June 18, 2025 • 42 mins
From Air Force flight surgeon to solo DPC pioneer, Dr. Rachel Langley shares how she launched Homestead Direct Primary Care in Colorado Springs. In this inspiring and insightful episode, she discusses her military experience, entrepreneurship, the role of GLP-1s, health coaching, homesteading—and why healing soil and healing patients aren’t so different after all.
🔗 Featuring her viral video: https://youtu.be/Ggwh2wlWxlY?si=o9x9BsCLXTNsdi6O
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🔗 Podcast Guest: Dr. Rachel Langley – Homestead Direct Primary Care:
- Website: Homestead Direct Primary Care
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Wayne LowrySo show me your cup, the cup you're drinking out of. It's got, like, all sorts of stuff on it. What is it?
(00:04):
Rachel LangleyYeah, it's got my flight. The 480th is the unit that I flew with F Sixteens in Germany.
Rachel LangleyBlack Forest Festival from last year, Black Forest Festival sticker that says mental health just as important as physical health.
Rachel LangleyTri Lakes Cares is a local food bank that I take patients from. Greece is where my brother was stationed. I'm a super donor with the local blood bank. That's my best friend's company, 1,000,000. That's a networking company networking group.
(00:40):
Wayne LowryNice. So basically you are just a walking billboard.
Rachel LangleyFor everything, yeah.
Wayne LowryFor everything who needs social media, you just walk around with that cup and basically how much do you charge? Maybe we'll put a Best DPC sticker on that.
Rachel LangleyThere we go. That's good. Provide me a free sticker. I'll put it on there.
Wayne LowryI need to find out how.
Wayne LowryAlright, there you go.
(01:12):
Wayne LowryHello and welcome to the Best DPC podcast The world's #1 show, covering all things direct primary care. I'm your host Wayne Lowry, and today I am honored to have with us Doctor Rachel Langley.
Wayne LowryDoctor Langley spent eight years as a flight surgeon in the US Air Force, which I can only imagine means that she performed surgeries while on flights.
(01:35):
Wayne LowryIf not, she can correct me. Just a minute. She now serves as a reservist. In August 2023, she opened up her own clinic in Colorado Springs. She is a former middle school science and math teacher who's always looking for the alternative path to avoid physical burnout.
(02:00):
Wayne LowryShe's passionate about coaching, weight management trends like GLP one, and she has 2 cows at home. I know that's a rough segue. I can't wait to hear about her cows, her turkeys, her chickens and her love for direct primary care. So let's dive in and welcome Doctor Langley. How are you today?
Rachel LangleyThank you. I'm doing well. How are you?
Wayne LowryDoing good, doing good. So I have so many questions. But first off for our listeners, maybe you should correct me on flight surgeon.
(02:28):
Rachel LangleySo a flight surgeon is from back in the day, especially in Britain, when all doctors were called surgeons. But if you're going to interact with a lot of pilots you need to sound cool. So I think that's why we've kept it that way. But all it is a primary care doctor who takes care of pilots, other air crew, air traffic controllers and their families.
Wayne LowryNow, I know you said that to make it sound a little less cool, but let's be honest, it's pretty cool. So you are serving those pilots with primary care and so tell us a little bit about that. About that experience.
(03:05):
Rachel LangleySo you get a little additional training, significant training about aerospace medicine and aerospace physiology. You need to know what's going to happen to someone's body and what health risks there's going to be if they're going to altitude on a regular basis. So lower ambient pressure, the chance of having a sudden decompression altitude.
(03:26):
Rachel LangleySo a sudden rush of air outwards, things like that can really impact your Physiology or Health and certain medical conditions. Certain medications are not a good mix with those risks.
Rachel LangleySo you need to have that formal education and then also a lot of your time as a flight surgeon, luckily, is spent out in the field getting to know these folks because especially these high performing pilots flying is their life.
(03:52):
Rachel LangleyAnd my job as a doctor is to keep them safe and to keep these multi $1,000,000 aircraft safe. So I don't want them crashing, which means sometimes that means I will be grounding them and keeping them from what they love most in the world.
Rachel LangleyAs a result, I've got to build a decent relationship with them. I have to spend time with them and physically put my life in their hands so I get to fly with the pilots that I'm working with to show that I trust them, and maybe I can earn their trust in turn.
(04:20):
Wayne LowryOK, so hold on a second. So you fly with the pilots, so you are so Tom Cruise takes you on a spin like how does that, how does that work?
Rachel LangleyYeah, I've flown in C-130, big ones with propellers. I really enjoyed my time at a training base because they were all 2 seaters because it's a training, a trainee and a trainer. So sometimes I got to fly with the trainers in those planes.
(04:45):
Rachel LangleyAnd I go up in T-1, which are kind of like a nice little plane to go and get lunch real quick, come back or T-38 are more of the training to become a jet pilot that really fast, ones that have pull G's or the T-6 is my favorite. It's a propeller plane that you get to do all the loops. The fun stuff. In addition to a bunch of other planes too.
(05:07):
Wayne LowrySo. I mean that sounds amazing, but I can only imagine probably the best part of all that is walking to the nearest yogurt shop with like the big Sun shades and the jacket. Right. And just like slow motion walking. Everybody looks like, “oh, this person's cool”.
Rachel LangleyI also live in Colorado Springs, which is just rife with military folks, so I think I get nothing but eye rolls when I wear my leather bomber jacket and my big aviation sunglasses.
(05:36):
Rachel LangleyEveryone's just rolling their eyes at me, so I'm not quite as cool around here, I guess.
Wayne LowryWell, I think I think you're pretty cool and I just met you and so you went from serving in our military and being involved in that. Of course you're still serving, but you decided to launch into DPC. So tell me a little bit about that. What, what made you dive into the DPC space?
(06:03):
Rachel LangleyWell, ever since even in high school, I mean, I was surrounded by a lot of highly driven students at my high school in the Washington, DC area. So there were a lot of people saying they wanted to be doctors and lawyers.
Rachel LangleyAnd I think my biology teacher at the time, one of my mentors was one of the first ones to say, “You know, being a doctor isn't all it's cracked up to be. The way doctors are portrayed and seen is just not the way the doctor's life is anymore.”
(06:31):
Rachel LangleyAnd I kept getting that message throughout college as well. That being a doctor was actually pretty miserable, like the suicide rates for physicians these days are out of this world. So maybe you should reconsider that.
Rachel LangleyAnd that's one of the reasons that I became a middle school teacher first. I still wanted to work with people. I still loved biology. So I did that, and I loved it. But I still felt a calling to be a physician, so I was always on the lookout for. What is it that's causing this different lifestyle than one would expect as a doctor?
(07:03):
Rachel LangleySo that's one of the reasons that even though I was family medicine trained, I went further to become a flight surgeon because instead of just being in clinic day in and day out saying 330 patients a day, I got to spend half my time out with the pilot out in the air traffic control watching this plane zoom by.
Rachel LangleyAnd that brought a lot of joy to my life. Building relationships with my patients outside of the clinical setting. So when I knew that I wanted to separate, I was still on the lookout for, I don't want to just be another cog in the wheel and see all the gazillion patients in personally a day and not have the fulfillment that I've gotten used to as a flight surgeon.
(07:45):
Rachel LangleySo I looked up one of my mentors from residency. I knew he'd gotten out of the military. He'd retired, so I wanted to see what he was doing because he might have some good ideas. And that was the first time I'd heard of direct primary care is he'd opened a practice in Idaho. So after that I started looking around at other practices.
Rachel LangleyI knew I wanted to settle down in Colorado Springs, since that's where my and my husband's families are all located and I saw some practices I came out, I was living in Germany with the Air Force at the time, came out for some interviews, found a practice that I meshed with, learned the ropes from that DPC practice for a while and then I got the chance to open my own practice. And I've loved every minute of it.
(08:26):
Wayne LowrySo tell me about the decision in your mind to take something a little bit more secure and to launch into your own thing because you know there's a lot of people that maybe they have the training, maybe they have the medical knowledge. But starting your own clinic, starting your own business like that's a totally different ball game.
Wayne LowryI want to take a quick break to talk about BestDPC.com. Are you a doctor looking to break free from the headaches of insurance and take control of your practice? Or maybe you're an employer searching for an affordable healthcare solution that actually works.
(09:00):
Wayne LowryAt BestDPC.com we cut through the noise and connect you with the country's best direct primary care clinics. Whether you're a patient tired of surprise medical bills or a physician ready to build a thriving membership based practice, we've got the tools and resources you need.
Wayne LowryFind the best DPC doctors near you. Get expert advice and take the first step towards a better healthcare. Visit BestDPC.com today and see why Direct Primary care is the future of medicine. That's BestDPC.com because great healthcare should be simple, affordable, and built around you.
(09:35):
Wayne LowryYour thought process from going, “Hey I've got an income too. Hey, I got to build my own company.”
Rachel LangleyYeah, it was a big jump and I feel like I kind of cheated and that I first joined another practice and got to learn the ropes somewhat from them, but I certainly wasn't involved in the nitty gritty business aspects of it.
(09:56):
Rachel LangleySo when I did for my own company, it was going against the grain of all of our training saying, “hey, you doctor, you stick with the medicine side. Don't worry about it. All the insurance administrators, people, stuff like that, we'll do the business side just trust us.”
Rachel LangleySo I still had that in my head and I had to let go of that. I went to networking groups because I didn't have many patients yet. So I had time to spend time with other entrepreneurs and pick up that entrepreneurial mindset, learn skills from them, build relationships with other business people that could help me get started, and that helped a lot too.
(10:33):
Rachel LangleyI know we have a small business development center here in town that was really helpful with just making sure I had all my ducks in a row legally tax wise as I got started because those really intimidate me still.
Wayne LowryYeah. Well, I mean that, that intimidates a lot of people. I mean, you know, I can tell you from my experience, starting multiple businesses, the thing that I worry about the most is do I do it in the right order? Did I file that? Did I do this? And then, you know, sometimes we get bogged down in the weeds of trying to do business. We don't actually do business.
(11:10):
Wayne LowryAnd so it's very admirable to see someone who's willing to take a risk and learn something new, and to dive into the entrepreneurial space. So you talked about some of the networking communities, where did you find the most success in finding like minded people? Was that other DPC's? Was it just general business groups, masterminds, school communities like where, where did you find your tribe?
(11:39):
Rachel LangleyI liked 1,000,000 cups a lot. That's an Internet or a national at least networking group that I think they call themselves more of a support group for entrepreneurs than a network group.
Rachel LangleySo I like the focus not only on building relationships so we can do business with each other, but also just getting that energy back that you tend to get worn out of you over the course of the week, you get worn out and then you've got these Wednesday mornings to reinvigorate and connect with people that are going through the same struggles that know the difficulties you're facing and can give you that pat on the back. Don't give up yet.
(12:19):
Wayne LowryYeah. So besides the motivation, was there other things were they bringing to the table as far as support? Any technology that you found from those groups that you said, hey, this really has helped me or like marketing techniques like what? What else did you kind of learn from those groups?
(12:40):
Rachel LangleyI got a lot of book recommendations, podcast recommendations that I've drawn upon a lot. There's a marketing book called Everything is marketing. Technically it's for dentist offices, but that's really what got me started in thinking about hey outside the box. What can I do to make my space everything when I interact with someone kind of really scream, “My office is awesome. My practice is awesome. You should join me and check me out and send all your friends too.”
(13:08):
Rachel LangleySo I really liked that book. I think that there is some other DPC practices. Doctor Phil Boucher up in Omaha does a lot to educate physicians about how to put them out there, put themselves out there in the virtual space, what to look for in a good website, what SEO techniques? There's a new one everyday.
(13:32):
Rachel LangleyHe's the one who turned me on to smarter cue, which is a social networking app. I guess it would be considered, but it plugs into all my social media and allows me to recycle posts automatically. So I just post my 200 favorite posts. Then they're just going to run forever. And if I die, social media accounts will never die with me.
(13:56):
Wayne LowryYeah. No, the social media, you, you will be long gone. I still like bump into post and I go. Wait a second. I'm pretty sure they've been dead 10 years. Like I don't know that I should engage with that post. So what was the name of that last platform you said? Social what?
Rachel LangleySmarter queue.
Wayne LowrySmarter queue all right.
(14:17):
Rachel LangleyEU, EU or however you spell that British line? Yeah, European.
Wayne LowryDon't worry, I can't spell. I can't spell anything, so I will solve that for me here in a little bit so talking about that kind of segue into maybe some of your business setup. You are a solo paneer, right? You're by yourself, you have any?
(14:41):
Rachel LangleyNo staff, no staff at all. My mom's a retired nurse and she helped me a lot in the beginning, getting things sorted out and just manning the front desk while I was going crazy.
Rachel LangleySo I highly recommend having a retired nurse mom who can help you, but now I have no staff. She's gone on to enjoy her retired life and I'm holding it down.
(15:02):
Wayne LowrySo are you, then? So you're scheduling your patients, you are making the referrals? You are booking the follow-ups, ordering the labs, you're doing all the things.
Wayne LowrySo how much time do you have if you're doing all the things like how much time are you able to spend with the patients?
Rachel LangleyAll the things you want to do it.
(15:26):
Rachel LangleyWell, a lot. Of those things I'm doing while I'm with the patient too, I mean, my appointments are half an hour to an hour long.
Rachel LangleyAnd I mean right there. We're also chatting about when you're going to come back in. So I scheduled that on my laptop right then we're talking about what labs we're going to draw. I'm ordering them then, ordering quest to come and pick them up as soon as they can. Let's see what else I'm sending the referral right there as we talk about it. Making sure the fax is going to the right place and it doesn't get a kickback.
(15:57):
Wayne LowrySo what you're saying is you're multitasking.
Rachel LangleyA little bit, yeah.
Wayne LowryOK, see I couldn't do that. I would have to be like, OK, what did I just say? What did I just do? So I'm glad you've got. You've got many different talents that are on display here. So you're scheduling your own posts. You're booking your own appointments and what. Tell us about your tech stack. What are you using?
(16:21):
Wayne LowryIf you don't mind sharing your EHR, your outreach, your phone system, what are you using and would you recommend? Any of those?
Rachel LangleyI'm firmly devoted to Atlas as my ER. They've got some clever AI options that help me to write those more detailed referral requests, things like that, so that I don't even have to think about it. It just draws from the note that I just wrote and writes up a fax that I can send to a specialist or wherever I'm sending them.
(16:51):
Rachel LangleyThat's pretty cool. Let's see. Yeah, the only phone company around me is Comcast, and they recently put in a new feature on my phones where automatically I used to have to switch back and forth between my phones being sent to my office versus my cell phone if I was going to be home longer than I expected or stay home that day, get some chores done.
Rachel LangleySo now instead of having to mess with that, no matter who's calling, the voicemail gets transcribed and sends to my email address, and that something that I can, even if I'm with a patient and just need to glance at who just called, I can do so in my email. And that's been such a game changer. I really, really like that feature.
(17:30):
Wayne LowryYeah. So what about your engagement with your patients, tell us a little bit about a day in the life your patients come in, do you have a waiting room where you basically just on time appointments kind of talk about that patient experience from the moment they walk in until they see you?
Rachel LangleyYeah. So patients often find out about me online. They can book a meet and greet with me for free on my website. That was something that I really liked incorporating that they could. It does mean I have two schedules, one through my website and one through Atlas.
(18:08):
Rachel LangleySo I do have to go through and update both of those. Whenever I have a patient, an appointment made on one that doesn't fit with the other.
Rachel LangleySo a little bit obnoxious, but it's been really worth it to be able to let prospective patients sign up for meet and greets, and then I'll go in if someone signs up and delete that slot from availability in Atlas and it works out nicely.
(18:29):
Rachel LangleyOr vice versa if I have a patient that really has to come in during my meet and greet sections I go into acuity and block that off. So they come in, meet me and then they have to sign up online through my Atlas link.
Rachel LangleyI really insist on them signing. Doing that at home because I think that they could put in better medication dosages if they could just sit at home and pull that up rather than coming in and trying to recall that or hey, when did I have that procedure done? I don't remember. And then I get them in for their first hour long appointment to get to know them.
(19:04):
Rachel LangleyI try to give him a heads up that we're in the middle of three buildings. I often have people go to the wrong building but it happens first floor in the back. I do have a waiting room. It has five chairs and a couch in it, as well as a little coffee bar, and I just got a fizzy water dispenser. I love fizzy water after living in Germany so you can get your fizzy water fixed, or your coffee, or tea, your cocoa. Whatever.
Wayne LowryReally fancy.
(19:30):
Rachel LangleyI got a coffee thing from goodwill. It was fantastic most of the time people aren't waiting, but they can if they need to or I really like having… I have duplos and some other basic kid toys sitting in the front room.
Wayne LowryNice.
Rachel LangleySo if parents don't have time to get a babysitter or it's a hassle to get a babysitter, I've even just had a set of triplets come with their dad the other day, and they were having a great time with the duplos up front. And so we actually just moved our appointment into the waiting room and talked about his full health history just sitting right there while his kids played.
(20:05):
Rachel LangleySo they could have a snack and play around and interact with their dad when they needed to, but also be distracted enough that we could have a good conversation about his health.
Rachel LangleySo that's available. I have some people with older kids that will just sit and play on their devices or read in the front room while their parents go back and they're comfortable enough for that?
Wayne LowrySo basically just gives them a place to be. It's not so much that they're there waiting for their appointment as much as it's a place for your family members to hang out or to chill out while the person that's there for their appointment is seen, so that's at least that's how I take it now, what about virtual care? Are you utilizing any technology around that to provide virtual care for your patients?
(20:42):
Rachel LangleyYeah. Yeah, Atlas provides great video services. It's apparently secure, and that's what they tell me where I can either video call them to their phone or to their email, send the link through the Mr. I'm also happy to do phone appointments too. Honestly, phone and webcam appointments tend to be shorter than in person appointments for some reason .
(21:11):
Rachel LangleyI'm fine with it either way. I love it.
Rachel LangleySometimes I forget that on the insurance side they really don't get paid for phone visits like you could spend an hour on the phone with a patient and have it not count really, which is just crazy because I provide great care over the phone and can keep people out of urgent cares, out of the ER's with a simple phone call. So valuable to everyone.
(21:36):
Wayne LowryIt really is and you know one thing that I always appreciate about my DPC is I would go see my provider and then I don't need to go back to get the get the lab results like they email me the lab results, they text me and say, “Hey, do you have 5 minutes for a phone call?” Sure. And then you know, we cover what we need to cover. I know what I need to do.
(22:02):
Wayne LowryGod, shocker, lose weight, exercise, do the things you're supposed to do—eat healthy. Stop eating so many tortillas.
Wayne LowryBut they tell us that, you know, and I don't have to go in. I don't have to take another 30 minutes or an hour or two hours of my day to see a provider. And so tell me your customers feedback or your patients feedback on that. What do they think? People coming out of a traditional healthcare system or healthcare plan to having a DPC provider that has that flexibility, what are they telling you?
(22:34):
Rachel LangleyYeah, I mean…
Rachel LangleyThey can't really believe that it's real. Sometimes I know what my meet-and-greet. I sometimes get the, “No, but really, where did you actually graduate from? Are you really a doctor? You don't…? If you're a doctor, you should not have time for this kind of care at this level of care. Being able to text or email you. That's just not what we're used to.” So it's sometimes hard to believe.
(22:58):
Wayne LowryWell, so you started this practice, you're about two years into it, almost two years. Where do you see yourself in the next two years?
Wayne LowryAre you going to hire someone to help you grow this? Are you looking to expand and grow, or are you happy with what we would call in my world a lifestyle business, are you looking at more of an aggressive growth strategy for your practice?
(23:32):
Rachel LangleyI definitely like the lifestyle practice. I guess the micro-practice is another one I've heard, so I like where I am. I'm not sure I want to grow much more. I'd love to hire an MA to help out, but I really want to find the right person first. That's more important than getting some of these tasks off my plate immediately.
Rachel LangleyI dream of joining and helping other doctors who are afraid of DPC but want to form their own practice and get them started. Like a “DPC incubator” where I have a little bit more space than I really need. It'll be a little bit cramped, but if I could bring another Doctor who's interested, wants to build their own practice.
(24:14):
Rachel LangleyBut for now I can't afford rents, can't afford supplies.
Rachel LangleyI think that that would be an ideal combination. They come and work with me for a while. They have their own separate patients that you're building up. We cover for each other too. I'd love to go on a month-long vacation and then cover for me during that, but also they're slowly building up their practice without having so many expenses of a start-up business.
(24:40):
Rachel LangleyAnd then as they get more comfortable, they have a number that they think they can sustain themselves with. They move out, they start their own practice because I think DPC doctors…
Rachel Langley…often have very strong opinions about how their practice should be run, which is wonderful, and I know I love having things exactly the way I want them to be, so I'm not really looking to find a doctor, who's going to agree with me on everything, but I'd love to help one get started. We help each other out while they're getting started, and then they go on to thrive on their own.
(25:07):
Wayne LowryYeah.
Wayne LowrySo tell us. Tell me a little about some of the specialties or some of the, I guess specialties not the right term, but what are some of the areas of focus that you really enjoy in your practice? Is it weight loss management? Is it pediatric care? What would you say are the kind of the areas of focus that you probably enjoy more than others?
(25:34):
Rachel LangleyWell, I think a lot of people think of family doctors sometimes as just referral machines, which always drives me a little crazy because that's a little bit of what we've become in the typical insurance driven system is that if you only have 10 minutes with me, yeah, I'm I don't have time to look at that mole and cut it off. I don't have time to talk with you more about your diet and why you might have diarrhea every day. I'm just gonna send you to a dermatologist and send you to a gastroenterologist.
(26:02):
Rachel LangleyBut with fewer patients and more time I can, I've received the training from all those specialists in residency. I spent months working with dermatology, general surgery, even Podiatry, to learn the basics of their practice so that I know the first steps. Maybe I can keep my patients out of their offices.
Rachel LangleyEntirely, which at least I know in the military training system was rather appreciated. I mean, our specialists already had enough.
(26:29):
Rachel LangleyThey didn't really need to see someone who just needed a couple little dietary tweaks to feel better, or to have every conversation about an umbilical hernia. The risks of having one, whether they really needed surgery on it or not. I could have those conversations instead, save them some time so that they can spend more time with their appointments.
(26:50):
Rachel LangleyAnd have the patients that do go and see the specialist specialists who really need them.
Rachel LangleySo in general, I love to dabble in all of those things that sometimes we forget that family medicine doctors are trained in. But I also am a lactation consultant, so I love working with new moms and new babies, and I also am really interested in what's coming out these days about lifestyle, coaching, weight loss, coaching, health coaching…
(27:16):
Rachel LangleyAnd GLP-1 medications when they're needed think that it's important that folks that are considering GLP-1 medications know that they're not going to solve all their issues. They're still going to have the same brain that’s leading to the decisions that they don't want to be making.
(27:37):
Rachel LangleyAnd really be tackling the mental processes behind the choices that they're making in order to have lasting results even on the GLP-1 medications cause although they do a really great job with turning off that food chatter with…
Rachel Langley…decreasing your desire for food all the time and planning that next meal every minute of the day, you're eventually probably going to want to come off those medications. And if you haven't worked with your thoughts to be able to change those patterns and those habits, you're going to be pulled back into the same habits.
(28:14):
Wayne LowrySo what are you? So then what are you thinking as far as with your practice? Are you trying to encourage people not to do ‘em, to do ‘em, do them for a season. Combine it with something else, like what? What is…kind of your general thoughts around GLP-1’s right now?
Rachel LangleyI like to do both GLP-1’s with some degree of health coaching. Some people can just listen to a podcast about better eating and the mental kind of the circle of events that happen and then you have thoughts about those events, those events, those thoughts cause feelings and your feelings…
(28:51):
Rachel Langley…are what really drives you to take the next steps, whether that's going for a walk in the evenings or curling up on the couch with a bag of chips.
Rachel LangleySo which since you can change those thoughts—
Wayne LowryWhat about? What about going on a walk with a bag of chips?
Wayne LowryIs that on the table?
Rachel LangleyOh well, you know, it depends on what kind of results you're getting from that. Use yourself as a little experiment if it's going where you want it to go, then keep up the good work.
(29:15):
Wayne LowryWow, that was that. Are you sure you’re not a politician too? It was a very political answer.
Rachel LangleyI'm never going to say that there's not food that you're allowed to eat. You're a grown up.
Rachel LangleyYou can eat whatever you want.
Wayne LowryOh well, I need you to talk to some people in my life.
Wayne LowryNo. Yeah, all kidding aside. So. So you wanna obviously, what you're saying is…
(29:37):
Wayne Lowry…marrying that with a coaching, you know, regiment, some routine or an app or something that you are. And so in that what are you, what are you seeing as far as results when you're combining those two elements together?
Rachel LangleyI'm seeing great success.
Rachel LangleyI mean, I haven't had folks who have been on the medications and been doing this work for years yet because I've only been in practice for a little while and GLP-1’s haven't been up for that long. I certainly wasn't one of the early adopters of them. I wanted to see what happened.
(30:11):
Rachel LangleyBut so far people are very, very happy with the kind of changes they're getting and what's great about things that you learn in coaching and changing your thoughts to get the kind of outcomes that you want is that it doesn't just apply to weight loss. You find that you have better relationships because you're not just creating this external manual for your spouse.
(30:33):
Rachel LangleyThat they don't know exists, but how dare they not realize how important it was that you don't leave your toothbrush there, or whatever it is. Better relationships with your kids. Just a healthier lifestyle, happier life in general is really what I love to get my patients.
Wayne LowryYeah.
Wayne LowryAll right. Well, that's interesting. Now some of the things that have hit the news and right now we're recording this at the end of May. And so some of the news stories over the last few weeks and month is the cost. So a lot of the compound pharmacies…
(31:12):
Wayne Lowry…that were creating their own versions of OZEMPIC and so forth. That is now been halted. They have, I think, until the end of this month, if I remember correctly. You can correct me if I'm wrong and then they're not going to be available basically. So what are you seeing as far as the costs associated with those things and are there…?
Wayne Lowry…alternatives that you're examining, you're looking at to help with the cost for your patients.
(31:38):
Rachel LangleyThey are certainly expensive and a lot of my patients don't have insurance or the insurance is refusing to pay for them. So they have. I mean, I know that some of the manufacturers have some programs to reduce their costs, but they're still crazy expensive and that's why I like so much being able to offer patients. “Hey, you know what? We could. We can get your weight under control faster with these medications. Or we could also do the mental work. That's what's actually going to make this weight loss last. And you won't get there as fast, but you will have the lasting—this will be the last time you ever have to lose weight.”
(32:17):
Wayne LowryTake a quick break to talk about scalebyseo.com.
Wayne LowryIf you run a direct primary care clinic, you already know the power of patient relationships. But here's the thing. Patients can't sign up if they can't find you. That's where scale by SEO comes in. We help DPC clinics get seen where people are searching so you're not just waiting for word of mouth referrals.
(32:38):
Wayne LowryWith the right SEO strategy, your practice becomes the obvious choice. When people are looking for better healthcare options. If you're not showing up where they're searching, you're missing out. Be visible, get found, grow your practice, don't lead growth to chance. Visit scalebyseo.com today and let's get your clinic in front of the right people.
(33:01):
Rachel LangleyRealize how humble you have to be as an entrepreneur, as a doctor, especially as a military officer. I kind of got used to being in one place where the decisions I made should stick and they should last, and that's the way we do them from now on.
Rachel LangleyBut I really have so much to learn, especially when it comes. I mean, in medicine, obviously too, but also in the business arena. Things that I originally might have set out and said “No, I'm never going to go to a networking group. What do you even do in a networking group? like I—these are fake friends. What are these?”
(33:36):
Rachel LangleySo having to really eat my humble pie and go to these networking groups and sit and talk with every realtor in the city and that's OK. These are still fun and interesting people, and it's kind of like just sitting and talking with patients, too. I mean, there's always conversation to be made and.
Rachel LangleyConnections to build and you never know when that's going to end up being a really great boon for your business or for your personal life. A friendship that you wouldn't have found if you hadn't gone to that stupid networking group.
(34:10):
Wayne LowryWell, you know, there's something to be said there now, you said you are enjoying this whole solo practice thing, what about you? Most providers, I mean, it seems like you maybe you have a broad enough, you know, history from being a teacher. I'm married to a teacher. I understand. I know. I know that life. How much planning is involved and how much preparation and…
(34:37):
Rachel LangleyGrading. Always grading.
Wayne LowryAnd grading and more grading and a lot of doing it yourself. I mean it is a figure it out yourself kind of job and I can see that being part of your history helping you be in a position to do the solo practice. But what about most?
(35:01):
Wayne LowryI would say a majority doctors I know that would probably struggle with social media or struggle with networking or struggle with onboarding. What would you recommend to them like as far as their first steps into the DPC space?
Rachel LangleyI would almost recommend they get a life coach and really examine the thoughts that they're having about social media if they're sitting and thinking the whole time about how social media is taking over the world and it's evil and it's terrible and I hate being involved in it at all.
(35:40):
Rachel LangleyYeah, it's going to be a lot more painful than it has to be, but if you consider it as just a new thing to learn something that will help you to grow. As a person, something that you can get good at, but you're going to have to practice. Then it really changes the whole experience.
Rachel LangleySo yes, if you're miserable and your current insurance driven job getting out will help, but you will also need to change some of the thought processes that have become habits for you. So going in and complaining about how everyone else needs to change and then your life would be perfect isn't going to work in DPC anymore than it works in an insurance driven company.
(36:13):
Rachel LangleyThat you need to be working on yourself and that really helps you to help your patients too. You’re learning new skills is just such a great way to be able to pass on your personal experiences to some extent to your patients and relate to them with where they are. If you can see that your patient who's.
Rachel LangleyStruggling with any desire to possibly eat a green vegetable ever in their life because it's just not what they're used to. And you're sitting there thinking about how much they hate learning how to do their own taxes for their business. Maybe you can find some common ground there.
(36:52):
Wayne LowryGotcha. Well, before we wrap up today, I did not want to leave this podcast without asking you to tell us about your farm. Like, I mean, it's not like you have enough on your plate. You've also got a garden and a farm. So tell us about your farm.
Rachel LangleyI am the kind of person who, the more I have to do, the more I can get done. I've found that if I'm just sitting around, I'm only going to sit around more. But if I have a lot to do, I just thrive and I just have more time than I ever thought I would.
(37:24):
Rachel LangleySo one of the reasons I named my clinic Homestead Direct primary care is because kind of in the homesteading movement, which I consider it more of a homestead than a farm, we don't have tons of crops and we don't have lots and lots of animals. So it's not a ranch, it's not a farm, it's a homestead.
Rachel LangleySo in the homestead movement part of the idea is to heal the land from what we've done to it in the past. We didn't understand just what an impact artificial fertilizers and pesticides we're having on the soil and losing our top soil, things like that. So part of what I try to do, I mean, I don't really need to generate my own milk and eggs.
(38:03):
Rachel LangleyBut being able to enjoy doing that process while also of putting all this poop all over the land all the time is my little way of healing over this part that I have control of. And I see a lot of similarities in my medical practice too in that I want to not only build relationships with these new patients.
(38:24):
Rachel LangleyAnd support my family off of this membership system, but also do my part in healing the damage that previous medical systems, previous doctors, previous experiences have done to them when they didn't feel that they were being listened to, that they felt they were being brushed off. We're told it's all in their head and that doesn't really count as real.
(38:45):
Rachel LangleyI want my relationship with them to heal that over in the same way that I want the animals that I have on my property to be healing up whatever I can do to to build the topsoil to make it retain more moisture, retain the rain and precipitation that we do get to make for a healthier environment in my little 5 acre.
Rachel LangleySo yeah, dairy cow and chickens and geese and turkeys and my turkeys and my pigs kind of disappear every winter time, and then we get new ones every summer, and they're delicious.
(39:19):
Wayne LowryI was going to say that sounds― it sounds like a dream to me. I mean, I will tell you like my dream now in South South Texas where I live, 5 acres is nothing like 5 acres you can't do anything but give me 500 acres.
Wayne LowryOh my, I will. I will be in Paradise. But my wife likes to be closer to Sam's Club. So until they put a Sam's Club in the middle of King Ranch, I think I'm going to be out of luck in that front. But it has been a pleasure meeting you and talking with you today.
(39:57):
Wayne LowryI hope you will join us again in the future, maybe as we have a panel of some sort. It's been a very easy conversation and sometimes you just don't know what you're going to get. You're going to come in and you don't know, is it going to be easy going to be hard? You're gonna have to pull teeth or, you know, or is it just going to be natural?
Wayne LowryThis has been a great episode. Thank you so much for being here with me today and as we wrap up this episode, can you tell us and our listeners where they can find you? What's the best place to reach you?
(40:27):
Rachel LangleyAh, great.
Rachel LangleyThanks for having me, Wayne. I have a― and I love my website. It's “COS Doctor” C-O-S D-O-C-T-O-R dot com. I'm active on YouTube. I try to post a lot of videos on there, mostly educational. I also like Facebook and Instagram. They might have very similar posts a lot of time, but whatever is your social media of choice.
(40:51):
Wayne LowryAwesome. Are you on LinkedIn?
Rachel LangleyI am. It's not quite as popular as my Instagram and Facebook, but yeah, I'm there too.
Wayne LowryAwesome. Well, I will make sure that we put all of those handles in the show note, and I want to again thank Dr. Langley for being here with us. And I want to encourage everyone to check out her social media, check out her website and who knows, maybe one day she will sell some of that delicious milk― raw cow milk to the world for all of our consumption.
(41:21):
Rachel LangleyLegally, legally. Legally.
Wayne LowryLegally, legally, whatever. Wherever it's legal. All right, where it's legal. This has been the Best DPC podcast and I want to tell you if you want to learn more about direct primary care when the best places to go is to go to our website, bestdpc.com there, you're going to find resources and networking opportunities across the United States.
(41:46):
Wayne LowryWe'd love to have you check out our website, create a profile if you don't already have one. Find us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Always remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel and listen to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Wayne LowryRemember, until next time your health matters, so demand the best with direct primary care. Bye bye.
Wayne LowrySo show me your cup, the cup you're drinking out of. It's got, like, all sorts of stuff on it. What is it?
(00:04):
Rachel LangleyYeah, it's got my flight. The 480th is the unit that I flew with F Sixteens in Germany.
Rachel LangleyBlack Forest Festival from last year, Black Forest Festival sticker that says mental health just as important as physical health.
Rachel LangleyTri Lakes Cares is a local food bank that I take patients from. Greece is where my brother was stationed. I'm a super donor with the local blood bank. That's my best friend's company, 1,000,000. That's a networking company networking group.
(00:40):
Wayne LowryNice. So basically you are just a walking billboard.
Rachel LangleyFor everything, yeah.
Wayne LowryFor everything who needs social media, you just walk around with that cup and basically how much do you charge? Maybe we'll put a Best DPC sticker on that.
Rachel LangleyThere we go. That's good. Provide me a free sticker. I'll put it on there.
Wayne LowryI need to find out how.
Wayne LowryAlright, there you go.
(01:12):
Wayne LowryHello and welcome to the Best DPC podcast The world's #1 show, covering all things direct primary care. I'm your host Wayne Lowry, and today I am honored to have with us Doctor Rachel Langley.
Wayne LowryDoctor Langley spent eight years as a flight surgeon in the US Air Force, which I can only imagine means that she performed surgeries while on flights.
(01:35):
Wayne LowryIf not, she can correct me. Just a minute. She now serves as a reservist. In August 2023, she opened up her own clinic in Colorado Springs. She is a former middle school science and math teacher who's always looking for the alternative path to avoid physical burnout.
(02:00):
Wayne LowryShe's passionate about coaching, weight management trends like GLP one, and she has 2 cows at home. I know that's a rough segue. I can't wait to hear about her cows, her turkeys, her chickens and her love for direct primary care. So let's dive in and welcome Doctor Langley. How are you today?
Rachel LangleyThank you. I'm doing well. How are you?
Wayne LowryDoing good, doing good. So I have so many questions. But first off for our listeners, maybe you should correct me on flight surgeon.
(02:28):
Rachel LangleySo a flight surgeon is from back in the day, especially in Britain, when all doctors were called surgeons. But if you're going to interact with a lot of pilots you need to sound cool. So I think that's why we've kept it that way. But all it is a primary care doctor who takes care of pilots, other air crew, air traffic controllers and their families.
Wayne LowryNow, I know you said that to make it sound a little less cool, but let's be honest, it's pretty cool. So you are serving those pilots with primary care and so tell us a little bit about that. About that experience.
(03:05):
Rachel LangleySo you get a little additional training, significant training about aerospace medicine and aerospace physiology. You need to know what's going to happen to someone's body and what health risks there's going to be if they're going to altitude on a regular basis. So lower ambient pressure, the chance of having a sudden decompression altitude.
(03:26):
Rachel LangleySo a sudden rush of air outwards, things like that can really impact your Physiology or Health and certain medical conditions. Certain medications are not a good mix with those risks.
Rachel LangleySo you need to have that formal education and then also a lot of your time as a flight surgeon, luckily, is spent out in the field getting to know these folks because especially these high performing pilots flying is their life.
(03:52):
Rachel LangleyAnd my job as a doctor is to keep them safe and to keep these multi $1,000,000 aircraft safe. So I don't want them crashing, which means sometimes that means I will be grounding them and keeping them from what they love most in the world.
Rachel LangleyAs a result, I've got to build a decent relationship with them. I have to spend time with them and physically put my life in their hands so I get to fly with the pilots that I'm working with to show that I trust them, and maybe I can earn their trust in turn.
(04:20):
Wayne LowryOK, so hold on a second. So you fly with the pilots, so you are so Tom Cruise takes you on a spin like how does that, how does that work?
Rachel LangleyYeah, I've flown in C-130, big ones with propellers. I really enjoyed my time at a training base because they were all 2 seaters because it's a training, a trainee and a trainer. So sometimes I got to fly with the trainers in those planes.
(04:45):
Rachel LangleyAnd I go up in T-1, which are kind of like a nice little plane to go and get lunch real quick, come back or T-38 are more of the training to become a jet pilot that really fast, ones that have pull G's or the T-6 is my favorite. It's a propeller plane that you get to do all the loops. The fun stuff. In addition to a bunch of other planes too.
(05:07):
Wayne LowrySo. I mean that sounds amazing, but I can only imagine probably the best part of all that is walking to the nearest yogurt shop with like the big Sun shades and the jacket. Right. And just like slow motion walking. Everybody looks like, “oh, this person's cool”.
Rachel LangleyI also live in Colorado Springs, which is just rife with military folks, so I think I get nothing but eye rolls when I wear my leather bomber jacket and my big aviation sunglasses.
(05:36):
Rachel LangleyEveryone's just rolling their eyes at me, so I'm not quite as cool around here, I guess.
Wayne LowryWell, I think I think you're pretty cool and I just met you and so you went from serving in our military and being involved in that. Of course you're still serving, but you decided to launch into DPC. So tell me a little bit about that. What, what made you dive into the DPC space?
(06:03):
Rachel LangleyWell, ever since even in high school, I mean, I was surrounded by a lot of highly driven students at my high school in the Washington, DC area. So there were a lot of people saying they wanted to be doctors and lawyers.
Rachel LangleyAnd I think my biology teacher at the time, one of my mentors was one of the first ones to say, “You know, being a doctor isn't all it's cracked up to be. The way doctors are portrayed and seen is just not the way the doctor's life is anymore.”
(06:31):
Rachel LangleyAnd I kept getting that message throughout college as well. That being a doctor was actually pretty miserable, like the suicide rates for physicians these days are out of this world. So maybe you should reconsider that.
Rachel LangleyAnd that's one of the reasons that I became a middle school teacher first. I still wanted to work with people. I still loved biology. So I did that, and I loved it. But I still felt a calling to be a physician, so I was always on the lookout for. What is it that's causing this different lifestyle than one would expect as a doctor?
(07:03):
Rachel LangleySo that's one of the reasons that even though I was family medicine trained, I went further to become a flight surgeon because instead of just being in clinic day in and day out saying 330 patients a day, I got to spend half my time out with the pilot out in the air traffic control watching this plane zoom by.
Rachel LangleyAnd that brought a lot of joy to my life. Building relationships with my patients outside of the clinical setting. So when I knew that I wanted to separate, I was still on the lookout for, I don't want to just be another cog in the wheel and see all the gazillion patients in personally a day and not have the fulfillment that I've gotten used to as a flight surgeon.
(07:45):
Rachel LangleySo I looked up one of my mentors from residency. I knew he'd gotten out of the military. He'd retired, so I wanted to see what he was doing because he might have some good ideas. And that was the first time I'd heard of direct primary care is he'd opened a practice in Idaho. So after that I started looking around at other practices.
Rachel LangleyI knew I wanted to settle down in Colorado Springs, since that's where my and my husband's families are all located and I saw some practices I came out, I was living in Germany with the Air Force at the time, came out for some interviews, found a practice that I meshed with, learned the ropes from that DPC practice for a while and then I got the chance to open my own practice. And I've loved every minute of it.
(08:26):
Wayne LowrySo tell me about the decision in your mind to take something a little bit more secure and to launch into your own thing because you know there's a lot of people that maybe they have the training, maybe they have the medical knowledge. But starting your own clinic, starting your own business like that's a totally different ball game.
Wayne LowryI want to take a quick break to talk about BestDPC.com. Are you a doctor looking to break free from the headaches of insurance and take control of your practice? Or maybe you're an employer searching for an affordable healthcare solution that actually works.
(09:00):
Wayne LowryAt BestDPC.com we cut through the noise and connect you with the country's best direct primary care clinics. Whether you're a patient tired of surprise medical bills or a physician ready to build a thriving membership based practice, we've got the tools and resources you need.
Wayne LowryFind the best DPC doctors near you. Get expert advice and take the first step towards a better healthcare. Visit BestDPC.com today and see why Direct Primary care is the future of medicine. That's BestDPC.com because great healthcare should be simple, affordable, and built around you.
(09:35):
Wayne LowryYour thought process from going, “Hey I've got an income too. Hey, I got to build my own company.”
Rachel LangleyYeah, it was a big jump and I feel like I kind of cheated and that I first joined another practice and got to learn the ropes somewhat from them, but I certainly wasn't involved in the nitty gritty business aspects of it.
(09:56):
Rachel LangleySo when I did for my own company, it was going against the grain of all of our training saying, “hey, you doctor, you stick with the medicine side. Don't worry about it. All the insurance administrators, people, stuff like that, we'll do the business side just trust us.”
Rachel LangleySo I still had that in my head and I had to let go of that. I went to networking groups because I didn't have many patients yet. So I had time to spend time with other entrepreneurs and pick up that entrepreneurial mindset, learn skills from them, build relationships with other business people that could help me get started, and that helped a lot too.
(10:33):
Rachel LangleyI know we have a small business development center here in town that was really helpful with just making sure I had all my ducks in a row legally tax wise as I got started because those really intimidate me still.
Wayne LowryYeah. Well, I mean that, that intimidates a lot of people. I mean, you know, I can tell you from my experience, starting multiple businesses, the thing that I worry about the most is do I do it in the right order? Did I file that? Did I do this? And then, you know, sometimes we get bogged down in the weeds of trying to do business. We don't actually do business.
(11:10):
Wayne LowryAnd so it's very admirable to see someone who's willing to take a risk and learn something new, and to dive into the entrepreneurial space. So you talked about some of the networking communities, where did you find the most success in finding like minded people? Was that other DPC's? Was it just general business groups, masterminds, school communities like where, where did you find your tribe?
(11:39):
Rachel LangleyI liked 1,000,000 cups a lot. That's an Internet or a national at least networking group that I think they call themselves more of a support group for entrepreneurs than a network group.
Rachel LangleySo I like the focus not only on building relationships so we can do business with each other, but also just getting that energy back that you tend to get worn out of you over the course of the week, you get worn out and then you've got these Wednesday mornings to reinvigorate and connect with people that are going through the same struggles that know the difficulties you're facing and can give you that pat on the back. Don't give up yet.
(12:19):
Wayne LowryYeah. So besides the motivation, was there other things were they bringing to the table as far as support? Any technology that you found from those groups that you said, hey, this really has helped me or like marketing techniques like what? What else did you kind of learn from those groups?
(12:40):
Rachel LangleyI got a lot of book recommendations, podcast recommendations that I've drawn upon a lot. There's a marketing book called Everything is marketing. Technically it's for dentist offices, but that's really what got me started in thinking about hey outside the box. What can I do to make my space everything when I interact with someone kind of really scream, “My office is awesome. My practice is awesome. You should join me and check me out and send all your friends too.”
(13:08):
Rachel LangleySo I really liked that book. I think that there is some other DPC practices. Doctor Phil Boucher up in Omaha does a lot to educate physicians about how to put them out there, put themselves out there in the virtual space, what to look for in a good website, what SEO techniques? There's a new one everyday.
(13:32):
Rachel LangleyHe's the one who turned me on to smarter cue, which is a social networking app. I guess it would be considered, but it plugs into all my social media and allows me to recycle posts automatically. So I just post my 200 favorite posts. Then they're just going to run forever. And if I die, social media accounts will never die with me.
(13:56):
Wayne LowryYeah. No, the social media, you, you will be long gone. I still like bump into post and I go. Wait a second. I'm pretty sure they've been dead 10 years. Like I don't know that I should engage with that post. So what was the name of that last platform you said? Social what?
Rachel LangleySmarter queue.
Wayne LowrySmarter queue all right.
(14:17):
Rachel LangleyEU, EU or however you spell that British line? Yeah, European.
Wayne LowryDon't worry, I can't spell. I can't spell anything, so I will solve that for me here in a little bit so talking about that kind of segue into maybe some of your business setup. You are a solo paneer, right? You're by yourself, you have any?
(14:41):
Rachel LangleyNo staff, no staff at all. My mom's a retired nurse and she helped me a lot in the beginning, getting things sorted out and just manning the front desk while I was going crazy.
Rachel LangleySo I highly recommend having a retired nurse mom who can help you, but now I have no staff. She's gone on to enjoy her retired life and I'm holding it down.
(15:02):
Wayne LowrySo are you, then? So you're scheduling your patients, you are making the referrals? You are booking the follow-ups, ordering the labs, you're doing all the things.
Wayne LowrySo how much time do you have if you're doing all the things like how much time are you able to spend with the patients?
Rachel LangleyAll the things you want to do it.
(15:26):
Rachel LangleyWell, a lot. Of those things I'm doing while I'm with the patient too, I mean, my appointments are half an hour to an hour long.
Rachel LangleyAnd I mean right there. We're also chatting about when you're going to come back in. So I scheduled that on my laptop right then we're talking about what labs we're going to draw. I'm ordering them then, ordering quest to come and pick them up as soon as they can. Let's see what else I'm sending the referral right there as we talk about it. Making sure the fax is going to the right place and it doesn't get a kickback.
(15:57):
Wayne LowrySo what you're saying is you're multitasking.
Rachel LangleyA little bit, yeah.
Wayne LowryOK, see I couldn't do that. I would have to be like, OK, what did I just say? What did I just do? So I'm glad you've got. You've got many different talents that are on display here. So you're scheduling your own posts. You're booking your own appointments and what. Tell us about your tech stack. What are you using?
(16:21):
Wayne LowryIf you don't mind sharing your EHR, your outreach, your phone system, what are you using and would you recommend? Any of those?
Rachel LangleyI'm firmly devoted to Atlas as my ER. They've got some clever AI options that help me to write those more detailed referral requests, things like that, so that I don't even have to think about it. It just draws from the note that I just wrote and writes up a fax that I can send to a specialist or wherever I'm sending them.
(16:51):
Rachel LangleyThat's pretty cool. Let's see. Yeah, the only phone company around me is Comcast, and they recently put in a new feature on my phones where automatically I used to have to switch back and forth between my phones being sent to my office versus my cell phone if I was going to be home longer than I expected or stay home that day, get some chores done.
Rachel LangleySo now instead of having to mess with that, no matter who's calling, the voicemail gets transcribed and sends to my email address, and that something that I can, even if I'm with a patient and just need to glance at who just called, I can do so in my email. And that's been such a game changer. I really, really like that feature.
(17:30):
Wayne LowryYeah. So what about your engagement with your patients, tell us a little bit about a day in the life your patients come in, do you have a waiting room where you basically just on time appointments kind of talk about that patient experience from the moment they walk in until they see you?
Rachel LangleyYeah. So patients often find out about me online. They can book a meet and greet with me for free on my website. That was something that I really liked incorporating that they could. It does mean I have two schedules, one through my website and one through Atlas.
(18:08):
Rachel LangleySo I do have to go through and update both of those. Whenever I have a patient, an appointment made on one that doesn't fit with the other.
Rachel LangleySo a little bit obnoxious, but it's been really worth it to be able to let prospective patients sign up for meet and greets, and then I'll go in if someone signs up and delete that slot from availability in Atlas and it works out nicely.
(18:29):
Rachel LangleyOr vice versa if I have a patient that really has to come in during my meet and greet sections I go into acuity and block that off. So they come in, meet me and then they have to sign up online through my Atlas link.
Rachel LangleyI really insist on them signing. Doing that at home because I think that they could put in better medication dosages if they could just sit at home and pull that up rather than coming in and trying to recall that or hey, when did I have that procedure done? I don't remember. And then I get them in for their first hour long appointment to get to know them.
(19:04):
Rachel LangleyI try to give him a heads up that we're in the middle of three buildings. I often have people go to the wrong building but it happens first floor in the back. I do have a waiting room. It has five chairs and a couch in it, as well as a little coffee bar, and I just got a fizzy water dispenser. I love fizzy water after living in Germany so you can get your fizzy water fixed, or your coffee, or tea, your cocoa. Whatever.
Wayne LowryReally fancy.
(19:30):
Rachel LangleyI got a coffee thing from goodwill. It was fantastic most of the time people aren't waiting, but they can if they need to or I really like having… I have duplos and some other basic kid toys sitting in the front room.
Wayne LowryNice.
Rachel LangleySo if parents don't have time to get a babysitter or it's a hassle to get a babysitter, I've even just had a set of triplets come with their dad the other day, and they were having a great time with the duplos up front. And so we actually just moved our appointment into the waiting room and talked about his full health history just sitting right there while his kids played.
(20:05):
Rachel LangleySo they could have a snack and play around and interact with their dad when they needed to, but also be distracted enough that we could have a good conversation about his health.
Rachel LangleySo that's available. I have some people with older kids that will just sit and play on their devices or read in the front room while their parents go back and they're comfortable enough for that?
Wayne LowrySo basically just gives them a place to be. It's not so much that they're there waiting for their appointment as much as it's a place for your family members to hang out or to chill out while the person that's there for their appointment is seen, so that's at least that's how I take it now, what about virtual care? Are you utilizing any technology around that to provide virtual care for your patients?
(20:42):
Rachel LangleyYeah. Yeah, Atlas provides great video services. It's apparently secure, and that's what they tell me where I can either video call them to their phone or to their email, send the link through the Mr. I'm also happy to do phone appointments too. Honestly, phone and webcam appointments tend to be shorter than in person appointments for some reason .
(21:11):
Rachel LangleyI'm fine with it either way. I love it.
Rachel LangleySometimes I forget that on the insurance side they really don't get paid for phone visits like you could spend an hour on the phone with a patient and have it not count really, which is just crazy because I provide great care over the phone and can keep people out of urgent cares, out of the ER's with a simple phone call. So valuable to everyone.
(21:36):
Wayne LowryIt really is and you know one thing that I always appreciate about my DPC is I would go see my provider and then I don't need to go back to get the get the lab results like they email me the lab results, they text me and say, “Hey, do you have 5 minutes for a phone call?” Sure. And then you know, we cover what we need to cover. I know what I need to do.
(22:02):
Wayne LowryGod, shocker, lose weight, exercise, do the things you're supposed to do—eat healthy. Stop eating so many tortillas.
Wayne LowryBut they tell us that, you know, and I don't have to go in. I don't have to take another 30 minutes or an hour or two hours of my day to see a provider. And so tell me your customers feedback or your patients feedback on that. What do they think? People coming out of a traditional healthcare system or healthcare plan to having a DPC provider that has that flexibility, what are they telling you?
(22:34):
Rachel LangleyYeah, I mean…
Rachel LangleyThey can't really believe that it's real. Sometimes I know what my meet-and-greet. I sometimes get the, “No, but really, where did you actually graduate from? Are you really a doctor? You don't…? If you're a doctor, you should not have time for this kind of care at this level of care. Being able to text or email you. That's just not what we're used to.” So it's sometimes hard to believe.
(22:58):
Wayne LowryWell, so you started this practice, you're about two years into it, almost two years. Where do you see yourself in the next two years?
Wayne LowryAre you going to hire someone to help you grow this? Are you looking to expand and grow, or are you happy with what we would call in my world a lifestyle business, are you looking at more of an aggressive growth strategy for your practice?
(23:32):
Rachel LangleyI definitely like the lifestyle practice. I guess the micro-practice is another one I've heard, so I like where I am. I'm not sure I want to grow much more. I'd love to hire an MA to help out, but I really want to find the right person first. That's more important than getting some of these tasks off my plate immediately.
Rachel LangleyI dream of joining and helping other doctors who are afraid of DPC but want to form their own practice and get them started. Like a “DPC incubator” where I have a little bit more space than I really need. It'll be a little bit cramped, but if I could bring another Doctor who's interested, wants to build their own practice.
(24:14):
Rachel LangleyBut for now I can't afford rents, can't afford supplies.
Rachel LangleyI think that that would be an ideal combination. They come and work with me for a while. They have their own separate patients that you're building up. We cover for each other too. I'd love to go on a month-long vacation and then cover for me during that, but also they're slowly building up their practice without having so many expenses of a start-up business.
(24:40):
Rachel LangleyAnd then as they get more comfortable, they have a number that they think they can sustain themselves with. They move out, they start their own practice because I think DPC doctors…
Rachel Langley…often have very strong opinions about how their practice should be run, which is wonderful, and I know I love having things exactly the way I want them to be, so I'm not really looking to find a doctor, who's going to agree with me on everything, but I'd love to help one get started. We help each other out while they're getting started, and then they go on to thrive on their own.
(25:07):
Wayne LowryYeah.
Wayne LowrySo tell us. Tell me a little about some of the specialties or some of the, I guess specialties not the right term, but what are some of the areas of focus that you really enjoy in your practice? Is it weight loss management? Is it pediatric care? What would you say are the kind of the areas of focus that you probably enjoy more than others?
(25:34):
Rachel LangleyWell, I think a lot of people think of family doctors sometimes as just referral machines, which always drives me a little crazy because that's a little bit of what we've become in the typical insurance driven system is that if you only have 10 minutes with me, yeah, I'm I don't have time to look at that mole and cut it off. I don't have time to talk with you more about your diet and why you might have diarrhea every day. I'm just gonna send you to a dermatologist and send you to a gastroenterologist.
(26:02):
Rachel LangleyBut with fewer patients and more time I can, I've received the training from all those specialists in residency. I spent months working with dermatology, general surgery, even Podiatry, to learn the basics of their practice so that I know the first steps. Maybe I can keep my patients out of their offices.
Rachel LangleyEntirely, which at least I know in the military training system was rather appreciated. I mean, our specialists already had enough.
(26:29):
Rachel LangleyThey didn't really need to see someone who just needed a couple little dietary tweaks to feel better, or to have every conversation about an umbilical hernia. The risks of having one, whether they really needed surgery on it or not. I could have those conversations instead, save them some time so that they can spend more time with their appointments.
(26:50):
Rachel LangleyAnd have the patients that do go and see the specialist specialists who really need them.
Rachel LangleySo in general, I love to dabble in all of those things that sometimes we forget that family medicine doctors are trained in. But I also am a lactation consultant, so I love working with new moms and new babies, and I also am really interested in what's coming out these days about lifestyle, coaching, weight loss, coaching, health coaching…
(27:16):
Rachel LangleyAnd GLP-1 medications when they're needed think that it's important that folks that are considering GLP-1 medications know that they're not going to solve all their issues. They're still going to have the same brain that’s leading to the decisions that they don't want to be making.
(27:37):
Rachel LangleyAnd really be tackling the mental processes behind the choices that they're making in order to have lasting results even on the GLP-1 medications cause although they do a really great job with turning off that food chatter with…
Rachel Langley…decreasing your desire for food all the time and planning that next meal every minute of the day, you're eventually probably going to want to come off those medications. And if you haven't worked with your thoughts to be able to change those patterns and those habits, you're going to be pulled back into the same habits.
(28:14):
Wayne LowrySo what are you? So then what are you thinking as far as with your practice? Are you trying to encourage people not to do ‘em, to do ‘em, do them for a season. Combine it with something else, like what? What is…kind of your general thoughts around GLP-1’s right now?
Rachel LangleyI like to do both GLP-1’s with some degree of health coaching. Some people can just listen to a podcast about better eating and the mental kind of the circle of events that happen and then you have thoughts about those events, those events, those thoughts cause feelings and your feelings…
(28:51):
Rachel Langley…are what really drives you to take the next steps, whether that's going for a walk in the evenings or curling up on the couch with a bag of chips.
Rachel LangleySo which since you can change those thoughts—
Wayne LowryWhat about? What about going on a walk with a bag of chips?
Wayne LowryIs that on the table?
Rachel LangleyOh well, you know, it depends on what kind of results you're getting from that. Use yourself as a little experiment if it's going where you want it to go, then keep up the good work.
(29:15):
Wayne LowryWow, that was that. Are you sure you’re not a politician too? It was a very political answer.
Rachel LangleyI'm never going to say that there's not food that you're allowed to eat. You're a grown up.
Rachel LangleyYou can eat whatever you want.
Wayne LowryOh well, I need you to talk to some people in my life.
Wayne LowryNo. Yeah, all kidding aside. So. So you wanna obviously, what you're saying is…
(29:37):
Wayne Lowry…marrying that with a coaching, you know, regiment, some routine or an app or something that you are. And so in that what are you, what are you seeing as far as results when you're combining those two elements together?
Rachel LangleyI'm seeing great success.
Rachel LangleyI mean, I haven't had folks who have been on the medications and been doing this work for years yet because I've only been in practice for a little while and GLP-1’s haven't been up for that long. I certainly wasn't one of the early adopters of them. I wanted to see what happened.
(30:11):
Rachel LangleyBut so far people are very, very happy with the kind of changes they're getting and what's great about things that you learn in coaching and changing your thoughts to get the kind of outcomes that you want is that it doesn't just apply to weight loss. You find that you have better relationships because you're not just creating this external manual for your spouse.
(30:33):
Rachel LangleyThat they don't know exists, but how dare they not realize how important it was that you don't leave your toothbrush there, or whatever it is. Better relationships with your kids. Just a healthier lifestyle, happier life in general is really what I love to get my patients.
Wayne LowryYeah.
Wayne LowryAll right. Well, that's interesting. Now some of the things that have hit the news and right now we're recording this at the end of May. And so some of the news stories over the last few weeks and month is the cost. So a lot of the compound pharmacies…
(31:12):
Wayne Lowry…that were creating their own versions of OZEMPIC and so forth. That is now been halted. They have, I think, until the end of this month, if I remember correctly. You can correct me if I'm wrong and then they're not going to be available basically. So what are you seeing as far as the costs associated with those things and are there…?
Wayne Lowry…alternatives that you're examining, you're looking at to help with the cost for your patients.
(31:38):
Rachel LangleyThey are certainly expensive and a lot of my patients don't have insurance or the insurance is refusing to pay for them. So they have. I mean, I know that some of the manufacturers have some programs to reduce their costs, but they're still crazy expensive and that's why I like so much being able to offer patients. “Hey, you know what? We could. We can get your weight under control faster with these medications. Or we could also do the mental work. That's what's actually going to make this weight loss last. And you won't get there as fast, but you will have the lasting—this will be the last time you ever have to lose weight.”
(32:17):
Wayne LowryTake a quick break to talk about scalebyseo.com.
Wayne LowryIf you run a direct primary care clinic, you already know the power of patient relationships. But here's the thing. Patients can't sign up if they can't find you. That's where scale by SEO comes in. We help DPC clinics get seen where people are searching so you're not just waiting for word of mouth referrals.
(32:38):
Wayne LowryWith the right SEO strategy, your practice becomes the obvious choice. When people are looking for better healthcare options. If you're not showing up where they're searching, you're missing out. Be visible, get found, grow your practice, don't lead growth to chance. Visit scalebyseo.com today and let's get your clinic in front of the right people.
(33:01):
Rachel LangleyRealize how humble you have to be as an entrepreneur, as a doctor, especially as a military officer. I kind of got used to being in one place where the decisions I made should stick and they should last, and that's the way we do them from now on.
Rachel LangleyBut I really have so much to learn, especially when it comes. I mean, in medicine, obviously too, but also in the business arena. Things that I originally might have set out and said “No, I'm never going to go to a networking group. What do you even do in a networking group? like I—these are fake friends. What are these?”
(33:36):
Rachel LangleySo having to really eat my humble pie and go to these networking groups and sit and talk with every realtor in the city and that's OK. These are still fun and interesting people, and it's kind of like just sitting and talking with patients, too. I mean, there's always conversation to be made and.
Rachel LangleyConnections to build and you never know when that's going to end up being a really great boon for your business or for your personal life. A friendship that you wouldn't have found if you hadn't gone to that stupid networking group.
(34:10):
Wayne LowryWell, you know, there's something to be said there now, you said you are enjoying this whole solo practice thing, what about you? Most providers, I mean, it seems like you maybe you have a broad enough, you know, history from being a teacher. I'm married to a teacher. I understand. I know. I know that life. How much planning is involved and how much preparation and…
(34:37):
Rachel LangleyGrading. Always grading.
Wayne LowryAnd grading and more grading and a lot of doing it yourself. I mean it is a figure it out yourself kind of job and I can see that being part of your history helping you be in a position to do the solo practice. But what about most?
(35:01):
Wayne LowryI would say a majority doctors I know that would probably struggle with social media or struggle with networking or struggle with onboarding. What would you recommend to them like as far as their first steps into the DPC space?
Rachel LangleyI would almost recommend they get a life coach and really examine the thoughts that they're having about social media if they're sitting and thinking the whole time about how social media is taking over the world and it's evil and it's terrible and I hate being involved in it at all.
(35:40):
Rachel LangleyYeah, it's going to be a lot more painful than it has to be, but if you consider it as just a new thing to learn something that will help you to grow. As a person, something that you can get good at, but you're going to have to practice. Then it really changes the whole experience.
Rachel LangleySo yes, if you're miserable and your current insurance driven job getting out will help, but you will also need to change some of the thought processes that have become habits for you. So going in and complaining about how everyone else needs to change and then your life would be perfect isn't going to work in DPC anymore than it works in an insurance driven company.
(36:13):
Rachel LangleyThat you need to be working on yourself and that really helps you to help your patients too. You’re learning new skills is just such a great way to be able to pass on your personal experiences to some extent to your patients and relate to them with where they are. If you can see that your patient who's.
Rachel LangleyStruggling with any desire to possibly eat a green vegetable ever in their life because it's just not what they're used to. And you're sitting there thinking about how much they hate learning how to do their own taxes for their business. Maybe you can find some common ground there.
(36:52):
Wayne LowryGotcha. Well, before we wrap up today, I did not want to leave this podcast without asking you to tell us about your farm. Like, I mean, it's not like you have enough on your plate. You've also got a garden and a farm. So tell us about your farm.
Rachel LangleyI am the kind of person who, the more I have to do, the more I can get done. I've found that if I'm just sitting around, I'm only going to sit around more. But if I have a lot to do, I just thrive and I just have more time than I ever thought I would.
(37:24):
Rachel LangleySo one of the reasons I named my clinic Homestead Direct primary care is because kind of in the homesteading movement, which I consider it more of a homestead than a farm, we don't have tons of crops and we don't have lots and lots of animals. So it's not a ranch, it's not a farm, it's a homestead.
Rachel LangleySo in the homestead movement part of the idea is to heal the land from what we've done to it in the past. We didn't understand just what an impact artificial fertilizers and pesticides we're having on the soil and losing our top soil, things like that. So part of what I try to do, I mean, I don't really need to generate my own milk and eggs.
(38:03):
Rachel LangleyBut being able to enjoy doing that process while also of putting all this poop all over the land all the time is my little way of healing over this part that I have control of. And I see a lot of similarities in my medical practice too in that I want to not only build relationships with these new patients.
(38:24):
Rachel LangleyAnd support my family off of this membership system, but also do my part in healing the damage that previous medical systems, previous doctors, previous experiences have done to them when they didn't feel that they were being listened to, that they felt they were being brushed off. We're told it's all in their head and that doesn't really count as real.
(38:45):
Rachel LangleyI want my relationship with them to heal that over in the same way that I want the animals that I have on my property to be healing up whatever I can do to to build the topsoil to make it retain more moisture, retain the rain and precipitation that we do get to make for a healthier environment in my little 5 acre.
Rachel LangleySo yeah, dairy cow and chickens and geese and turkeys and my turkeys and my pigs kind of disappear every winter time, and then we get new ones every summer, and they're delicious.
(39:19):
Wayne LowryI was going to say that sounds― it sounds like a dream to me. I mean, I will tell you like my dream now in South South Texas where I live, 5 acres is nothing like 5 acres you can't do anything but give me 500 acres.
Wayne LowryOh my, I will. I will be in Paradise. But my wife likes to be closer to Sam's Club. So until they put a Sam's Club in the middle of King Ranch, I think I'm going to be out of luck in that front. But it has been a pleasure meeting you and talking with you today.
(39:57):
Wayne LowryI hope you will join us again in the future, maybe as we have a panel of some sort. It's been a very easy conversation and sometimes you just don't know what you're going to get. You're going to come in and you don't know, is it going to be easy going to be hard? You're gonna have to pull teeth or, you know, or is it just going to be natural?
Wayne LowryThis has been a great episode. Thank you so much for being here with me today and as we wrap up this episode, can you tell us and our listeners where they can find you? What's the best place to reach you?
(40:27):
Rachel LangleyAh, great.
Rachel LangleyThanks for having me, Wayne. I have a― and I love my website. It's “COS Doctor” C-O-S D-O-C-T-O-R dot com. I'm active on YouTube. I try to post a lot of videos on there, mostly educational. I also like Facebook and Instagram. They might have very similar posts a lot of time, but whatever is your social media of choice.
(40:51):
Wayne LowryAwesome. Are you on LinkedIn?
Rachel LangleyI am. It's not quite as popular as my Instagram and Facebook, but yeah, I'm there too.
Wayne LowryAwesome. Well, I will make sure that we put all of those handles in the show note, and I want to again thank Dr. Langley for being here with us. And I want to encourage everyone to check out her social media, check out her website and who knows, maybe one day she will sell some of that delicious milk― raw cow milk to the world for all of our consumption.
(41:21):
Rachel LangleyLegally, legally. Legally.
Wayne LowryLegally, legally, whatever. Wherever it's legal. All right, where it's legal. This has been the Best DPC podcast and I want to tell you if you want to learn more about direct primary care when the best places to go is to go to our website, bestdpc.com there, you're going to find resources and networking opportunities across the United States.
(41:46):
Wayne LowryWe'd love to have you check out our website, create a profile if you don't already have one. Find us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Always remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel and listen to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Wayne LowryRemember, until next time your health matters, so demand the best with direct primary care. Bye bye.
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