How TrueCare's Golfran Rivera Serves 241 Patients Without Taking Insurance

Welcome back to another episode here on the Hard Hustle Podcast. Our next guest, he didn't leave the army 13 years to become a pill pusher for insurance companies. He actually built True Care uh businesses. America's healthcare system is broken and he refused to be a part of that problem. So, if we can just kind of start there, go like you had this vision. You Thank you, first of all, for your services, but you knew you wanted to do much more and we kind of even talked about how you got into this space exactly, but how we get here, man. Tell us a story. Yeah. So, um, thank you. Thank you again for for having me. Um, so as you said, I was in the military 13 years, 12 active duty, one uh was reserve. And the last thing I did when I was in the army, I actually became a PA, a physician assistant. Um, when I got out, I always knew from the beginning, I wasn't a fan of healthcare in the US. I I wasn't even excited about going into the health care system as a as a clinician. So, I was really dreading getting out of the army and going into the civilian space. And the reason for that is because they there's a reputation outside of the military that you know you you see you're going to see a lot of patients and we call it patient mills. You're going to crank out patient after patient after patient 20 to 25 a day if you're lucky. And the idea of that and whether or not I was actually going to be making a difference in my patients lives that that whole thing was something that I was dreading. So sure enough, I got out. I got started with a local health center here and it was exactly what I was hoping it wouldn't be. Um it was just that the 20 to 25 very sick patients needed a lot of attention that I couldn't give them. And so it wasn't long before I was basically saying look if I continue in medicine it can't be this way. Um it's going to have to be something different. And I had heard about something called direct primary care which is a membershipbased model of care. Patients pay you directly and in exchange for that they see you as many times as they need. They get direct access to you. They get all the services except there's no insurance. Um so I had heard about that. I looked into that and as soon as I could, I think four months after getting out of the army, I got started with my practice and that was back in last year actually in January. man, like truly go from practicing medicine to running your own practice in a very short period of time that uh pushing the skip or or skipping the the um paying your dues route, right? Go straight forward. Did did you receive a lot of backlash? Was there people in your ear saying, "What are you doing?" Or you we talked about faith, or did you just have this this this calling from God to go ahead and do this line of work that you didn't care what anybody had to say to you? So, let me let me answer the first question, right? Did I have any push back? Um, by this stage in my life, I'm surrounded by those that love me, that I trust, that speak wisdom into my life. Um, at this point, chief among them is Mrs. Rivera. Um, so Mrs. Rivera has been through me with me through 13 years of service and a failed dry cleaning business that resulted in bankruptcy. So when I turned to her and said, "Hey, I want to start another business." She she was nervous. She definitely looked at me and was like, "Yo, is this what God is calling you to? Are you sure? Let me get on my knees and pray." Cuz she knows I'm crazy sometimes. Um but I did I you know I did have this conviction like entrepreneurship is something that I have felt for a long time the Lord had called me to. It's conversations that he and I have had for a while. Even while I was in the military honestly the challenge was waiting faithfully and humbly while I was in the army still being a good soldier even though I knew longterm this was something else coming. Right. So that was for sure. Um I can't tell you that I that I had gotten a clear vision for what this would be. What I knew and I still remember asking the Lord this that whatever it was he was going to build the most important thing I had had to understand is it had to be in his hand. So I was just going to follow. I was just going to try and see. I didn't have any opposition. I actually had someone speak life into me, a complete stranger, which was like served as a further confirmation in my mind that this was the way I needed to go. It was a physician here in the area. I reached out to her. She didn't know me from Adam and she's doing the same thing. And I asked her, you know, what do you think about this as a PA? Should I pay my dues first, you know, before I jumped into this? No, that's that's a legitimate question I had. You know, do you think I need to be practicing medicine forever? And she looked at me and she knows Army PA cuz we're local to the area. And she's like, you're you're a PA, right? And I said, yes. And she's like, you you diagnose and treat patients, right? And I was like, yes. So she's like, so what are we talking about? like if if you want to do this start it. So that was so four months later I went ahead and got started. First of all, I want to kind of go back before I mention that I feel so bad. I'm drinking water out of this cup and it says Advent Health on it and I was like that's not what we're trying to promote. Okay, we're not trying to promote this now. I feel like I should not drink water. Oh my god. I I love entrepreneurship, man. And just like yourself, I've had failed businesses. And one of the things that I've had to learn is that through those failures, there's lessons to be learned. God is teaching us something, right? So we don't make the same mistake twice. And I remember I was 27 years old and I I I did not want to close this cafe because I didn't want to look like a failure, right? Like, oh my god, what are my friends going to think? What are these people going to think? And it wasn't between me and them. It was between me and God. And it was a lesson that he was teaching me to we talked about a little earlier the opportunities that are presenting themselves now. if it wasn't for those opportunities that that I had to overcome and be resilient really about I don't get here to this point, you know, and I could imagine that you've there were some my wife just like your wife thinks that we're a little crazy, right? Like you want another business, another business I've probably done this three, four times now at this point is like normal. But I I want to just ask you because not a lot of people are going to take risk on themselves and I want to say risk, not a lot of people going to sacrifice. Someone said rest the other day. I said no. What we done is what we've sacrificed. God has called us upon us. We have to we have to show him that we believe and a lot of times it is sacrificing time, family time, saying no to things that we really want to do, right? Um that lead us to these opportunities, man. So I think over a year now. It's been a year that you've been practicing your own your doing your own thing. Yeah, I started in January of 2024. So 21 months. Yeah. So I ask you how many times during that time did you feel like why am I doing this? Oh. Oh even now even now uh yeah it's hard a lot of people don't and it's not because we don't love what we do right it's hard right it is not meant for everybody. Yeah. You know you say that. So, how I got into the the the dry cleaning, if I may briefly, was because I realized that I was repeating patterns that my dad had done and that my mom had done, and I was setting my children up for kind of the same. My parents are great, but financially and as far as preparation for the future, there was some things there that needed to change. And I was repeating the cycle. And when I realized that, I fell on my knees and I asked the Lord to teach me, teach me how to change this cuz I don't know how. And to make a long story short, eventually I came I read a book that talked about how uh to make to to build wealths, you need excess cash, education, and experience. And at this point, I had education and I had excess cash. I didn't have experience. And I kid you not, like a month or two before I came across the dry cleaners, I was on my knees asking the Lord, "How do I gain experience? Show me how I gain experience." And through a series of events, we eventually found ourselves to here. And so we ran this dry cleaners for six months. And I tell you what, I don't know that you could pay for such a good school of business than running this dry cleaners. And when you talk about developing resilience, 4 in the morning, stirring starch with water, stirring it before I go into work, formation in uniform, and I'm like my shoulder's on fire. It's cuz it's I got a whole bunch of issues there. And I'm thinking to myself, this is not for everybody. Like I thought this was easy, right? I thought this was you buy the business, you manage it, you make the money, and you go home. That's not what this is. And I still remember that moment when I feel sorry for myself and I'm like, no, like those are the moments that taught me resilience. Those are the moments that taught me adaptability. And at the end, I I really do believe that like you said, it was it was it was a part of the development process that the Lord has brought me through. Yeah. We don't know it at that time, but you'd look back at it and you'd be like, "Oh, okay. I I see what you did there, God. God God do things in mysterious ways, man. I I truly do love it. And I love that you're back at it again. And um you know, one thing I've heard from another leader is he he was in the um the business of software for 20 plus years and as his his mother-in-law passed away, she always hated his job. She said, "You need to do something to help people. Why are you doing what you're doing? You got to find a job where you help people." And that's what you do. You're helping people. God uses us to really help people, man. To really change people's, you know, the way they live, the way they think, the way they see. Um, and I'm I'm happy that you've found this place, man, where you're helping people ideally, you know, and some may say you took the shortcut, but no, you already prepared for it because of what you've done in the past. So, paying your dues, you paid your dues, man. The 13 years in the military, the business background, the failures, come on, man. You you you paid your dues. Um, I I do think that you're very we talked about the whole podcast of what you would love to do, which which I think you definitely should do more of, but I think you really have a strong um respect on the health care systems and what America should actually be experiencing. So, straight out of your mouth, you say you hate hate America's health care system. Um, when did that hatred turn into action for you? Is it um coming out of the military? Like when do you realize I need to do something about this? Yeah, it was um so it started while I was still in the army as a PA. So I was fresh PA at a PA school and um my unit I was with a a unit that was there with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I was not part of the withdrawal. I was still in school. So, I got out. I got I got I graduated and I'm seeing these these soldiers. A and a lot of these people were really really hurt by what they saw overseas. And even though in the military you get free health care, um these people were not being served the way they needed to. And so even in that time, I knew that my training um did not allow me to spend the necessary time that some of these soldiers needed, right? Because a lot of them were being sent to me by mental health specialists in the area with instructions. Go see your PA and get meds. That's what you need is go get meds. So for the chief complaint, like why are you here? Oh, I need meds. when there's a place for that. But these people, what they needed was someone they could talk to, someone they could share their experience with and be heard, right? Someone who understood, okay, the physical side of things, but also the mental and spiritual side of things. But there wasn't enough time for that because all the appointments are stacked on top of each other. So me and my medic started to host clinic later in like I would do regular clinic but then we would block off a period of time in the afternoon for some of the soldiers that they knew were struggling the most. So that was the beginning where I started to get a sense that like this is how it should be done cuz this is how people get actually better. When I got out and I was back into this patient after patient after patient thing, um, and I had heard about the DPC model, I knew, like I'm telling you, I cannot, and I don't know if it's a weakness of mine. I'm going to be honest with you. I I worry that maybe it is, but I cannot tolerate being in a situation where the patient feels that it's my responsibility to help them. And I have five minutes to make sure that they're taking their medications, refilling those, ordering labs, and sending them on their way, knowing that I've done very little to actually serve them. So once I was out of the army in this in the the traditional health care system, the the fire was on me to get out of there ASAP. So you were tired of the Burger King medicine as you mentioned. Absolutely. And if I may, I think part of it too is like so a lot of people that get into healthcare, they get in when they're young, 19, 18, 20 years old, right? Yeah. So I'm coming in after 13 years. I've done two two rotations. I've spent so much time away from my family in training events. And I've spent so long doing things I don't want to do, right? Because I signed on the dotted line. Mhm. For better or worse, getting out of the army, I'm not about that anymore because, you know, I'm I'm free now. That's what the beard is for is to prove that I am free, right? And so yeah, I I I didn't want I didn't want anybody telling the system telling me how this is supposed to be, especially when it's just for profits in the end. If the Heart and Hustle podcast has ever sparked any idea or made you think differently, do us a favor. Make sure to guys share this, post it on LinkedIn, or even text that nonprofit friend that you just have. Whatever works. This is what keeps the conversation going and allows us to just grow this community together. Seriously, we appreciate you. Two things I want to mention. One is that you're a Latino in this space. Not a lot of people I I have I just haven't seen a lot. So, um, does that matter to you that you have representation in this space as a Latino? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, here in this area around Fyville, we have a decent migrant populations, Latinos. Um, it isn't a blessing and honor to be able to serve them, to see that relief when they hear me speak Spanish. You know, they'll get on the phone and they're trying the English and they don't got it. And then I Yeah, that's really that's really awesome. Um, it is a privilege to be able to do that. Yeah. And for your military background, man, I I have a neighbor that was a Marine and did that for years. And um, the other day I was talking about therapy and one he said, and you can talk about this because we'll talk about that whole model that you have. One, he's like, "Man, I have insurance through my company, but it's still so expensive, right?" And then he's like, "But also, I want to speak to somebody, Ephrain, but it's like every time I go and talk to them, immediately when I say that I'm in the military, they just think that you should prescribe me drugs, and I don't want that. I just want to have a conversation. I don't want to go somewhere where they feel that because I entered the military that I'm automatically should be on prescription. And it's my it's my PTSD. It's my this, is my that." Is that what you're referring to when you talk about the military and people just wanting to have conversations but it not happening that way? Is that kind of what you were referring to a little earlier? Um yes. Yeah. And there's there's a little bit more I think. Um so let's see. One of the issues when it comes to being service members there is there is this automatic mindset that people have about you know how we are. There's a culture we have in the military. There are things that are normal as part of being a service member that I don't think civilians would feel is normal. Um, what I saw was a very rigid algorithm that perhaps is what your friend experienced where um, if you present with sadness, right? and you're sad because you haven't been able to spend time with your kids and you're in a unit that doesn't care for what's going on with your family and you're you're spending hours and hours at work. The mission doesn't doesn't mean anything to you. That's why you're sad. But at this point, you're you're performance is suffering. The algorithm says to start you on an anti-depressant, right? That's how it's going to work. And because you're only going to see your PA for five minutes, and I'm not exaggerating here, then your PA doesn't have time to find out that these are the things that you're dealing with, right? Instead, what they're going to do is they're going to pull out a questionnaire that the medics have already run. And in that questionnaire, there's a series of things you're going to answer. You're going to say, "Yes, yes, yes." And so the the the by the time the PA has seen you, the algorithm is very clear. We have a service member who's depressed. They answered these questions. So, which med am I going to prescribe? Go into the door and say, "Okay, here here's your prescription." Not everybody is like that, but the but it is difficult to break the mold when you look at the way things are set up in the system. Yeah, man. It it is it is I love that we're having this conversation. Real and authentic, man. What does that model of um I think it was $99 a month membership. What does that get a patient at True Care? Oh. Um, I actually just updated that over the weekend, so I appreciate you bringing that up. So, you're referring to the direct primary care model. Patients, they pay once a month and they get whatever services are available. Here, I actually just dropped the price to $85 a month. Uh, because I'm trying to make it more and more accessible. So, what people get first and foremost, they get direct access to their primary care manager, right? So, my my patients, they have my cell phone number. Um, they can text me and call me when they need me. They can email me if they need me. So, I don't have like portals or disgruntled staff that steps in the way of that. We get uh longer longer appointments for routine primary care, 30 to 50 minutes at a time. And in those 30 to 50 minutes, we're talking about everything, right? We're talking about your life, your family, your values, your beliefs, your care. Okay? Excuse me. Now, for $85 a month, my patients also get a,000 generic medications shipped directly to their door, uh, six times a year at no additional cost to them. Wow. Three routine labs per year. Again, we pay that. Um, and then our goal hopefully before the end of the year is if we can enroll a 100 more members, we'll be able to include X-rays, ultrasounds, and routine screening mamograms in that $85 a month. This is cool, man. And when it comes to insurance companies, they've trained people to believe coverage equals care. Um, how do you actually break that mental trap? Yeah. So, the first thing I would raise people's awareness to is if you actually step back and think about the last time you try to make a routine primary care appointment, what are the odds that the clinic told you you could come in that week or that day? Um the odds are very low because nationally on average people are waiting 3 to four weeks to be seen and in this area 3 to 6 months to establish care. Wow. between 3 to four weeks and definitely in 3 to six months regarding your care. What we've seen during COVID was there was an influx of urgent cares that popped up, right? Why why did those pop up? Because primary carers are not able to keep up with the volume of patients that are necessary to take just because insurance companies aren't paying them well, right? If if I spend an hour with a patient and I'm only getting $30, that's not going to work. So, I got to see more patients to pay the bills, right? So then what's happening is is patients across the states they have insurance but where do they have to go for routine primary care urgent care or ER because they can't get seen right and by the time they can finally get seen whatever it is that we're worried about is probably more advanced and now you need specialty care and now you're paying you're paying deductibles and co-pays. Something else and I'll try to keep this short because you asked, right? you asked insurance companies. Um, so I was in psychological operations before I was a PA and we learned about uh behavior modifying activities. Is there things that you do to to have people change the way they do things? A co-ay, a cost share, and a deductible are all behavior modifying activities that the insurance companies do to discourage you from using your care. Okay. So, they get you to pay a premium where they say if you pay this every month, when you need care, you can get care. But then when you go to get care, they say, "Thanks for the premium. We also need a $50 co-pay." And your deductible is $2,000. So, until you meet that, you're going to pay every time you go get seen, right? When you meet it, they're going to introduce the cost share, but that is different than the deductible. And so these are all ways that they nickel and dime you so that functionally you can't even afford because you're already paying the premium but then you're doing all these other things and so functionally you don't actually have access because you can't afford to go to these places and I've seen that with my patients. So these are the things that I try to help educate people on. It's funny because my next question was exactly that, the whole deductibles and the co-pays because going back to my neighbor, that's one of the things he mentioned. He's like, "Ephan, what's your copay?" And you know, I told him, he's like, "Yeah, man. You know, I want to go, but the copay is this much money and I feel like this and all that. I'm already So, as you mentioned, right, like he wants to go, but he's like, then I got to pay this as well and then I'm already paying this." So, as you mentioned, I see it and I remember you telling me this the first time I spoke to you and I'm like, "Man, this this is a thing that GRO was talking about, man." like, you know, but um kudos to you, man. You you you understood there was a problem. You found the uh solution to it. Still working on it, right? You've grown to over 230 members now with no insurance billing. How do you pull that off, man, when most people are still chasing reimbursements? Yeah. Um man, I love the way you asked your questions, by the way. So, well, I think it goes back to the first question, like how do you how do you get people to break this mold? One of the things is what we're trying to do is we're trying to restore the relationship between the clinician and the patient. And I think people want that, right? Like Burger King medicine affects everybody. The the clinician becomes the cashier. Hey, how you doing? Let me take your order. What do you need? But the patient ends up being the drive-through patient, right? here here are my symptoms. Give me my meds. When when you really are concerned about your health, when you have questions about your health and your family's health, it would be nice if you actually could get to know the person who's giving you the information that's very serious and personal, right? And so what I've been able to do is help my community see I'm a real person. I'm a father. I'm a husband. I care deeply about human beings. And so I show that by the amount of times that I make myself available to my patients. Um I communicate that through social media. But then things like continuing to add services for the same or reduced price is how I keep showing people like it's a racket, man. Health care is not that expensive to deliver. Okay? And I'm telling you right now, it cost me $2,000 last month to provide medications and labs to my patients, right? But if you go to LabCore, five, if you go to LabCore right now and order a set of labs that I order, you're going to pay $250. That means that eight people, it would take eight people to exceed what I have been able to do with for for 200 plus patients, right? Cuz it's it's a whole system that is busted. And so I'm I'm trying to I'm helping people I' I've gotten to this point by helping people see it is not that expensive to deliver care. Okay? It is a system that is designed to convince us of that. And here's proof, right? Here's my pricing. Here's my practice. Here's my presence showing you. Here are my patients showing you. It doesn't have to be that way. I love it, man. I I love that. Um, you're really fighting for what's right in our country. So many people want to be seen, but they're afraid financially that they can't afford it. Um, and you're doing everything, you know, possible to make sure that someone can seen that uh that opportunity to see someone like yourself. And I believe that business people do business with people. So when you said I get to they get to meet me. They get to understand who I am. I can't tell you I know that any about my doctors. Like I just don't you know I see them that one time maybe once a year maybe once every two three years. I know nothing about them and they know nothing about me. All they know is whatever's black and white that came through when I went and I got you know my test. Oh you're healthy as a horse is what I was told. That's it. Okay. Hey, I don't even know if I know my doctor's name. Like, you know what I'm saying, doctor? Like, this is crazy. So, I I love I love what you've been able to build because it does allow someone to just feel more at ease that I'm going to someone that knows me, not someone that is just trying to make more money off of me, but someone that truly cares for me. And that's what you show people. This the 15 minutes that we got on the call the first time was 15 minutes of us getting to know each other. Are we the right fit for one another before we can actually jump on a podcast? And in reality, it's what you do with your patients. You like, not everyone's going to be your patient. Like, are they for me or am I for you? You can go find other people. I don't want you to come here. I want you to feel comfortable when you come here. Correct. And if you don't, I can share with you other places. Like, and I I I love that model that you have, man. You've proven that the DPC actually works. What would you say to someone who wants to start their own, but things that maybe they're not ready? Well, at first first of all, if any of them are listening, I'm happy to connect and help them. I actually do like a side thing of coaching and I just finished my course that I created for those people because I am seeing that people are interested. Um I think the biggest thing for them to understand is what their why is because going back to the f the beginning of the conversation this is entrepreneurship right and understanding medicine is not the same thing as understanding business. Um and so that would be the first thing like what's your why? Why are you motivated to look into this model? I would say that if if you're interested in purely the bottom line and you see that it is lucrative, I prefer you to stay in the current system, right? Because patients don't need more clinicians that are just concerned uh with the bottom line. But the other thing that I would I would say to those people who are curious about it is it is not as complicated. It is so simple that I think it throws people off. Um, it is not as complicated as they may imagine. It is nothing. Setting this up is nothing like setting up a traditional practice. You need your license. You need your electronic medical record and a way that you're going to bill. And you can you can do like I did. I started inside of a jiu-jitsu gym, an 8 by8 exam room that my dad and I built over the weekend. Like, I'm not even lying to you. We went in there on a Saturday and a Sunday and we put together two walls and I got a a massage table and I started seeing patients. Like that's how that's hustle, baby. The heart and hustle. That's how simple it is, you know? So that would be my thing is get clear on why you want to like what about this is intriguing to you? Because if it's purely financial, it it's very the financial side of DPC is is big. I'm not going to lie to you, right? because the overhead is fixed and you grow your memberships and the income is there, but it's more than that, right? So, get clear on why you want to do it. But the second thing is understand it's completely different. It's not as complicated. It's it's a it's more straightforward for the clinician as well as for the patient. Does that make sense? No, 100%. I'm a I'm an entrepreneur, so it makes complete sense. People won't invest into the coach that can get them there as a problem. Yeah. People don't see the value sometimes. So, I I I want to talk about that value. You talk about you do coaching. What is the value you provide someone when they say, "Hey, I want to do this. How can you help me?" Oh, I'm going to help them launch their their their DPC in 90 days. Meaning, from the time that they get started to the 90-day mark, they're going to have their very first patient and they're going to have everything they need to scale with margins in mind so that they don't just build another system for themselves that ends up leading to burnout. Anyways, I'm going to walk them through the whole thing. I love this. What does your wife think now, man? When I'm pretty sure a little she was a What does your wife think? I know she was a little nervous when you got started, but here you are, right? 20 months. 21 months, I think you mentioned. Yeah. Where's her mindset at now? Well, I think she's convinced that God is a good father who knows how to take care of his kids. No, man. We She's She's blown away. Um, we have grown together as a couple. I mean, we've been best friends for the 14 years we've been married. Um, but, you know, we've grown even more. And she's definitely shared gratitude. And I and I I feel like I trust her even more to be my wise counsel cuz before when she was scared and I told her this when she was scared a lot I would be like I don't know if I if I if I like her take you know is that a fear-based take? Is that what now more than ever she's really a counselor of mine big cheerleader for what we do. Um when I feel like it's too hard this makes me chuckle. She looks at me with a gentle nudge and essentially tells me to stop stop being weak and just, you know, we we're on the right path. This is this is the journey. We're good. We're good. And so, she's she's a wonderful wonderful support for me now. I I kudos to wives that uh allow us to do this and chase a dream, right? First of all, um but they're they're in our corner at the right times. Yeah. You know, and sometimes I tell my wife, sometimes you may also be the person that instills a little fear in me because of some of the things you may say. You know what I mean? I told you a little bit about the experience that I was having uh this past week. And as I'm there, I'm already there in Boston. And she's like, "How you know this is real?" Cuz the guy that I was talking to, I didn't have confirmation on the where and when till 5:00 the morning of. Oh, wow. But rightfully so. These are celebrities. He just didn't want where he's getting now. people the whole now you have a whole audience but that's the thing my wife is telling me how do you know this is real and I'm like why would you say that to me like I'm in this like I'm already here you know but yes she's very proud because it was she understood the vision she understood the hard work the resilience that we had to put in we talk about that a lot of resilience to get where we at so um wise a great man I my wife was also the person at one point when I wanted to give up that she said God didn't bring us this far to quit did he you know what I mean it's like you're right You know, like she could play both sides. You know what I'm saying? It's it's just a real It's just being real to be quite frank. It's just being real. Sometimes we we we just are go-getters. Go ahead. Can I You just reminded me of something fundamental when it comes to praising wives. This I can't believe it escaped me. So, she was hesitant. I'm 6 months in. I'm feeling sorry for myself. It's going well. It is. Right. We're paying overhead. I'm not paying myself yet 6 months in, but overhead is covered. Okay. Okay, I got a little bit of breathing room, but I'm just it's not fast enough for me. I feel like I thought it was going to take off, blah blah blah. And I remember she in the gentlest way, she goes, "You know, you uh you're not really good at staying consistent with things." And I'm like, "Girl, I did 13 years in the army. What are you talking about? I've been married to you for 14 years. What are you talking about?" She goes, "Yeah, but if you think and I'm telling you, she did it with such tact." Cuz she goes, "Yeah, but if you hadn't been in the army where like legally you weren't you weren't you were required to stay in your lane, do you think you would have finished out the things you did?" I said, "Dang." And I thought about it. And you know what? You know why I ended up doing four different jobs in the army? is because as soon as I hit the mark where I was legally allowed to switch, I did. Right? So, she wasn't wrong. Like, I was always dealing with this thing of like when the expectation wasn't met, I was ready to jump. And then she goes, "Do you know, can you imagine where you would have been in your career if you just stuck it out past the point where you didn't like it?" And I'm like, "So, that changed the game for me. Um, and now I've stuck with it and here we are at 241 members today. And I I definitely attribute that to her. I could I could break that down a little bit uh differently though, man, because you're willing to get uncomfortable every time you got comfortable. A lot of people are comfortable in a situation that doesn't suit them and they only do it because they're comfortable. Not cuz they're happy, right? Not cuz they're at peace. for you. You said, "I'm not comfortable. This doesn't bring me peace. I don't I've done it all. There's nothing here for me. Let me get uncomfortable again." So, I mean, going back to resilience, right? You've been building resilience. You've been building this this uh I could do anything mindset, which now you being in this practice brought you to a place where a place where you could be really more consistent. I do believe consistency wins. Anytime someone says, "How do you get where you're at?" Consistency. Yes, I do believe it. But I also believe that there's sometimes you have to pivot. Oh yeah. That there's there's there's there's times in your life that are only there for seasons and for reasons, right? Those different places that you've had in the military, man, there were just reasons and seasons that allowed you to learn everything to be where you're at today. While your wife wasn't wrong, there's still that you definitely had to get uncomfortable, bro, to get back comfortable. Now you're in a comfortable space. What did you say you just did this weekend? Oh, I just shifted my my my model a little bit. Right. What did you say you you do? I also do business coaching. Yeah. Why? Because you start to realize this is too comfortable. I got it already. Now what's next? Now let me continue to add. In reality, you have all these tools in your toolbox and and one of my clients told me this. You have all these tools in your toolbox and when you can package them and really just continue to do the things that you love, you win. Yeah. So right now the coaching the leadership perspective that you learned I'm pretty sure in the military you learned all these leadership you know um had good leaders had bad leaders you understand what a leader look like and now you actually bring that and now you're a leader in other people's lives to open up their own practice. I mean who's to say that one day you're no longer actually in your own office. You've helped so many people scale and you have so many people in their own offices and that's the piece of the pie that you actually have. Right. So who knows, man. Who freaking knows? I love it, man. I love it. I receive that one. That's the goal. That's the prayer. Yeah. No, man. I I love this conversation, man. And as we continue to wrap it up, man, paint the future. If this model catches fire, what does healthcare in America actually look like in 10 years? Man, the dream, the the goal, and the prayer is that Americans actually understand that you do not need health insurance for good care. And when you hear direct primary care, that's like standard. And in fact, that is what it used to be. Um, before insurance came about in the late 1800s, early 1900s, direct care was like the norm. So, 10 years from now, uh, I want to be able to go anywhere in the country and ask about where's the nearest direct primary care clinic. What I really want to see is more PAs doing this because PAs are are specifically trained to be highquality primary care clinicians and they were the profession was invented to meet the care gap that existed because physicians were specializing more and more. So this profession is all about providing the necessary primary care services. And I think that in 10 years if you if it could just be common place for you to ask yourself, okay, where's the nearest direct primary care clinic before I spend $500 on this insurance premium? I actually want to see in my lifetime that insurance, health insurance as a whole becomes less and less uh popular. We are seeing surgical centers starting to offer direct pay. Um, I kid you not, like getting a s a full-fledged surgery for $2,500 that you can do a payment plan on covering everything. And so that's what I hope to see. I hope to see this be the beginning of something that really transform the way Americans think about uh healthcare and remove the middleman alto together. I may be wrong here. Do you know who Mark Cuban is? I already emailed him. Okay. So, is he doing the right thing? Not yet. Not yet. Listen, that whole wrestling situation, that was two months of me. I emailed him two months ago and it just happened. So, one day, you never know. But just just stay consistent at it. But, um, do you think he's doing well for the health care system at bringing medicine to an affordable uh cost? Is that is that also kind of the beginning of of seeing health care and things change? Absolutely. I'm gonna try to keep this short, but give me a second to just answer this with a little bit of history. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Before insurance was a thing in the United States, physicians and clinicians wanted to keep insurance out of it. The reason for that was because they understood that if we brought in a middleman, they would then corrupt the practice of medicine and they would eventually take over the actual exercise of the clinical judgment. That is what has happened. Before we got on this call, I prescribed a medication to a patient who's been using this medication for over a month without issues after a very like frequent discussions for this particular individual. And they still asked me to submit what's called a prior authorization, which was literally just extra administrative steps to try to justify why they needed to continue to cover this medication. Okay. clinicians understood this years ago that if we go this way, what we see today is what's going to happen. And so what Mark Cuban is doing, what direct primary care clinicians are doing is we are undoing. Like this is like a we knew this would happen. I told you not to do it. Now we have to un undo it. um without opening a big can of worms, I do think I I do think in the future some form of combination between private and public um care is going to be necessary. But yes, what he is doing I hope is the rumblings of what really is going to be dramatic change here in the states. All right, man. Well, listen, man. Unfortunately, we have to wrap it up. All right, we have to wrap it up. Um where can people find you? Where are you on social if wants to do coaching? Is there a specific website? They want more information on what you do. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so for your audience specifically, I think they'll be best served if they reach me at g the dpccoach.com. So that's G the letter G. Uh, the dpcccoach.com. And then I'm also on Tik Tok by virtue of my name. If they just look up my name on Tik Tok, it's gon uh gofron.ra.pa. I'm doing a lot of the content teaching people about direct primary care uh and the model there on TikTok as well. I love it. How long you been doing that? Uh a month. We're you know I started about a month ago with 100 followers. We're at 496. So something's working. Oh, I was actually watching a doctor yesterday and I don't know if it's his product or is the product he's really love and now so he does what you're talking about, right? going live and just educating, but now he's selling this product on live and and in my mind I'm like, "Wow, what a smart guy." Like people buy from people, right? That's what it is. So, when you're doing what you're doing, and now you're just kind of spreading the word. And as a Latino, I think there's also a niche in that. Also had a a friend that left the military, got a coach, was into fitness. The coach says, um, "Are you Puerto Rican?" The guy said, "Yes." The coach said, "That is your market." So then he started to create um content around how Sophrito is bad for you, how Goya the brand, like all this blew up and now he has 45 online clients. Never seen these people. They're all online clients, man. He's only been doing this for eight months. So one, I think you're in a real niche as a Latino showing up and giving that insight. Um and if you can do it in two different languages, now you really winning, right? Now you really I got I got I got to take that. Yeah. Yeah. So I love it, man. I love what you're I had to definitely u follow. I told you I started TikTok two years ago. knew nothing about it, bro. I just knew that there was an audience there and consist consistency wins all the time. So, stay consistent. Share the knowledge, my brother. But I I leave you with this blind question, man. Let me bring up this blind question. What's one belief you held about medicine, service, or leadership that turned out completely wrong once you actually started True Care? And what did it cost you before you let it go? What is one belief I held about medicine, service, or leadership that it turns out I got completely wrong and what did it cost me? Man, I had to hit too hard with that last question. You know, we we had good questions throughout, but this question right here, ice, um, oh my gosh, I actually had I was just thinking about this the the other day. Um, I thought that if you if you empower people well enough that leadership becomes pretty simple. Like I felt that in my experience in the army, I was pretty effective as a leader. And so coming out of the army, I suspected that maybe it's not as complicated as people make it seem. But now I'm running a team and they're not service members. We're not unified by a mission. We don't wear the uniform together. We don't have a common culture that unifies us. And it turns out that leadership is in fact quite challenging as it highlights our deficiencies as people and our ability to empower. So it's like yeah you just need to empower people but when you look at what people are going through in life and what you have to empower them through that is not uh an easy feat. So what it has cost me um is time and patience. There are patients who have left the practice because they had poor experiences because I did not do a good job of leading my team and so we're working to rectify that. Um but yeah, that's my answer. I I love how you're transparent, right? You you took ownership on it. I wasn't leading my team because in reality it starts with you and and because what happens when people praise they normally praise, man, you're a really good leader because and when you're a bad leader, man, you really didn't do this well as a leader. So, as a leader, we have this we have a lot of um a lot of stress, a lot of pressure on our shoulders to to to show up as a leader. Even sometimes when we're struggling internally, mentally, physically, emotionally, we're struggling because no one has taught us how to pour into ourselves as a leader while we're pouring into others, right? Um and and it's one of those things, man, that God has just he put us in these in these spaces. We just got to figure it out. That's what you've been doing your whole life, man. You've been figuring it out. You know what I mean? Making it out. Just making it up. Making it up as we go along. What What is uh what is your blind question, man, to the next leader? Okay. So, what I got is if you knew that your voice would be the last one that was remembered for this generation, uh what would it be? What would be be the thing that you want them to recall? And why that above everything else? Okay, you got deep right there with me. Okay. All right. Well, listen, I appreciate you guys. If you guys are still watching, make sure that you guys like, subscribe, comment. If you guys have any information about this this uh practice and and this new system that you probably never heard of before, it's probably happening in your own backyard. And we don't know what we don't know. If you want some more information on how to start your own practice because you love what this stands for, then you know exactly who to reach out to. But you guys, we have to share the information. That's how we can continue to educate ourselves. So, we appreciate you guys watching. This is Golf Run. My name is Ephrain.

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