Patient advocacy has always been an important part of the fertility field. With great organizations and lots of outspoken patients, patients are receiving more education outside of the clinic. But should physicians be involved in this sort of advocacy, too? Don’t they have enough on their plates?
On this episode of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin spoke to Dr. Serena Chen of IRMS and Saint Barnabas Medical Center and Dr. Roohi Jeelani of Vios Fertility. Together, they co-authored a recently published paper, “Is Advocacy the solution to physician burnout?” They discuss why physicians should be more involved in advocacy and educating patients outside of their clinic. And why, against what one might think, it could reduce burnout for physicians in the long run.
Learn more about Dr. Chen by visiting her on Instagram @drserenahchen or at sbivf.com.
Find Dr. Roohi Jeelani on Instagram @roohijeelanimd or at viosfertilityinstitute.com.
Discover our Fertility Marketing System at www.fertilitybridge.com
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Welcome to Inside Reproductive Health, the shoptalk of the fertility field. Here, you'll hear authentic and unscripted conversations about practice management, patient relations, and business development from the most forward-thinking experts in our field.
Wall Street and Silicon Valley both want your patients, but there is a plan if you're willing to take action. Visit fertilitybridge.com to learn about the first piece of building a Fertility Marketing System--The Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. Now, here's the founder of Fertility Bridge and the host of Inside Reproductive Health, Griffin Jones.
JONES 2:37
Doctors Chen and Jeelani, Serena and Roohi, welcome back, and welcome to Inside Reproductive Health.
CHEN 2:44
Thanks for having us.
JONES 2:45
Glad to have both of you on here. You worked on a paper together, which I thought was interesting. It was through SRM. It was about advocacy, and it was about physician burnout. Do you want to give some context for it?
JEELANI 2:59
Serena, take the leap. This is your baby. I just helped you.
CHEN 3:06
We both love advocacy, and believe in it strongly. And we, you know and Roohi and I just like working together. So we're buds that way. She and I haven't done a bunch of things together and so we're looking for excuses to work together. And I had come to ASRM a while ago with this concept of advocacy as a solution for physician burnout because there was this wonderful OP ED piece in the New England Journal of Medicine a few years ago by a medical student about how burnout is a crisis. It's a problem, we wrestle with it--it doesn't just affect physicians, but obviously it also affects patients and healthcare in general. And so it's something we all have to wrestle with and need to try to find a solution and this medical student had the insight to say, well, we could solve so many things by also by advocating more outside that patient-physician interaction by doing things to advocate for better health care because in that process, physicians could regain some autonomy and purpose and meaning in their jobs. And you know, maybe we could change healthcare a little bit and the loss of purpose and meaning and our jobs and the loss of autonomy seems to be a big part of our underlying burnout.
JONES 4:45
So I’d just love to ask about how you went down that direction further, but Dr. Jeelani, how'd you get roped into all this?
JEELANI 4:53
I like writing. It's no secret I love research. I thrive on it. I think this is such a young field, that there's so much more to learn about it and why not, you know, start becoming like the pioneer in this and Serena and I met at a meeting and she was like, Oh, I heard you like writing! And I was like I do. And then she started telling me about advocacy. And I, fortunately--or unfortunately-- had to be a patient before and being in a very conservative Republican state, I saw what not having that access to care and not having a thorough understanding of how insurances play into this, and how difficult it can be for a patient when she said, I'm working on advocacy to increase awareness, and, you know, funding and insurance and all of that. I was like, Oh, my God, it sucks, you know, like, horribly to be that patient. Yeah, I want to help. And I think, you know, for another physician, it could serve. For me doing the like, not necessarily at anything, fertility is my fire, right/ So whether it be research or whether it be advocating for patients, whatever it may be, and combining them all and so paper is even better. So when she said that I was like, this is--I want to help in any way I can.
JONES 6:07
So I'm understanding the passion for advocacy. But I wonder how one even comes up with the hypothesis that advocacy is at least a partial solution to burnout. Because, to me, it seems antithetical to that. It's okay, we've got a problem with burnout. Here's one more damn thing.
CHEN 6:24
Yeah, that's a really interesting point. And obviously, some programs to address burnout are things like, let's make doctor's work less, you know, let's cut up the hours, let's get them more sleep. And certainly, you know, we have to sleep enough. But it's this--I think it's this idea that when we're in a broken healthcare system, a lot of burnout, you know, when you do surveys of physicians, one of the top things they complain about is electronic medical records, and that the massive amounts of documentation they have to do, which actually takes them away from being able to see patients takes them away from spending time with patients. And, you know, Dr. Jeelani talks about this all the time on her Instagram account about that, the support that patients need that personal connection they need with their doctors, and the counseling and emotional aspect of what we do. And if we can't do that, and our patients are, you know, getting upset. And we're just spending time just clicking and clicking and clicking in front of a computer screen. You know, that's not what we went to medical school for. And so I think that that has come up time and again, in multiple studies, as a top cause of physician burnout. The other thing is dealing with insurance programs. As Dr. Jeelani mentioned, she has both perspectives as a patient and a physician. So obviously, the patient's upset that insurance is not covering. But you know, here, you're a doctor, you're supposed to help the patient, the right treatment, you could help her. And then your hands are tied by this faceless, nameless third party that arbitrarily decides, well, I'm sorry, we're not going to pay for the right treatment for your patient. And then the other thing is, of course, liability, physicians dealing with liability. So there's--but I always thought it's interesting, like the EMR, which combines with taking you away from your primary purpose of being a doctor is always in all these surveys, one of the top things that physicians complain about when they talk about burnout--
JEELANI 8:45
I don't think physicians get burn--from my understanding, and from what I see of it--I don't think physicians burned out by practicing medicine, I think, to put it very simply think it's all the logistics that come into play, and advocacy kind of helps solve these problems that may cause burnout. So to simply put it that what you went to school for, or to train for, was to treat and heal. But logistically, you don't necessarily treat and heal because then you're a businessman, and you're a navigator and you're all of these other things, which necessarily might not let your fire so bringing an advocacy even though it feels like holy crap, I'm adding another thing on my plate, but you're at least fighting for a cause, which will ultimately help your unresolved not to plan words.
CHEN 9:37
And it could be really small. It could be like, you know, instead of saying, Well, I'm a doctor, I don't get involved with insurance, saying, like, you know, let me understand what the insurance challenges are. Because if you're smart about insurance, maybe you can do better by your patient. And maybe it's a little extra work, but it allows you to treat the patient better, that satisfaction you get from that, it's enormous. It really is.
JONES 10:09
Well, that was the point that I wanted to jump on, which is, insurance is a nightmare for both the patient and the provider. And I've seen resistance to advocacy because it's like, well, just more insurance to deal with more patients coming through insurance, we get paid less money, it's more bureaucracy. And there's an instance that I can think of, I'm not going to say the group, but I'm not going to say the state, but there was a state that was passing significant legislation that was pretty close. RESOLVE called me and said, can you get this group to jump in and do some advocacy because this particular district might really push them over? And they knew that I had a relationship with this group? So I called them and they were like, yeah, we don't really want to have insurance patients, we don't really--it's not really they didn't feel that it was in their interest.
CHEN 11:07
I think I've seen that a lot, too
JONES 11:09
Yeah, I think a lot of your colleagues have them.
CHEN 11:12
I think so. And I think honestly, like, way back when I first started, that's the way the field was--it was all cash field, no insurance at all. And I don't want to say how old I am. But that was definitely the prevailing attitude is, and I can understand some of it, but it's a little bit short-sighted, and very narrow, because it means that you're only helping a very small segment of the population, and you're really not reaching a majority of people who actually need your help. So I think--and we used to worry about, like, if we get coverage, and it's going to be worse for us, I would say, you know, our practice, I see like an enormous variety of patients, and we're able to see so many people, and you don't have to you turn away a lot less people. So I've done it both ways. I've done the all-cash system, and I've done the insurance system, and I would say make good money their way. And I'm getting a lot more satisfaction about serving a larger population. But you know, there's always groups of doctors, someone avenue to burn out is--some doctors do--step out of the insurance system, and do things like concierge medicine. I think, you know, doctors are people too. We have a huge variety of physicians and this might not be for everybody, but you know, I think Roohi and I both are very--we're very passionate about this. And, you know, Griff--I know, you're a big advocate, also, you know, Reproductive Medicine is an area where, you know, the continuation of the human race, hugely important--having a family is one of the most important life goals for a majority of humans. And, and the fact that a lot of people don't have access just doesn't make sense to me and being able to actually make a little bit of a difference, I think, you know, makes me feel good at the end of the day, like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.
JONES 13:17
Okay, so your point of there's inefficiencies that you can do with insurance patients either way, people are making good money, their livelihoods are--let’s hit that point and say that the livelihoods are unaffected. people might argue otherwise, but I'll grant it for here--and I'm going to continue to play devil's advocate and say, okay, Serena, I see your point. And you make the counter point on this, but I see your point that I'm only seeing a fraction of the population, because that's what Dr. Jeelani was saying in the beginning, there's only so many people in certain states that can receive treatment, but I'm already as busy as I can be anyway, so I'm only able to help a fraction of the population anyway, we're slammed with new patients. And if anybody's listening to this, and for at least the next few months, they're probably slammed with new patients. And so I can only see a fraction of the patient anyway, why would I add on, however many more to that?
JEELANI 14:22
But, I mean, there's a not putting on your businessman hat, there's an opportunity for growth, right? That means if your demand is more than what you're serving, that's how you grow. So unless you're not hoping to grow in that manner, why wouldn't you? That's a good problem to have growth, whether it be business medicine, whatever that reason may be why you're slammed. That's an opportunity for growth. I don't think to be fair, I don't think we're taught businesses doctors, but I really do think as doctors you also have to be businessmen. So You're doing something right that you're slammed. But why not take that up or seize that opportunity and grow like, don't be short-sighted if you're slammed. And that's a non-mandated state or noncovered state, if you advocate for that you have the potential to triple that, potentially, right? Because you're only catering to that top high earning or whatever it may be that clientele.
CHEN 15:23
So I think they're now the other thing Griffin—
JONES 15:25
—grow even if we want to, because we don't have the capacity, we're already past capacity. So even if we wanted to meet more new patients, we could now theoretically, because there's excess demand, but we simply don't have the capacity.
CHEN 15:40
So one thing, Grif, is a couple things that I think you talk about is that gaining patience, bringing in new patients has a certain cost. and maintaining patience has less of a cost. And certainly things like advocacy have actually have some other benefits other than just physician burnout, but also marketing value, and also employees out of employee satisfaction, which are also potentially big costs to the business owner. So employee retention, employee happiness leads to better productivity, less employee turnover every time you lose an employee, and you have to hire a new one. That's an enormous cost. And we, you know, we've found in the practice that the dedication to patient advocacy, education and awareness spills over to our employees, I, for one have found like, that's a huge benefit, personal benefit to me, that just working with a team that they're happy to be there. Like, even if they're only drawing blood, or they're only collecting money, they're feeling they're also feeling passionate about the mission of helping people have families. I think that that has an enormous benefit. I think that is harder to measure. But I think there's some good business data about employee satisfaction and retention, being, you know, a good investment business-wise. And then obviously from a marketing perspective, I think it validates patients, it's something to talk about for marketing. And it also I think helps with patient retention and satisfaction. It would be nice to be able to do some more studies on that. But certainly, I think that that's been a big benefit that we've seen.
JONES 17:29
So I think what you're referring to is that there's, well, there's a cost for bringing in new patients. There's also challenges of new patients that can't convert, as Dr. Jeelani pointed out, one of the principal reasons that patients don't convert to treatment when they need it is financial reasons. And therefore, having mandated coverage provides more people with those financial means and so you have less of a challenge in conversion. So that could be something less of burnout. But I think there still is a thing where everybody that I've talked to since we all got back online, in April or May, whenever it was, is just slammed with new patients. They hardly want to talk. It's part of the reason why my firm has moved so far up channel to conversion, retention, and the other things because if I even say the word new patient, people tell me to go the hell away. And so the problems that we really have to use a strategy and content to solve are things that have to do with operations and, and conversion to treatment and retention. And so what about that, I think when people think, gosh, insurance coverage, this is just gonna bring in more people that, yeah, to Dr. Jeelani's point, I would do very well, from the business perspective, if I could serve them, but I don't have the nurses, I don't have the docs, I'm already slammed, and there's just no way that I'd be able to accommodate.
CHEN 18:56
Yeah, I don't know, I guess I look at it from a pure like, in some ways, a very selfish point of view is I want to, I want to feel good about, like coming to work every day, and doing this type of work. And it's not just it's not, you know, obviously, we've worked on legislation and things like that. But that can take years. Sometimes it's, really just like, paying a little more attention to what's going on with the patient and trying to take myself out of that narrow doctor role and look at them as a whole person and say, you know, we we care about these other aspects and sometimes even just recognizing that can make a difference. It can also be, you know, things like just volunteer work and other things. I think that doctors should think about not just hours and money and vacations, I think we need to realize that part of our burnout is in this loss of autonomy, purpose and meaning and this is just one way that for me personally, I found really to be helpful. It's not for everybody. But you know, I think it's a concept that I would like--I think people that are burnt out, I'd like them to consider that as you know, one solution.
JEELANI 20:18
But can I say something? Because you said everyone has so many new patients, they don't want new patients. But that's exactly the point, right? Why do you think people are seeing new patients because everything's telehealth access to care so much easier, right? You're sitting at home, how quick is it to happen to zoom, see a patient, but what really should be key is conversion rate, how many of these news are actually seeking treatment, are actually coming into your door? And I bet conversion rates are really similar, if not lower, because of the economy and everything going on outside? People are more cognizant of where they're spending their money, how they're spending their money. It's easy to get a new patient, but the hard part is conversion. And why is it hard? Why is it hard to convert, and back to this whole advocacy thing, finances, and what that means for you? So I think it's a false satisfaction to look at your new patient volume. I think it's truly how many of those that walk in are actually getting treatment. I think advocacy serves a lot of purposes, not just physician burnout, but gives her a whole purpose of practicing medicine. But for me, it allows you to open the door to what are the limitations? Why are we not? Why is it--so I literally did a survey on my Instagram to like 70,000 people and I said, How many of you guys know what I actually do like who I am? And 60% said, I know what a fertility doctor does. I was like, 60 something?! And I was like 40% did not know who I was, what I did! And I only did that after literally, I mean, one of my patients ended up in the ER and I was like hounding the whole hospital. Like I can't find my patient. And finally, I'm like, Where's my patient to the ER doctor? And she was like, Oh, she's in surgery. I'm like, What do you mean, she's in surgery? Like, no one called me, I sent her and I sent her into the hospital, I have privileges that like, Oh, yeah, I looked you up and you're a hormone doctor. Like, what is a hormone doctor?! Like, what is the hormone doctor even do? I've never heard of that term? And I'm like, please tell me what is a hormone doctor? But I mean, that's we need to advocate because one, people not in like big cities know what a fertility doctor is. But if you still go out in the middle of nowhere, they're like, Oh, you know, like, I didn't know I could seek specialized help and there's possible other options, like, I think there's so much more. And even among that 60%--
JONES 22:39
That 60% that, yeah, many of them really know what a reproductive and endocrinology infertility specialist.
CHEN 22:47
Most physicians do not know.
JONES 22:50
That's true.
JEELANI 22:52
So the doctor telling me you're like, nope, double board, ob-gyn and infertility. Like it's not just like so. I think advocacy serves a lot of purposes. It's information that you're spreading to not just your main niche, your new patients don't necessarily mean you're doing good, like, bring them in. Right?
JONES 23:16
That's a good point. Really, let's define advocacy, because that makes the point that advocacy and education are consubstantial. And so I think of advocacy as going to either going to or sending some sort of correspondence to a legislator or multiple legislators at different levels of local status and very
CHEN 23:39
That’s a narrow definition.
JONES 23:41
Yeah. So okay, so I have a narrow definition.
CHEN 23:43
Yeah. I thought at NIH, and this, this brings up, you know, yeah, because we have, we have the opportunity here for one of our, you know, Roohi, who has 70,000 followers on Instagram, to talk about the education and awareness aspect because we we also, I think both of us feel very strongly that part of advocacy is education and awareness, not only of patients, but also of the general public. And physicians. You know, for example, what about the millions of people who are of childbearing age who are diagnosed with cancer every year, they are all supposed to have counseling about fertility preservation, and yet all the data shows less than 50% of people actually get practical, actionable information about fertility preservation, we are not meeting the standard. And I would consider that to be advocacy like when Roohi does a story or an IGTV, or I'm doing it live, and we're talking about egg freezing for cancer patients or fertility preservation for age, these are technologies that can make a difference in people's lives and yet they're still so little access to this information.
JONES 25:03
And there's so little access from their provider very often though, there's plenty of information out there, how much of it, what information, and how much of it is relevant to the individual person, of course, varies greatly. This is something that I have not been able to get as many people as I would like to see the utility of media in this way of access, the patient's having access to them in some sort of scalable way. Because, again, we've moved mostly further away from marketing to new patients. But there still is all of this opportunity to move patients through the new patient journey that you just can't do in a half hour visit, right? Because the patient is getting so much and to the extent that you can create more content answer more questions wildly so that you have an educated patient who has with whom you have rapport and are connected to the practice.
CHEN 26:01
Connected to the practice, exactly.
JONES 26:02
The 30-minutw window. So is that what you're referring to? Right? when you're when you're is that? Is that part of the aim of your media strategy?
JEELANI 26:11
Yeah, exactly that because I think there's so many facets to advocacy and advocacy just doesn't necessarily mean what that not to say narrow because I think that has a negative term to it. I think that's just the beginning of it. But yeah, advocating and multiple levels. But yes.
JONES 26:28
So I tried to use--we try to build systems where people can do that. There's some doctors that are just really good at doing it themselves. They do it before whether or not their practice is involved at the practice level or not. There was a Social Media Panel last year at SRM back in the good old days when we could all get together in person still and there's Social Media Panel, both of you are on it and Dr. Crawford made the point of the patients that come to me that are familiar with me, because they've seen my content are more likely to move to treatment. They're better patients, because they trust me, they've been educated. Do you? I don't have any data on that, though. Do you both? What's your experience with that?
CHEN 27:12
I would love to have data, but I think we both have a tremendous amount of experience on it makes a huge difference.
JEELANI 27:19
Patient retention is so much higher, when they come in, so well informed and so educated. One, like I literally have, what's the common trend, right? You see a patient, you put them through treatment, they have a negative pregnancy test, because not everything works. And then they go to somebody else. Becauseyou know that it's just expected I did that, I'll be the first one to admit I switched clinics. But with this, they know what I'm doing, why I did it. So one they come to me with a negative test would, Hey, what are your thoughts on X, Y, and Z, it's more of a more of a relationship, you know, it's not like, I'm going to get up and leave you and let's figure out together because I know you tried your best. I mean, the minute I can tell you of messages that I get, like, I know you're doing your best, I know it's the same no matter where I go. So I want to stay with you, I really like you. And it's this relationship, that bond you have with your patients is insane. I mean, people will come from all over because they feel that they're connected to you.
CHEN 28:23
Yes, and this is, this brings up two big pain points for you, Griffin that you're always talking about, is, you know, doctors don't want to do things like advocacy, and doctors don't want to do social media. And yet, these are tools that can help you in your practice that can connect you to patients in ways where you're not necessarily just sweating one patient at a time in your clinic, and spend you know, and and trying to do just one patient at a time these kinds of activities, especially like the you know, the social media and education, putting a little bit of yourself out there does create relationships without necessarily just one person at a time the patients really appreciate when we share not only our knowledge, but you know, a little bit of personal stuff too. So that you know, cuz to show that we are human. And I think when a patient feels comfortable with you on that level, they are more likely to continue, they're more likely to feel hopeful. And I think we all know that in this age of tremendous technology where we can basically get everybody pregnant if they're open to treatment and they stick with it. The number one cause for not ending up with a baby in this field is the dropout rate. And I think we can address that through you know, through education awareness, advocacy, as well as create a better experience, you know, it's a pain if the physician is happier, it rubs off on the patient that makes a difference for, for the health for healthcare and for patients. So, I think it's a, you know, it's kind of a win win win the whole, the whole package.
JONES 30:16
We're talking about physician burnout, because both of you are physicians and physicians listen to the show, but we're really talking about staff burnout as well.
CHEN 30:23
Absolutely!
JONES 30:24
To the extent that you can really advocate to the extent that he's talking about and really educate people, I think this is the opportunity that we are just--
CHEN 30:33
--and it's not just patients that we're addressing, like my, my whole staff, you know, they don't have MD degrees, they come to the Igy lives, you know, they and I put them I take selfies of them and put them on they love that I'm sure Roohi has the same experience, like you know, it's you can tell there's this vibe, you know, they're happy to be there. And that huge difference not only for themselves, and for Dr. Jeelani, but also for all their patients.
JEELANI 31:07
Yeah, hundred percent. And I feel like they want to educate not whenever my staff or the nurses seeing me post about something, I'll literally have them start googling PubMed, you'll see screenshots like, we're talking about Zach, oh, I had a patient walking with that's so interesting, but it, it pushes them to learn more and be better and excellent, who doesn't want that? Right? You want to surround yourself with greatness. Your patients appreciate that when they walk in, they're not walking into somebody who's like, you know, doesn't want to be there. They're equally excited about positives, negatives, everything.
CHEN 31:40
I mean, can you imagine your billing person is not the woman who just takes money from you? She's going to be like, well, I'm so glad you talked with Dr. Chen, I understand this is really tough. And, and yes, pgt really can make a difference, I'm going to work really hard to try to make, you know, we're going to try to get this authorization and, you know, they're not giving medical advice. But the fact that they understand the language and that they're, they consider themselves part of the team is huge. And they'll say to me, Dr. Chen, I had a long, long conversation. She's really sad. She about her IVF cycle, but you made a difference. And I told her she had some good questions. I told her, I would ask you and I would get back to her because, you know, like, just that whole atmosphere, it makes my day so much better. And you know, if my patients are like, oh my, my billing my billing person, Kim has been so helpful and supportive, and makes for a much better a much better experience and that person is feeling good about her job. And you know, so the return on investment for that is huge patient retention, patient conversion, employee retention, and better job satisfaction for everybody. I mean, that sounds like money in everybody's pocket.
JONES 33:08
Honestly, people in the billing department aren't necessarily going to create their own digital media accounts or have the cult followings the two of you have and some of the doctors in the field have. But this is something that centers can be doing for their teams. And Dr. Joanna made up the point of that she has patients that after they have a negative pregnancy test are more understanding more ready for the next step more prepared, because of the content that she's created.
CHEN 33:32
Well, yeah, she goes online and talks about what if you have a negative pregnancy test these are, you know, she has those conversations--
JONES 33:40
That lesson can be applied to every single pain point in the patient journey and on your staff side. So what we've, we've been doing for a long time, but is more lower cost than ever to do is--so we talk to the billing team. And I always try to get a video of the billing team when I can and have a subject of just tell me why it is hard to investigate somebody’s insurance coverage, just explain the process of why it's hard. And then I want to share that with the patient before they come in. We're gonna do this for we're gonna we're gonna call your insurance company if we have to. But here's some of the things that can happen. You can think you have this coverage. But it turns out that you're actually on your spouse's plan for this or your coworker has this but you're not out where they waived it here, but they didn't approve it here. And if you have if you can, if you can just show someone before they get to this problem that they're human, that there's reasons that they're going through this at their expense. Oh yeah, insurance sucks. I get that in a two minute video or in different ways of creating the content, then you can avoid those negative reviews that people say I got this hundred $50 bill after I paid everything.
CHEN 34:54
Listen, you're saying exactly what Dr. Jeelani is saying. You're creating a relationship instead of this adversarial context where like, Oh, I'm just taking your money, you're you're putting the person by your side, I'm part of your team. I'm the finance coordinator for your team, the doctor, does this, the nurse does this the fine, we're all working together to get you to where you want to go--
JEELANI 35:21
Exactly what advocacy is, right? You're like advocating or teaching or educating at so many different levels. So I think, I think by saying advocacy people just think of that spectrum. But it's not, you can do it at so many levels, like beyond just legislation. I think everyone's starting to do it, including you. I mean, this is amazing, right?
JONES 35:42
And beyond the physician level, it could be applied to every single aspect of the aspects of any pharmacy that is listening. And I know some of the pharmacies, I had this killer strategy for this aspect of the nursing side that I want to work with a pharmacy on. So if you're listening, we definitely make this into something--
CHEN 36:07
Your pharmacist can be a big part of that team, because navigating the medicines is a real challenge for everyone. And we should all work together on that. But there's, you know, the reason why I want to try to adjust physicians is because I feel like physicians have a natural talent for advocacy, because of all their knowledge and experience.
JONES 36:31
And all you physicians are the bride at the wedding reception, we know you're at the bar, everybody else is at the bar on the dance floor, everybody else is on the dance floor, you're outside smoking a J, that's where everybody else is. And so I do think it does make sense to start with the physician.
CHEN 36:49
And physicians tend to have this skepticism and a little bit of discomfort when you talk about stepping out of your a little bit out of your role as a physician what I want. I mean, what I want, I think what ruhi and I want physicians to realize is that all they've trained for makes them naturally outstanding advocates, you know, we're just like you have to have knowledge and experience and empathy and an understanding of the suffering and the barriers that patients face. And we know that like right here, like we really we live it every day. And to be able to articulate that you're advocating for your patient.
**COMMERCIAL BREAK**
I would be a bad fertility doctor, because I only want to take on the cases that I know are going to be successful. I only want people to say these sorts of things about me and my company, like Greg in Chicago: "Our resources are not endless. And I think that with Fertility Bridge, there's a much deeper dive."
Or Dr. Young in Iowa, "I've gotten more positive feedback from patients from anything in the last 30 years of practice."
Or Brad in Seattle, "You have multiple experts on your team and for, you know, a very small price to get that level of consulting for just a couple hours would be really valuable."
Okay, you get the idea. So this is how we set you up so you are 100% guaranteed to be successful in your goal over time. It's not a magical wand. Until you do this do not pass go, do not collect $200, and definitely do not get in any long term commitments or launching issues.
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There's no long-term commitment whatsoever and there's a 100% money back guarantee. Send your manager to FertilityBridge.com, have them sign up for the Goal and Competitive diagnostic. And I will see you and your partners on Zoom.
JONES
Before we conclude then, help map people how they might be able to baby step into this if they're not already or up their game. When did you each get involved with advocacy? And how did it happen?
JEELANI 40:13
I think being my own patient, how little lack of knowledge there is out there. how frustrating it is to sit on that side and know that there's really you see a doctor, and then it falls off and you talk to a nurse, and then it falls off. There's really no continuity, you really have to do your own research on like, what are the next steps? What am I supposed to be doing? Who's you know, and like, when you go to like your primary care doctor, it's Oh, you're here for your annual this we're going to do and then you're done. But fertility, it's like you it's like speed dating, right? You meet, go, you do treatment. And you if you don't speed date, right? If your meet points are not good, it falls. And I realized that textbook medicine, reading, it doesn't necessarily make us a good practitioner. And it doesn't really teach us a lot. It teaches you pathways and organic and bio, but it doesn't really teach you a human body. And that's why we're still learning and thinking of new ways to do things. And I, for me that came up with, Well, if I don't understand it, and I think I'm fairly smart, like decently smart, right? I'm like, I can't imagine somebody who has no clue going through this. Like I was frustrated. I was like, What is wrong with me? Like, why am I googling this? Like, I should know this, but I don't know it. So I think it started with that. Like, if I'm googling it, that means other people are googling it. And I have a science background, and they probably don't. So, you know, they can't weed out the crazy stuff. But at least I can start weeding out the crazy stuff. But I did it because I was like, oh, maybe McDonald's franchise will get me pregnant, I'm gonna eat them. Yeah. It started with that, to be honest. And then it became way more than that, because then it became cold, like, lack of education, then culture awareness and access to care. And it just grew like it's eye opening to see how little we really scratched the surface and how much more we have to do.
JONES 42:12
What about you, Dr. Chen?
CHEN 42:14
So, as I said, like, started out in a cash pay system and the New Jersey mandate passed in 2001. And then, you know, the cycles in New Jersey exploded. And we started wrestling with all these insurance issues. But there were still so many barriers. And you know, so I started getting really, really involved, I think, in helping a couple special patients with their insurance journey. And I was going through a lot of personal pain during this time, and just helping people, just a couple patients, wrestle with their insurance authorizations and writing a couple letters, and actually making a really big difference for just a few people really opened my eyes to it and inspired me to do more. And then ASRM actually had a little course on legislative advocacy. And, you know, from there, I just started doing more and more, I really loved it, I've had an opportunity to like testify in front of Trenton to go down to Capitol Hill to meet all kinds of, you know, legislators and healthcare staffers. And we actually have seen, even our government, which we think is just totally intractable, actually make some changes, some legislative changes at both the state and federal level that are directly impacting people's lives. So I've seen it from both sides, where I'm just, you know, just working on one case, and now I've seen the other side where I can see policy change. And I can say to a patient, hey, we just passed that law, Governor Murphy just signed it. And, you know, this is awesome, because you're gonna benefit from it. So it's, um, it started, you know, honestly, really small and, and now, and I don't spend a gazillion hours because I make use of organizations like ASRM and resolve. So specifically, physicians in the fertility field actually have very easy ways where they can do very little, but make a huge difference. And that stuff like advocacy day to day this year was virtual. And, you know, a physician can only talk about just the things you know about the struggle your patients have, makes a huge difference to legislators to hear that side of it. They want to hear from patients too, but they want to hear they want to hear the physician side as well. And we already have that knowledge. It's not like we're doing anything now.
JONES 44:54
As you're both talking there's a segment of listenership that I think this is relevant because you know who disproportionately listens to this show, fellows. There's so many fellows that listen to this show. And I think this is such a way to fast track their career if they're--
CHEN 45:14
Absolutely. It raises your profile in the market. You know, it, it's, we really and I want everybody to join the ASRM social media, special interest group, even if you've never done any social media, because our new fellows we think we want, we want to connect with all of you because we feel like you know, you have so much to offer. And social media is a big language for patients they want to hear from you.
JONES 45:40
Really, you went from being a brand new doc that wasn't busy, because you were just brand new to being really busy really fast. And I think that there's i think that’s replicable for a lot of other things.
CHEN 45:55
But I don't want people to be intimidated. Not everybody has to have 70,000 followers like Roohi, and you can still benefit from being on there. I mean, Roohi, like obviously, you know, one of the top people in our field, but just doing that following rule, he on Instagram, hopefully follow me too, because the stuff we talked about, I think will be helpful to the new fellows coming out. We hope that they connect with us, we want to hear from them.
JEELANI 46:21
And it doesn't it totally doesn't matter how many people you have. It's your quality of your followers. I got an Instagram where it was really easy to grow. Right? Four years ago, you could grow very rapidly. It was very new. Since then, Facebook--
JONES 46:34
They should have read my article why fertility doctors need to be on Instagram in 2016 because guess what? That ship has sailed? It is not as easy anymore!
JEELANI 46:43
No, it's definitely not easy. You can see like, people are starting to plateau. And whatever, it doesn't matter how many followers you have. It's just the quality. It's the quality of the relationship you build with your current patients, who then send you more patients. And I mean, if you want your practice to grow, it will grow.
CHEN 47:02
And I keep going back to this but I think it's just fun and a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction, right? Like this is part that I Griffin, you and I are Twitter buddies, right? That's how we first met was on Twitter, you reached out to me and you know, I consider you a very dear friend now and the same with Roohi, you know, we met through social media first, it was a great way for us to connect, we already knew that we were kind of on the same page and passionate about the same things. And then when you know, when we're in person--
JONES 47:37
You wrote the foreword for my book, like that's it.
CHEN 47:39
Yeah, we have such an amazing--
JONES 47:40
First time we ever met in person was in Washington DC at a legislative event. It just expands your network in the field exponentially.
CHEN 47:51
Yeah, personally, it just has brought me so much satisfaction and happiness like knowing you too, like you guys make me so happy. I feel like a big privilege.
JEELANI 48:04
I know. It makes me happy. I feel like the celebrity being on Griffin’s show.
CHEN 48:09
Well, you are! He's making everybody famous.
JONES 48:15
I'm thrilled to have you both here. It's been a pleasure. I look forward to having both of you back on and I'm hoping that you get some good comments about today's episode doctors Serena Chen and Roohi Jeelani, thank you so much for coming on Inside Reproductive Health.
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You’ve been listening to the Inside Reproductive Health Podcast with Griffin Jones. If you're ready to take action to make sure that your practice drives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society, visit fertiltybridge.com to begin the first piece of the Fertility Marketing System, the Goal and Competitive Diagnostic. Thank you for listening to Inside Reproductive Health.