long: Right.

Jeremiah Velasquez: the amount of relief that they have when someone actually can verify, can validate their concerns and say, look, I'm on your team here. We're gonna work together. can't get you to that end goal. You can't get yourself to the end goal, but together we can. ⁓ work together as a team and just, that's all the validation you need. And of course, you're gonna get flak from peers. A lot of peers are like, ⁓ my God, ⁓ just going rogue. You're going, you know, you're in gray zone. And for a lot of what I do, very gray zone.

Temberly Long: Yeah.

Jeremiah Velasquez: But the reality is I am very comfortable in helping people. when you build that relationship with a person, then worth it. It's absolutely 100 % worth it. I'll be in the gray zone forever. I do not care.

Temberly Long: Yes, And you do, when you have that relationship and your patients have the confidence in knowing that they can text or call or email or get in if there's something that they're not sure about or if feeling anything. Having confidence being able to contact you as the clinician is tremendous. And so also gives you a lot of room. to practice a little bit differently to where it isn't just, you know, take this medication and leave. They know that, you you can kind of give them more instruction and guidance on lifestyle changes or day-to-day changes that can make a huge impact on their health, but they feel okay with that because they know that they can just text you if something's not working or not quite right. And come to find out a lot of the times that is what they needed. They didn't need another prescription. They just needed that confidence and... feeling more empowered with their own health to be able to actually get where they needed to be. I feel like we don't need to intervene nearly as much as our traditional system says we do. We really just need to be there to support and guide our patients. And if you're seeing four or five patients an hour, you can't support them. I mean, you just can't. And if they can't get ahold of you for days or even weeks at a time, then they don't have the confidence in that either.

Jeremiah Velasquez: you No way, how could they? one of the reasons why I think a lot of people lose faith in healthcare in general because I've this problem but I can't communicate to anyone. ⁓ I get scheduled in three months. By then, depending on the problem, it's either horrible or it's gone. ⁓ But just that trust in healthcare is just absolutely gone. When reality is, like you said, oftentimes they just need support. In traditional insurance-based care, we get stuck into this wheel of like, okay, someone comes in with a complaint, they leave with something, a prescription, something, they gotta leave with something, right? They came all the way in, they're gonna leave with something. The reality is, if we could just spend 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour just talking to them, people are going to actually listen, right? Because people don't really care what you know until they know you care. And how can you tell someone that you care in 10, 15 minutes?

Temberly Long: Yep. Exactly. Yeah, 10 or 15 minutes that you're behind the computer clicking the boxes. You who knows if how much of that is even spent really engaging with them.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Yes, exactly. it's horrible. ⁓ know, I don't, like I said, I still have like trauma from just primary days. And so, ⁓ you I also don't do primary care. So I'm really thankful that people like you do because it's so huge. ⁓ Prevention key. Prevention. And I think people are really getting privy to this. Prevention is future because we don't want to go to hospitals. We don't want hospitalizations. We don't want those hefty padded bills. If we can prevent these negative outcomes, which we totally can, why not? What's stopping us?

Temberly Long: Exactly. Yep. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. And I think our so much of where we are is more of that sick model. It really is focused more on keeping people ill and going back in and back in over and over and over. But through this model, we can address all of their needs in one appointment. A lot of the times we can take care of everything that they need when they need it and when it works for them. If we're working around calving season or if we're working around, you know,

Jeremiah Velasquez: you

Temberly Long: closed roads and things like that, we can get them taken care of entirely and hopefully deprescribe and get them off of some of those medications that are probably contributing to why they feel so terrible now. And kind of moving around all of that and getting them healthier than they've ever been and then keeping them healthy.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Huge, huge, the maintenance, know, getting healthy and then staying healthy. important. Now, us some of the services that you offer specifically at your practice.

Temberly Long: So I'm full scope family practice. The only thing that I don't do is OB. some of my members are pregnant. I'll take care of their medical conditions during that time, but I don't do OB. So really everything from babies up, lot of chronic care. So hypertension, diabetes, all of those things. And then that health optimization aspect as well. Skin procedures, know, acute care. So kids are sick. People need something like that. Women's health.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Hmm

Temberly Long: all the GYN type stuff too. Yeah, so really it is true practice, true primary care where can take care of all of your needs. I am the only one in the office, so I draw the labs that I send out too. I'm the answering the phone for right now, hopefully that changes soon. But I do of that. So I don't have a specific niche. They always say the are in the niches, but.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Wow. Okay.

Temberly Long: ⁓ so passionate about getting it back to true just primary care and that general practice. And so I can take care of all of that and all of those conditions, mental health and those sorts of things. I do work with ⁓ single standing groups here so that I can get patients discounted rates on radiology studies too if we need that.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Mm-hmm. You

Temberly Long: hopefully the idea is to prevent having to refer them out to as many specialists, joint injections, things like that. Those are all included with the membership occasionally necessary, but not as often as I think the system was getting us

Jeremiah Velasquez: Mm-hmm. Wow, that's a fantastic deal. You do a lot of things that you do a lot of small procedures and stuff and just you You're a one you're a one-woman show, huh?

Temberly Long: yeah for now ⁓

Jeremiah Velasquez: Okay, cool. you planning on shortly getting, you know, maybe an admin or at least someone to answer the phones and whatnot?

Temberly Long: Yeah, so I'm considering maybe a virtual MA to help with phones, prior authorizations, that sort of thing. Potentially bringing somebody in office and then as all of this grows down road, getting another provider in here too would be just so that we can continue to offer great care that's more accessible with better outcomes, more affordable to everybody. But yeah, I'm to, think part of the

Jeremiah Velasquez: Mm-hmm.

Temberly Long: The charm with direct primary care is that we keep the overhead so low. so I really want to avoid getting a big old team because that's when ⁓ the prices go up and usually our systems start to fail on us too.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Yeah, very. Yes, low overhead is key. It's absolutely key. the thing too, when you're building your team ⁓ you have a culture, right? And you're in the process of that culture. So the that you put in, the people that you introduce right away, this is gonna be huge because now ⁓ we're adding to this pot of culture, right? And what are we making, right? And what are the views and the opinions of the people that you talk to, right? for me specifically. It's very, you know, it's somewhat niche. And so me, it's really important that the people that I bring in are on board with it, right? Could you imagine me bringing someone in that was anti-hormone, anti-peptide? It would be a nightmare. It wouldn't work. ⁓ I've got to almost find people as radical as me, which be hard to do. ⁓ And ⁓ we of go radical together, right? And so building a team is huge. But once you find the right team, it's just so much synergy, right? And it just makes life easier.

Temberly Long: Right. I'm Yeah. Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. But yeah, finding right people can hugely difficult because ⁓ you to find somebody that their values and their ideas align with yours. But at the same time, you don't want to hire somebody that's just like you or else you're never going to grow. You'll stagnate if ⁓ everybody's similar. So I think trying to find that right, the right team is imperative to long term success.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Yep.

Temberly Long: So isn't something you want to just jump into by any means, but it's hard too, because as you're getting busier, it's harder to spend the time to find the right person. And so that balance is tricky.

Jeremiah Velasquez: It is, you know, it is. And some people don't like change, right? I first got my admin to answer phones and triage calls, you there were some people that were a little upset. They're like, well, why aren't you answering ⁓ these right away now? ⁓ You and the reality is I still answer the clinical questions, ⁓ but a triage process now. And so, you know, ⁓ of some people had left because of this and that's reasonable. It will happen, ⁓ but changes need to happen for sustainability. Right, in order for us to be able to grow this practice, practice, to help more people, we to have systems in place. And you can be a one man show for so long before you realize I'm the bottleneck here, right? I can only help X amount of people because I'm one person. ⁓ the reality is, the amount of care that you give and the amount that you're able to ⁓ help these individuals, kind of build a special relationship with them, right? It's more than just patient A, patient B. These are people, right? And you talk to them like people and you kind of get feedback from them. And what I like to tell a lot of people when we're discussing hormones, you know, hormones are so individualized is that you're in the driver's seat. I'm in the passenger seat. If say, hey, you know what? I think the best option is to go right. But you you know what, Jeremiah, I want to go left. And you tell why and it's safe. Guess what? We're going left because you're in control. I just I'm here to make sure that what we're doing is safe, but one, no one knows you better than you.

Temberly Long: Yep, exactly, exactly. Yeah, so we're here to guide and, know, kind of help facilitate all of these things, but by no means should we be in here just dictating their care, which, I mean, it's just not the right thing to do.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Mmm. Yeah, do you remember in nursing school and preschool, joint decision making process? everyone I talk to, they laugh about it because we all have some degree of trauma tied to it. But how is joint decision making process ever implemented in traditional insurance based primary? It's not, it never is. There's never a joint decision making process. It's like, this is what the guidelines say. This is what we need to do. I don't know, how do you feel about that? That's kind what we have to do. But the reality is, like,

Temberly Long: ⁓

Jeremiah Velasquez: When you give people choices you just let them make an informed decision, it's how actually reasonable people are when they the facts. That's all they need is the facts. And so we just, unfortunately in insurance, just assume people are unreasonable we have to tell them, spoon feed them what the next steps are. When the reality is, like, these are adults, let them make some decisions. Now, kind of speaking back to that, you also treat children as well.

Temberly Long: Exactly. I do, yes. Yep, so babies all the way up through the lifespan.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Okay, wow. Okay, so do you see a lot of people come in and they're like, hey, I want to get my whole family on this plan. Do you see that quite a bit?

Temberly Long: Yes. So, and like I said, it's $125 an individual, but I do have it capped at $300 a month for families with dependents. And so I've got several families that have three or more little kids. It's only $300 for the entire family. And it's great because there are a lot of times where I can get them all in. I might be seeing a kid for an illness, but mom needs a refill on her medications and dad's got a question about his lab work or whatever it may be. So it's

Jeremiah Velasquez: Mm-hmm.

Temberly Long: It's really great because it kind of meets the families where they need to be or where they are in that moment. So yes, I have a lot of families. I even have some, you know, three generations, ⁓ grandpa, his son, and then their kid too. And that's a lot of fun getting to know everybody. that's where that, know, country doc feel comes from. from a really tiny ranching community. And I the idea of you really actually that family.

Jeremiah Velasquez: No.

Temberly Long: and being able to take care of them way that they need and the way that they want and expect, but everybody all at once. And it's a lot of fun doing that.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Yeah, and it's a different world. Those small little country towns are so different. did of my clinical rotations in a small little town called Eads, Colorado. Super farming community, also trucking, because they had a gas stop. The Love's gas station was like the supermarket. And I out there for months at a time. And it is a different world. unless you're immersed in that, you know what's going on, you're going to be an outsider. You have to be engaged in ⁓ some of specific

Temberly Long: Yes.

Jeremiah Velasquez: occupational hazards you might face, some of the cultural issues, socioeconomic issues you face. so you're filling a really specific niche for people that probably my understanding from working with some of these people would opt to just say, you know what, I'm just not going to even attempt it. ⁓ They get this stuff checked out because it's such a pain in the ass. ⁓ But it's like, let's do it. Let's get health taken care of. Why not? It's easy now.

Temberly Long: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And love that. it is, it's very, I mean, the culture is so different and they don't, we take to outsiders very well. So ⁓ makes big difference kind of understanding that and understanding their mindset ⁓ and their Just like you said, it really is a tremendous opportunity, for me, but for this community and those, you know, those in general, there's a lot that we can do.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Sure. Yeah. do you do any kind of like weight loss hormones? know you said a little bit of peptides.

Temberly Long: So thing, you know, it's not something that I advertise or throw out there, but do have ⁓ quite few people that are doing some different weight loss programs. I love to talk about food and nutrition, so you get that whether you want it or not, but I do quite a few people that are on ⁓ the GLP and a sloop combo, things like that. ⁓ I have quite a few, especially men, but quite a few people that are on some hormone replacement.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Yeah. Cool. Hmm.

Temberly Long: But again, being in that traditional model with family practice, it's not something that we got to do very much of. And so love it. And I understand a lot of it just off of my own personal research that I've always kind of been drawn towards. But it is more just health optimization and then that primary care aspect.

Jeremiah Velasquez: That's huge, that's huge. And right now, you licensed in any other states or is it strictly Wyoming?

Temberly Long: Just Wyoming, and contemplated if I should get of a compact license and then maybe offer some more telehealth type services. I don't know how saturated that is or how difficult it can be to advertise and really kind of get that outreach, so if it'd be worthwhile. Right now, primary focus is actually looking more employers and offering those employer-sponsored health benefits.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Yeah.

Temberly Long: And so there are a few companies around here that I'm going to sign up with. And then just moving forward, I was going to more towards that direction first. But I'm always considering, it's always in my mind if I should get compact license and kind of spread out that way too.

Jeremiah Velasquez: That's smart. know a lot of DPCs that do exactly what you're talking about, where they actually work with a corporation to be their, essentially their healthcare, right? That's their health insurance in a way. they do amazing. because all you need. If you get one large contract, that's That's all you need. ⁓ But I always, and I always tell everyone, hey, we're nurse practitioners. We can, you there's, independent practice states. Get, ⁓ get, get at one or two telehealth out there. Just, you never know. You never know, tell else taken off. It's not going anywhere.

Temberly Long: It is. So do you market for that? Because can be tricky with telehealth. Well, with all of it, but especially with telehealth.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Mm-hmm. Sure. Google Ads. Google Ads is the best way to market any services. Sure, you do Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and it's, know, I'm not gonna say they're useless, but it's more of a flash in the pan. It's really hard to say what you're gonna get. Google Ads, you specifically a state that you want, specific city within a state, and a population even, right? can be very specific, and you just market your services. You may feel that it's saturated, but it's not. There's so many people out there that are getting privy to this. This isn't something that's gonna go away anytime soon. It's only gonna gain popularity. there are more than enough patients for every clinic. So I wouldn't worry about it at all. I mean, of course there's competition out there, but I worry about it. People need you, Timberley, specifically, not, you Joe Schmo down the street, right?

Temberly Long: Yeah, no, I think that that's a great advice and I will definitely look into it a little bit more for sure.

Jeremiah Velasquez: Yeah, absolutely. you kind wrapping this up here, let's say have someone that's kind of on the fence, like, hey, I've done insurance-based primary care my whole life. I just don't like I'm getting heard. I don't feel like people are listening to me. What do you want that person to know as far as what they can do as far as actionable steps to take control of their health?

Temberly Long: I think it's so important to out places like direct primary care clinics where the providers have kind taken that turn to focus and put priority back on you as the patient. So you to find somebody that works for you, not your insurance company, not Big Pharma or whatever it may be, but somebody that works for you specifically. And you're going to find that almost always in a direct primary care clinic, whether you have insurance. or your self pay, still gonna benefit from this. And so looking in that route under that free market type medical I think is important. I've got a website, I have Facebook, so people can find me there. And then they can call and I'm happy to visit with them on the telephone and answer any questions they have. And if it's something that they wanna sign up with me, that's wonderful. If... maybe they're in a state I'm not licensed in yet, like that, then I'm happy to try and help guide them on how they can find a model because it really is ⁓ where needs to turn. We cannot functioning the way that it's been so far and we need to focus more on this direct primary model so that we have the patient's interest at best.

Jeremiah Velasquez: I could not agree more. Timberley, thank you so much for being with us today.

Temberly Long: Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it.