EXPERIENCE 125 | On a Mission for Better Health Care with Trevin & Allison Cardon of Hometown Family Health

During Dr. Trevin carton's residency with Putter Valley Hospital, he determined to follow a less traditional path. The realities of insurance codes, high patient counts and extremely limited time with patients, created an unwelcome set of conditions for his future and led he and his wife Allison to found Hometown family health. A direct primary care office, hometown Family Health offers a monthly membership, generally less than$100 per member per month, whereby patients receive regular checkups, discounted testing, and blood work, and most importantly, a relationship with their doctor. Doctors in a DPC office often serve 300 to 600 members to have a sustainable practice compared to the 2000 to 3000 or more of most traditional general practice physicians. This episode explores the business of medicine. The respect family stories of Trevin and Allison, and most especially the entrepreneurial journey that they've been on together since starting the practice in January of 2021. They've already filled Trevon's schedule and have a second doctor now aboard, and they're expanding the range of expertise and services. Allison is effectively the practice manager and became a local think tank member this year. It's always a joy to connect with entrepreneurs on an impactful journey, and so I hope you'll enjoy as I did my conversation with Trevin and Allison Cordon. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guests today are Allison and Trevin. Cardin Cardin. And they are the founders and owners of Hometown Family Health. Hi. And that is a direct care practitioner, uh, health service business, I suppose. Mm-hmm. Yep. And, uh, so what do you guys do for Hometown Health? You're the doctor, right? Yep. I'm the doctor. I'm Dr. Card, uh, family medicine doc. I'm the, I'm the clinical mind behind the, uh, the practice, if you will. Yeah. And Allison, you are. So I kind of run the business side of it. Uh, my degree in accounting and I just run, um, yeah, the business side of it all the practice administrators, all, all is the title there. All, there's no insurance, right. So that part of the thing. No insurance. Yeah, the marketing, the bill. I mean, she's the boss. Yeah. Yeah. You, uh, you guys should listen to episode 70 something with, uh, Dr. Bobby and Jamie Catherine. Okay. Uh, Aspen Grove Veterinary. Oh. And he's the veterinarian, the with the most credentials and she was the practice manager started Wonderful. Going back to when they had two employees or whatever. Yeah. So similar journey. Yep. That's fun. That was interesting. Taking advantage of, yeah. Yes. Yeah. So, um, so tell me about Hometown Family Health. Like, uh, you started a couple years ago? Yep, yep. We've been open, um, officially open January of 2021. Okay. Um, so it's been, what, two and a half years now? It goes by fast. Um, but yeah, opened up then in the middle of the pandemic and it was a, you know, fun, fun thing learned there. But, uh, yeah, it's a, uh, a direct primary care practice, like you said. So it's a, you know, a little bit, quite a bit different model than what most people are used to in a, in a, in a doctor's office. Uh, um, and I'm sure we'll get into to all of that, but, uh, but yeah, we've been open since then. The first six months of it or so. Um, I was still finishing up my residency training, so Okay. First six months was actually kind of a side gig and did most of it on weekends and, and after hours and stuff. I see. To kind of build it up. And then since July of 2021, we've been full go. So did you go to medical school knowing that you were going to. Build this kind of a practice? Or was that some path that changed along the journey? No, it changed along the journey. Um, I went into medical school, um, you know, with the idea that I wanted to do family medicine or primary care, uh, type stuff. And then it was probably within the, the third, third and fourth year medical school when you kinda get into the clinical stuff, um, that, uh, started to, to get the idea to build, you know, to to practice a little bit differently. Um, and then, you know, by the time I hit residency, I knew that this was kind of the direction we wanted to go. Yeah. And Allison, did you know that you wanted to be a part of the business as soon as it started being an idea? Or were you, what, what was your place in life at the time? Sure, yeah. Um, I mean, watching him go through medical school and going through rotations and seeing him, um, honestly kind of unhappy. Unhappy with how quick the visits were unhappy with, you know, how that whole thing rolls in a traditional primary care office. I knew that he wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to support him and how could we make that a. Good career for him. Um, I've always kind of had jobs on the side, even through medical school. I worked at accounting offices and I ran this and I ran that. So I always knew, you know, once our kids were in school, I wanted to do something as. As we started talking, you know, through medical school, through residency, it was funny because date night was always plan night. We would always go out on a date and literally all we would talk about is, you know, well, how are we gonna do this? Or what are we gonna do? And so as we were together working on this plan, um, it kinda just fell into place that we were gonna work together on it. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I, I mean, I'll say that the, you know, this whole medical. Journey thing has been my dream. Right? It was, you know, go to medical school and the residency and, and, and Allison and the kids. We've got three kids that kind of got dragged along to some of it right. To medical school and through residency. And it's hard, it's hard times. Um, and so it's really been nice to, to have something now, the last two and a half years that's been ours. Yeah. As opposed to just mine for sure. Um, and obviously, you know, we couldn't do it without, without Allison. And, and we have very different roles that obviously is equally important in the, in the, in the business, but it's fun to have something that's, that's ours. A joint project. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well, and, and you are hiring your first doctor, that's not you. Yes. Next week are you have hired? Yes. He starting, he starts, he uh, he starts next week Wednesday. Next Wednesday's his first day. He's actually, uh, uh, graduating from residency tonight. So we're gonna go to that. Oh, wow. And, and support him there. And, uh, he finishes up and then comes and joins us. And it's, uh, gonna be a big, uh, it's, it's gonna be great in a lot of ways for our patients, for us, for everybody. So Well, and it tells me two things really that. You've been able to retain the clients that, that mostly, in large case you've found, right? Because you're doing the marketing and a lot of the networking and things, cuz you're probably out there networking and stuff too, or, yeah, not as much though. Yeah, she's, she's, she's the, she's the face in a lot of those ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So good job for both of you. I mean, it takes teamwork. If you're selling all these new clients and he's like being rude at the bedside, you know, that just isn't gonna pan out. Yeah. So talk to me about the, the model. A little bit of a, so it's a subscription, right? You pay per, per person, per month. Mm-hmm. Kind of based on, you know, maybe is it somewhat based on age or health criteria, or just how needy I might be, or, yeah, it's a, uh, it's an, it's an age based thing. Yeah. So, um, you know, back up, you know, direct primary care is, uh, you know, the, the term that's been, you know, named to this, this type of model. And there's probably, you know, a couple thousand now clinics nationally that are doing it. All of us are, you know, pretty, you know, small and independent, and that's how it works really, I think the best. But, uh, you know, the, the definition of it really is no insurance and subscription based. Yeah. Outside of that, everyone's a little bit different. So we always say if you've seen one dpc, you've seen one dpc. Right. Okay. Um, and most of'em are, and ours included is kind of is an age-based tier. So it's a, as I said, we don't take in, we don't, we don't bill for insurance. We don't mess with insurance. We, we just period. Just period. You know, we, we, we recommend that our patients have it for other things, but for our services and the primary care, we don't use it. Um, instead our, our, we contract directly with our patients, if you will, through means of a monthly membership. Um, kinda a subscription model, if you will. Yeah. That's, uh, the pricing of it is, for us at least, is an age based tier. So, um, ours is, uh, adults. From 20 to 49. Um, I look at Alison cause she always reminds me what's our, what our prices are, but from, I'm ing to make sure 20 to 49, um, pay$80 a month. Did I get that right? Yeah.$80 a month. Um, 50 and above, um,$90 a month. Cuz as you get older there's more things to be aware of. Sure. And access healthcare more. And then for us kids, again, depends on if a parent is a member or not. If parents aren't a member, kids are just$60 a month flat. Um, if parents are a member, um, then it's first kid's, 45, second kids, 35, third kids 25. And if you have four kids or more, the fourth and beyond are free. So we kinda have a family. Family, and when you make a house call, you just check'em all at the same time. Just be efficient. Yep. So that's the, the pricing structure for how it works. But the idea behind it is it's a, a monthly subscription that basically, you know, gives you access to the clinic and all the services that we can provide. Yeah. Um, with the idea that, uh, it removes a lot of the barriers and obstacles that, uh, people have for accessing healthcare. Um, and on our end, it, uh, You know, really is based on, we, we say it's, it's based on time and relationships. Yeah. So it allows us to, to, to spend time with folks, create relationships with, with individuals and their families, um, and be available and accessible for however long they need to, to, to feel comfortable and, and, and feel heard. I wanna take this one back to you on the, you know, if you've heard, if you've learned about one direct care practitioner or you've heard about one, like how would you particularly differentiate hometown family health? Uh, from, there's probably at least five to 10 other organizations in Fort Collins region that are. Doing a similar thing. Yeah, yeah, there are, right? I think we know of about five or so, and they're all great and we all collaborate together, which is awesome. You know, Hey, if we're looking for, yeah, certain if that's against the huge machines, so Exactly. You know, and yeah, everyone's great to work with. If we're looking for some medical supplies and we're not finding'em, usually it's a text out to these other guys, Hey, where have you guys found this or that. Um, so we all work collaboratively and everyone kind of has their. Kind of specific area that they focus on. And in our clinic, um, you know, that's preventative care, lifestyle medicine. Um, I'm actually a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach. Oh. Um, okay. Not something we're using yet in our practice, but something, um, that we've always dreamed about building in once we get things rolling and, um, I have more time for that. That's kind of the passion. Um, right now we're doing, you know, the business piece to get it rolling, and then trevon's also in the process of getting board certified for lifestyle medicine. Oh. Um, so we're in the market for, you know, helping people stay healthy versus waiting for you to be sick and then trying to fix you. Trying to fix you. Yeah. Well, there's no money in trying to fix you. No. Or I mean, not trying, but for you guys it's like, you know, the more members you can get mm-hmm. That really actually has, instead of that inverse. Kind of relationship. If you have a whole bunch of healthy members, you're making a bunch of money and you're not even working that hard. Sure. But it means you're doing really good work. Sure. Right? Yeah. We're we, you know, we're incentivized as opposed to maybe, you know, different models. We're incentivized to keep people healthy. We're incentivized to keep people outta the office. Um, you know, not that we, we, we don't want to see people, but, uh, um, you know, if we can handle things without people coming into the office, but if we can keep you healthy and, and, and whatnot, then, then everybody, uh, everybody benefits from that. Do you put people on pretty, like a once a year physical For sure. Or blood work here and there, or do you Yeah. We recommend that. We, we like to see all of our patients once a year. Um, you know, kids, adults alike. Um, that's kind of my practice. I like to see everybody once a year so that we can update, you know, anything that's happened during the year, whether that's, you know, family history, their own personal history. Um, we review kind of the up-to-date, you know, recommendations when it comes to screenings and things cuz those change often. And so having a yearly visit at a minimum with everybody. Um, and usually within that we're doing, you know, baseline set of yearly, annual labs and that kind of stuff. But, uh, at a minimum we like to see everybody every year and then, uh, you know, when they need us in between, whether that's because of illness or injury or, um, you know, we really promote, like Allison said, the prevention piece and the, and the, you know, getting healthy and staying healthy piece. So we have people, you know, people, you know, we, we encourage, you know, folks to come see us for those types of things. And that's one of the first questions that we ask in a, in a, in a new patient visit is not only, you know, Reviewing history and you know, do you have any acute con concerns and complaints, but what are your health goals? Um, and if you don't have'em, how can we get some? And if you do have'em, how can we help hold you accountable? And whether that's like, whatever, it's just helping, you know, refer to resources, right? Yeah. Whether that's used resources that, that we are trained in or getting you to folks or just being that accountability piece. Um, you know, that's one of the things that we, we talk quite a bit about with folks. Yeah. Um, Alice, I wanna bring it back to you in terms of like the nutrition elements and different things, like, would that be just kind of baked into the membership kind of, or would that be a, you know, if you want to access the nutritionist, then there's a little bit extra here, but then that creates, like, one of the beautiful things about a subscription is it's like, 80 bucks a month auto reset, you know? Sure. And, you know, having that, so talk to me about that. Yeah. As far as you've processed it so far. I mean, we, we honestly haven't totally processed that one out yet. Um, how that'll work once he's board certified and how we bring in, you know, the nutrition and the exercise and things like that. But what I have noticed and I've done with some of our patients, just kind of a one time, yeah, little, we call it a consultation, really just a meeting and. You know, tell me where you're at and how can I help you and what resources can I point you towards. Um, the main thing that people are looking for though, is accountability. Yeah. Someone checking in with them. Um, so we, you know, we talked about maybe we'll do some sort of, you know, a package deal. Um, it'll probably, it'll be a separate thing from the membership just because it is more hours and more time that we're having to put into it. But, you know, you can pay for three months or you can pay for, you know, six months or whatever that looks like, or 12 check-ins or Yeah. You could even set up almost like a, like local has these peer groups you could build mm-hmm. Yeah. A weight loss peer group. Exactly. Hey, everybody that wants to be in this, uh, the next six months we're gonna have this weight loss and nutrition peer group. Yeah. And we're gonna meet every Wednesday at 2:00 PM or whatever. Right? Totally. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's great. But yeah, something, um, probably a little bit separate from our current membership just because the people see the most success I think when they have that accountability piece. Um, and we want. To help people be successful. So we wanna be able to dedicate that time to them. Yeah. Makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I wanna talk back to, like, I heard, you know, I didn't have any time with patients mm-hmm. And stuff and just mm-hmm. And, but talk to me about not just the time thing or what, what's the, what's the driving, it's my sense that the kind of insurance reimbursements and just the, the machine has kind of adverse selection written into the way it works right now. And Sure. And what's, is there anything that be, can be done to. Rehab the standard model? Or is this it, like, competing with it? That's a, that's a big question. Um, yeah. You know, as I said, you know, my personal, the reason for, for going this way was that, uh, you know, I joke, you know, that the system, the system's incentivized to, or, or, or pays or reimburses, however you wanna look at it, um, you know, to do things to people and not four people. Um, right. I can, I can, I can sit with a patient for an hour and talk about lifestyle things and, you know, preventative things and we can have lots of discussions and education. Um, or I could fit, you know, six skin biopsies into an hour and I can make way more money doing skin. Yeah. You know, simple procedures and then Sure. And we talk about, then we go, you know, bigger procedures and the like. But, um, well, and instead of. You know, building a relationship with somebody and encouraging them, you can recommend a lap band surgery Sure. Or something. Right? Sure. That'll get you skinny. Right. Right. It's much, yeah. It's easier, easier to, to whether that's refer off or prescribed medication here, path or interventions or those kind of things than it is to really talk about things that truly matter, truly are sustainable. Um, and, and, and the other piece of it I think, um, is that, uh, you know, we're very conditioned as, as, as people and patients in this. In this country to use insurance for everything. Right. To think that we have to have insurance to use it for all the things. And, and a lot of the education that we do is that look, while there is a place for that, there is a place for insurance. You don't have to use it for everything. And when you don't, when you kind of go outside of it and bypass it, um, and go direct to consumer and, and, and, and pay cash for things, it opens up a lot of windows. It takes out a lot of the frustrations. It drops the cost for lots of things. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and getting people to be consumers of their healthcare. Um, active consumers in that as opposed to just, Hey, I have, I have this insurance card, I'm gonna use it for everything. Um, is I think the other big piece of it of, of educating patients and getting'em outside of that. So Allison, have you had to become kind of good at evaluating like insurance plans and things like that? Or do you guys care about that? You're just a membership? What I'm thinking is you'd want to have at least a catastrophic. Insurance, you know, a$10,000 deductible or something just in case I get that cancer or just in case, whatever. But you're right, the, you know, the every office visit thing and stuff like that, it's just a different kind of, Element, and then you only go when you're really, really sick. Sure. And whatever. Yeah. I think we get lots of questions from people, um, you know, well, how does, how does this work with my insurance? Yeah. Um, I mean, we have, and we say we have three types of people in our office. We have people who have insurance, whether that be, you know, a really high deductible plan where they're paying out of pocket for everything and hey, this is so great to pair with that. Or they have a low deductible plan and they're like, I just can't get in to see anyone. Nobody's listening to me. Um, and just feeling lost in the system. And that's kind of one group that we, or sold to, we have when they go into the system. Yeah. And then the, the next group is we have a lot of. Self-employed people who are like men. This health insurance stuff is way too expensive, being self-employed. Mm-hmm. Um, so they use health shares. Right. But you're kind of like health insurance. Yeah. Um, less regulate, actually not regulated by the government health share at all. Mm-hmm. We do too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, pairing this with that works great as well. And then we have kind of a third group who have no insurance, can't afford insurance, but I can pay$80 a month and I know that I get, you know, 80 to 90% of my health needs covered. And because I have a primary care accessible, I can stay out of the ER more often than not stay out of the hospital. Right. Because I am checking in, I actually work toward health instead of Yeah. So those are kind of, yeah, the three big demographics, the three areas. And people come in and say, well, what do I do? And we kind of say, here's what we have. Um, there are a couple health shares that we normally say, Hey, these are. Ones we've heard great things about that a lot of our patients use and you know, always do your research. Check'em out on your own. Here's a couple insurance brokers if you wanna talk to them and research. We kind of just give people the resources kinda agnostic when it comes to what your other needs are. Exactly. Here's what we do. And, and we definitely, when we sit down the first time with folks, we definitely recommend that people have something, right. Right. Whether that's in, you know, traditional insurance and it's a high deductible, whether that's a health share, whether something to have that fallback, safety net. When, when and if the big things happen and we hope they never do, but when they do to have something that, uh, that provides that financial support. Yeah. You're not an oncologist and you're not ready to have that training. Right. But, you know, in, in, in the end it doesn't really matter for us, for our services cuz whether you have it, whether you don't have it, um, you know, it doesn't make a difference for what we do. Yeah. So what would, what, what's your pointer set on? Like, would you like this to be a five doctor practice? Uh, you know, say in five years if things go just right or whatever, like, is there like a scale and number of members and things like that that you would really Sure. Yeah. To be able to achieve. I, I joke it depends on, on, on what day of the week that you ask me. Fair. Um, there's, you know, sometimes it's, uh, you know, I want to, I, you know, there were times I just wanna build my panel and just be small and just be it and, and, and, and be done. Um, obviously we're hiring a second physician, so we're, we're going outside of that, but, uh, we'll, we'll kind of see. I think, um, you know, we, we want, um, obviously to, to, to educate the community and have, we think it's a, it's, it's, it's kind of the, you know, the way to go for, for patients to get that personalized care. I also, as a, as a physician who's worked in the, you know, in the system and seen the burnout on the physician side, I kind of feel this, uh, you know, desire to bring physicians along, give them another way, right? Give them a way out and, and, and have them, you know, find a way to, a way to enjoy medicine again, and, and practice how they always wanted to. So, we'll see where it goes. You know, we're, we're hiring a second doc. Um, We'll see where it goes. Beyond that, we will, you know, the patient number-wise, you know, we'll cap each physician or provider about five to 600 patients, somewhere in that window. That seems to be the, the sweet spot where we can, um, you know, continue to, to, to thrive as a business, but also, uh, you know, provide all of these levels of care. Yeah. That we, that we promise. Um, I mean, that's two or three people a day that leaves a lot of. Uh, free days and stuff. Yeah. You know, that's taking all the days, right? Sure. But still, that's not an overload. Like No. You know, doctors that roll in going, okay, I got 16 patients today, or 27 patients today. Yeah. I mean, if you look at the average, you know, that we, we always look up, I keep, I look up numbers so I can, you know, educate patients. And again, providers are like two, but you know, most family medicine docs, um, carry a panel of 2,500 to 3000 is about the national average. Right. Um, With that, you know, have to see a patient every 15 minutes because of their insurance reimbursement and the overhead and all those different things. Um, you know, we can, we have the, the freedom to cap at about five to 600. It's a big horse. You know, they're pulling a ton of revenue Yeah. At 2,500, 3000 patients, but the amount of drag on that wagon that they're pulling is just insane. Yeah. And that's, again, if you look at national averages about, uh, you know, from an overhead standpoint, from a business standpoint, um, you know, a, a primary care office, you know, has an overhead about 65 to 75%. Um, which is why you gotta see someone every 15 minutes while you're dragging in all of that. Right. Because, you know, 75 cents on the dollar is going to pay for. Right. You know, the, the, the people you have have to hire for billing and coding and, and the like, are, you know, when we take the insurance piece out of it, um, our overhead's a lot more fixed. Um, but when we're full, it's about 15 to 20%. Right. Um, and so that's the difference. That's even after Allison's raise. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's, uh, you know, it allows us, again, to keep numbers small. Um, and that's with me. Not even seeing anyone in the office. Right. I potentially you could. There's days where I don't have to see anyone. People are, are paying us on the monthly. Sure. And so I'm not, uh, I'm not, uh, dependent on, um, you know, seats and the chairs and, and people in the office. Now, Allison, do you guys have a, a physical location? Uh, you sounds like you started at kind of nights and weekends, so you were running house calls and different things, but was that physical location early in the game? Yeah, so about six months in, um, we opened up, we're over by the super Target in Fort Collins. Yeah. Like Harmony and Ziegler area, we're quickly out to growing our spot. Oh yeah. So we'll see how much longer we are there. But, um, I mean, always a good thing to grow. Yeah. Yeah. And grow, you know, I remember seeing your office now actually. I, I couldn't remember where it was. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I mean, I. A few months in, we had already signed a lease, so we knew it was coming and just kind of waiting for that right time. Um, you know, once he could dedicate all of his time to being there. Right. Right. Felt like the most, you know, it's gotta be a revenue engine Exactly. To pay the rent. Right. And, and rent is, the rent is the biggest piece of our overhead. So yeah. That first six months we were just doing, I was just doing until Alison's raise. Yes. Until Allison's raised. Yes. I love that you keep promising me that. I dunno how much, how much, I dunno how much you paid him to keep saying that, but, uh, no. Uh, um, but yeah, that first six months we just did mostly telehealth and house calls. Yeah. Which was really fun. Um, it wasn't sustainable at least, you know, driving all over the place, doing house calls. Right. But, uh, we still do, do house calls on, on a case by case thing, but, uh, yeah, we've had that space now for, since a about August of 2021 and, cool. We'll see where it goes from there. Yeah, well, good luck. Uh, you know, finding good space. I think it's, the market's not super tight right now. There's some, some small increases in vacancies and stuff, so yeah, we've still gotta think what three? I'm sure you wanna stay in that corridor. We've still got three years. Yeah. And that was, it was intentional. Um, you know, the lo location area wise, um, you know, when we, we, we both grew up here. Um, and so when we moved back after medical school for residency, we first moved back into Windsor. Um, and with our three kids, a lot of our social network was there in Windsor. But we also have a social network here in Fort Collins having grown up here. And so when we first started, you know, talking to people about opening this up and, and a lot of our first, um, you know, subscribers if you will, or patients came from both of those areas. And it was funny to, you know, our Fort Collins folks said, Hey, if you open up in Windsor, it's gonna be hard for me. It's gonna be hard. Uh, Windsor folks said, Hey, if you open up on the west side of Fort Collins, it's gonna be hard. Um, Uh, and so we joke that, uh, we're, we're close enough to target that. It's the great equalizer. Everybody comes to Target, right? At least once in a while. Yeah. So it is, it's a great spot. Uh, you know, we do have, we've got a lot of folks. It's, it's pretty accessible for, for anyone here in, in Northern Colorado. Well, and very possibly you could just get a, the unit next door or a bigger unit within that center or something like that when it's time. Yep. So, um, yeah. What else you wanna talk to me about? Uh, like from a business standpoint? Like, talk to me about client acquisition for you. Has that come from social media? Has it been marketing? Has it been going to networking groups? Has it been knocking on doors of business owners, like Totally. Yeah. It's been, well, I will say I wish I had paid more attention in those marketing classes, my degree's in accounting, and I was like, I don't need these. So I'm regretting that now, but surprisingly, I. Probably about 90%, 95% of our patients come from Facebook moms groups. Wow. I am fairly active on those and anytime someone asks for a doctor and it seems like what we provide is what they're missing and looking for. I always saw our name out there. It's so great because now we have a lot of patients that are very active on those groups as well. Right. And so they're cheerleading for you too, putting our names on there. Um, That's where probably the most patients come from, that from been the gold. That's been the gold mine. Yeah. Um, and it's starting to grow. The second probably most popular is referrals. Hey, my friend told me about this, or I saw this on, you know, somebody's Instagram or things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so really the social media and then the patient referrals are really the best ways that we're finding Yeah, that makes sense to me. Yeah. Gonna be different people looking for something different Yeah. In some ways. Right? Yeah. So, yeah, it seems hard. Uh, we've had a lot of people approach us about advertising in magazines or this or that, and to us the biggest piece is, um, educating people. Right. This is so different than what most people are used to that. Right. How are you gonna do that with a picture? Right. Exactly. An ad in a magazine or, you know, a, a billboard. Not that we're considering billboards, but you know, things like that are really hard to connect with a patient. Mm-hmm. Understand what they're needing and help them understand how we can provide that for them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what's been the biggest thing that was surprising to you? Like you did a bunch of planning, you were date nights planning and things like that. Um, but when it really gets into, you're leasing a space and you're having business cards made up and opening accounts and all these things, what was, what were you not expecting that came your way? I mean, I'll say while we spent a lot of date nights planning, I didn't quite imagine how hard it would be to find that work-life balance When you work together, you know, during the day it seems to also over take your work home together. And we joke now that we walk the dog every night, and that's like our business meeting. Um, so we take a lot of it home and that's been probably the trickiest thing for us to balance. Yeah. How do we shut that off at five o'clock? How do we, you know, change into family mode here? How do we talk about other things when we go on dates now and things like that. Right. Um, so that's probably to me, probably been the most surprising or thing that I didn't anticipate. Encompassing it is. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll say the other, you know, from my end, again, kind of being the, the clinical piece of it, um, you know, I know how to, to, to, to be a doctor. I don't know, you know, you don't get any education in medical school, on business. Um, you don't get any, you know, I've worked in big offices and, you know, all the supplies were there, they would provide, you know, and so it's been that piece. I remember, I remember when we first, when we first, again, we were operating out of our basement with, with, you know, telehealth stuff, you know, we'd kind of set up a little spot in the basement. So it looked like a nice backdrop for telehealth visits. Um, all our supplies were kind of down there and things, and we paid our, our first supply order. Um, and I ordered, you know, Too much of lots of things and not enough of some things. I mean, I have tongue depressors for decades, um, but didn't, you know, didn't order this or didn't order that. So some of it's just been that piece of, you know, and even now, two and a half years in, you know, where it's every week of, Hey, you know, we, a lot of it's been waiting until we have the need for something, whether that's a piece of equipment or whatever. Yeah. And, uh, you know, we're still finding stuff we did this week. We've been kind of, you know, scrambling, not scrambling, but on different things of like, Hey, now we need this. We could have used that already. Yeah, we could have. Yeah. Or, or, yeah. Now we have a patient who has this need and it's kind of a fun, a fun thing. Uh, but that's been, you know, again, the, the logistics of, of that side of it as opposed to, hey, all the, all the supplies were already there. Yeah. Yeah. And there's someone who's at their job of, of ordering and doing all those types of things. Now it's, uh, now it's us. You kind of build it while you're flying it. Yeah. Um, and you don't know you need it until you need it and stuff too. Somewhat. You know, and we've never had a big issue where we needed something lifesaving and didn't have Right. But it's all these, you don't have any bandages. Yeah. All these little pieces of things where, yeah. I mean, I still have from that first order two and a half years when I still got bandaids for, for days, you know, and, um, but didn't order enough of, I don't any other things, but it's, uh, that's been part of a, a growth. A growth process. Yeah. Will you like get up to 3, 4, 5 doctors before you need additional help at the front office? Uh, Allison, or will you bring in some administrative support? We actually have, uh, a front desk person. Oh, that's right. I knew that. Thank you. And she is fantastic. And she is. So great. And is that gives you the flexibility to be off networking and doing stuff and whatever? A hundred percent. Yeah. It's nice that I know she's answering the phone, she's scheduling people, she's taking care of everybody and we know they're all getting responded to and she's kind of the one that keeps both of us on track. So yeah, it's great to have her and I guess we'll see, um, you know, as our second doctor comes in, I imagine it will still be, um, doable, but seems pretty doable. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see, I mean, and you always have to remember, like even two full doctors is less than one regular physician in the traditional system, right? I mean, even 1200 patients is still less than one doctor normally carries, and they've got, you know, maybe two or three people for a whole office of doctors. That's what I was gonna say, with those doctors that carry, you know, say 2,500, 3000 patients, How many administrative staff, is it one per doctor in that kind of a setting or not even that much? I, I'd probably say maybe even, I mean, more so you've got, obviously you've got the front office, you know, folks, um, you've got the nursing side of things. Sure. Which we don't have currently a nurse. Right. And a lot of times, you know, a nurse is there because you, you're, Someone has to room the patients and get the next patient ready and the next patient ready, and we don't have that need. And so I room my, I bring my own patients back, right? And do my own vital signs and certain things. And, and at some point we will, you know, uh, probably hire someone on the other clinic prediction or something type stuff like that. So, um, but yeah, it's, uh, I think in a traditional office there's probably, you know, for every doctor, there's probably another three to four people in the office that are doing stuff and, you know, we'll we're, we're, we're great with right now, with where we're at, but I'm sure it'll, it'll, it'll pick up and, and, and grow too. So. But I do wanna say like, it's always our intention to keep it small. It's always our intention. Yes. That when people come in, they know us and we know them and it feels comfortable. Mm-hmm. We never wanna get to a corporate feeling. Sure. Um, we never want that many people in the office that are. Front office people don't personally know, right? The people walking in, um, or that our patients are having to wait in a waiting room or things like that. Um, would you do a hometown family health north office or something like that? So there's smaller little satellites. We've thrown around that idea as, as, uh, instead of having a big location, we've had, yeah, we've had even some opportunities presented in different ways and things and, and yet yeah, that, whether that's expanding one office or opening up kind of multiple kind of satellite offices in different places. And we'll see what, uh, what comes. Right now we're just, we're focused on getting this, our next doc kind of, kind of fired up and going and, uh, I'm asking you to like look way far ahead. No, it's great though. And we have those discussions. Those are kind of part of our nightly uh, our nightly wind down walk meetings, um, is kind of the big picture because, because. You know, we've got a good stable set of patients now enough and enough interest that obviously we're adding this, this second physician. But, uh, you know, the lifestyle piece of it is really the next step of what we really wanna be able to build out, really pull more services into the model and build more services into that. And, and part of that is gaining that education. Again, in middle school, medical school, you don't get much business education. You also don't get much nutrition and, and other type of education. Yeah. So a lot of that is, is gathering that education so that we can, you know, handle. More things in-house as opposed to sending, you know, other resources. But that's the next big piece that we're gonna, you know Yeah. Start focusing on building out is kind of the lifestyle piece of it. So, and talk to me about that. You, uh, Allison mentioned you had a certified lifestyle something, something certification. Yeah, so Allison is a, a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach herself. Um, I'm currently going through what's the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, lifestyle Medicine, um, and doing, uh, you know, their course. And eventually we'll sit for kind of the board certification. So we board board certified in family medicine and lifestyle medicine. Tell what, tell me about what lifestyle medicine means. I don't know that term. Yeah. Lifestyle medicine is more of, you know, a focus again on Yeah. You know, lifestyle measures as opposed to pharmacological interventions that food b i medicine. Sure. Absolutely. So focus on nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, those pieces of things where, um, you know, you're not only, you know, focused on the stuff that doesn't make traditional medicine doctors any money. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. Basically. But yeah, again, our focus is, you know, we, you know, as, as a, a western trained physician, if you will, um, you know, it's, uh, obviously I, I believe there's a time and a place for medicine, a time and a place for surgery. Um, but it's not the end all be all. There's a, a massive, I think, piece that we're missing that is that, you know, discussion on, on healthy lifestyle interventions to both prevent and reverse disease. Um, that if you just, that takes time. It takes time not only to talk about those things, but it takes time to make those changes. Um, and in this model we have that time, um, you know, to devote to patients, um, as opposed to to other. Yeah, fair enough. So in that vein then, um, Like, that's just be part of your practice is that lifestyle inclusion that's just folded in, right? Like that's part your dna. It it already is right now. Right, right. It's definitely folded in your dna. You're not charging extra for the here. No. Right, right now. No. You know, you know, I, I have a, I'll say I have a, a, a special interest myself in, you know, cardiovascular disease, so cardiovascular disease, heart disease, heart, you know, heart attack, stroke number one, killer of people worldwide. Yeah, right. It's above cancer, it's above covid, but all these other things. Um, and there's a lot of ways, both life, both medication and lifestyle, that we can make big interventions. It doesn't have to be number one. And so I already have a kind of a focus on that and already do, you know, in my standard baseline set of labs, if you will, for folks, we already do extended testing when it comes to cholesterol and some of these other things. And so right now that's kind of just built into the day to day. And I'm always having discussions with my patients of, hey, you know, whether it's, here's your labs and here's some things that we could do. Giving all the options of yeah, here's the medication side of it, here's the lifestyle side of it. Um, right now, You know, unfortunately, you know, medical school and residency training it, it ends at, hey, you should. Eat better and exercise more. And that's where it ends really, the education that we get. Right. Um, and that's just part of the, the, the training in medicine training. And a lot of doctors are so stressed out that they're fat or they've, you know, they're not in good shape. Yeah. Even themselves. Themselves. Yeah. And I'll tell you myself, you know, the Covid pandemic the last few years have been, you know, not kind to a lot of us, but, uh, um, so right now, yes, we have a lot of those discussions. I feel like unfortunately, my current, what I'm able to provide for folks is not where I want it to be. Yeah. And so right now we, we do access and we've got a lot of great partners in the community that are, you know, nutritionists, physi, you know, physical therapists, you know, those that we refer people out Yeah. To yeah. Who want more of that in depth discussion, accountability, health coaches, all those types of things. Um, eventually we'll try to, You know, provide as much of that in-house as we can. And once we have more of that training and things, and like we, like we talked about, you know, it's, it'll probably become a, you know, there's the regular membership piece, which even within the regular membership lifestyle will always be a focus. Right? Right. Um, but for those folks who want more of the in-depth knowledge, education, accountability will probably be a, a, an extra piece and extra layer just because of the extra time that it takes. Would you, it seems like you're at least friendly with some of the other holistic Yeah. Practitioners kind of. Would you ever see like having a chiropractor on your team Sure. Or an acupuncturist or things like that? Or is that more Yeah. Referral out to your partners around? Yeah, we'll see, we'll see where it goes. I'm um, You know, so we, yeah, we, we've met with a lot of folks in the area where the chiropractor, acupuncture, physical therapy, nutrition, those types of pieces. And so, um, I think, you know, definitely, yeah. Will at some point, will we bring some of those folks into our space. Um, I'm also a, a do so a osteopathic physician as opposed to MD behind my name. It's do, yeah. Um, which a lot of people don't understand a more holistic, what that is a little bit more holistic at the, at the core. One of the pieces of it is that, uh, you know, trained in what's called osteopathic manipulation, which is similar to chiropractic care in that, uh, you know, it's a hands-on manual medicine adjustment, looks at the, you know, structure and function of the body and how they play. Um, actually took a, I did five years of medical school, not because I, you know, fell behind because I took an extra year to do a fellowship in that. Um, and so have some extra training in that, actually still teach that over at the local residency. Um, and so that's one of my interests. Um, so, you know, we do again, incorporate that into a lot of things. But, uh, but yeah, we're very, you know, traditionally, again, kinda western medicine, trained, but, uh, understand the importance of whether eastern medicine or other, you know, uh, other, um, the usefulness anyway, the usefulness of those things. And, and again, in, in everything has its time and its place. And so Allison, have you journeyed into some of the other, you know, have, do you go to chiropractors, acupuncturist ever, or things like that? Um, I go to Trevin. He does a lot of OMT for me, which has been great. Um, I actually was seeing a physical therapist for a while for my shoulder. Um, I'm trying to think like what else? I mean they've done dry needling and things like that, which I think is probably some of that. Yeah, no, I would agree. Um, similar to acupuncture, um, haven't totally ventured into much of it, but just haven't had a lot of time either. Well, and you're young and healthy and hopefully haven't had a lot of need also. Right. Yeah, definitely. So what else would you have me know on the business journey, or should we kind of. You know, jump in the time machine and learn more about what made you wanna be a doctor in the first place. Sure. And we, whatnot. I, well, I think something that we get a lot, I will say on Facebook, um, people in our office asking is, and something that's been, um, kind of brought to the forefront during, I will say Covid specifically is, you know, what is Chauvin's stance on, not specifically vaccines, but like his medical philosophy and things like that, which we always kind of emphasize is important in our office. So I think that'd be something cool to share. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You mandate all your clients. No, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a, that's a huge piece. I mean, I think the, the, the pandemic has highlighted a lot of things. Yeah, great. About the world and not so great about the world and medical community and healthcare, all these types of things. And so, um, we had a lot of people, it's brought a lot of things to the forefronts. We had a lot of people that are, you know, looking for an alternative different, just looking, running for president, right. Like illustrates Yeah. So there's, there's, you know, a lot of pieces to that. And, uh, you know, as we try to stay, you know, I guess, you know, not political, you know, not any political things, you know, cloud our judgment in the, in the clinical space. But, uh, you know, a lot of people, I think it really highlighted, if anything, and, and in my world, in the primary care world, it really highlighted the importance of having a primary care physician who, you know, who you trust, who you have that trusting relationship and can have those discussions with. Mm-hmm. Um, Having a resource where you can reach out to and say, man, I'm hearing this from this source, this from this source, this from this source. What's true, what's not true? You know, all of these different things. And have being able to have, you know, trusting discussions with folks, even if political ideologies differ and those types of things. So when patients come to us, I always tell patients, look, my philosophy, um, is that I am not a decision maker for anybody. Right? That should not be my job. Um, and unfortunately, when you have five, 10 minutes with a patient, that's sometimes what happens, right? You have to, you have five, 10 minutes, and at the end of that five to 10 minutes, you feel pressured to give them something. So whether that's, here's a referral, here's a medication, here's what it is. Um, that's not our practice. Um, I say I'm not a decision maker for anybody. My job is to take my background, my education, my experience, my expertise, if you will, to provide information. Um, I'm a, I provide information. I. Put it out on the table for you to say, Hey, here's what's out there. Here's what's, you know, understanding information and give you information as a patient to then feel empowered and informed to make a decision for yourself. Love it. Right? And that may mean that prevent it with the same information. You and I may make different decisions. Totally. And in, unless that's putting yourself or your, or someone else in immediate danger, I'm okay with that. Right. Because as long as it's an informed decision, as long as it's an educated decision, as long as we've sat down and had those discussions, Whatever decision you make is, it's okay with me then. And that may, and that's, uh, you know, obviously the forefront of that is, is, is immunizations, vaccines, those types of things. But really any medical decision. Sure. Yeah. Right. As long as well or any decision period. Period. Right. And what I was smirking at is, I suspect, Allison, you remember on the membership application, there's basically a, a waiver almost. It's like, you know, your decisions are your own. Yeah. We're providing you a forum and perspectives and a structured format, and you're gonna get a lot of information, a lot of stuff put on the table. Then you go make your decision. Yeah, you do. You know, don't you do with that, what you're gonna do with it? And I'm okay with that. I'm not gonna, so we don't know, we don't put up barriers to, you know, you have to show us a vaccine card or whatever to come into the office. Obviously we do follow, you know, local guidelines when it comes to, you know, some of those things. Sure. And, and population health and stuff is important. But, uh, you know, we, we try to make it a comfortable space where people can come in and access healthcare in a non-judgmental space. Um, where they can feel heard, um, be educated, um, and then feel informed and comfortable with making whatever decisions they feel was good for them in their family. Some ways that's kind of your whole practice is built. On that notion. Yes. Like here's access to somebody to talk to about stuff. Yep. And, and, and then, you know, the, the business side of it, when we go outside of, you know, we don't have someone a lot insurance telling us what we can and can. Right. Run that and do. And so when we go outside of that piece, it does open a lot of windows and doors that way too. Of like, hey, you know, there's, you know, there's certain things that we can do. Yeah. Because the right thing to do would be this, but we wouldn't get paid for that. Sure. And so we're gonna do this. Right. Right, right. The right thing. The thing that we really need is, is, is over here in the traditional world, we'd have to do X, Y, and Z before we can do that. Right. Um, but we're just gonna bypass it and do that cuz that's what we really need. Yeah. Allison, um, you became a member of Loco Think Tank three months ago, four months ago, something like that. Two or three months ago. Uh, yeah. February. February. So it's been a few months now. Yeah. It's going fast. Yeah. Um, what, uh, sorry to put you on the spot with this, but what would be some reflections after, you know, a few months with this kind of peer advisory engagement? Um, you know, they helped us a lot actually. We were in a little bit of a, um, tricky time, um, learning how to be employers, which has been a difficult spot. I mean, nobody, I. That's something I never learned in school either. Sure. Was how to manage other people. Um, and we had, uh, I think his name was Rob, Rob Bray. Oh, came in. Yeah. He was awesome. Um, outside speaker. Yeah. Yeah. And um, that was my very first time at Local Think Tank and just had some really great insight for us. Um, we've actually since moved on, um, from an employee and brought on a new one that has really, uh, changed our business and allowed us changed perspective about what having an employee could be exactly. Allowed our business to grow and to do things that we couldn't otherwise do, that we would've maybe have felt stuck in that previous situation. Um, yeah. So that was really the first experience and I was like, oh my gosh, I would not. Have figured all this out on my own. Honestly. That's awesome. That's so, it's great. That's a great testimony. People ask me sometimes, you know, what's the, what's the value, what's the return on investment? You know, and you know, if you offload a bad employee three months sooner, then you would've otherwise without the, without the feedback of the group. Well then your dues are paid for three years. There you go, basically. Exactly. Yeah, totally. You know, cuz it's hard for us to see clearly cuz we build these relationships and, you know, you made a decision to hire this person and now maybe I just need another six months or something. And yet the more experienced business people in room are like, Nope. Sounds like a lot of red flags. That's exactly what they did. Yeah, it's really just been great to have other people to like bounce ideas. Um, I mean, Trevor's mentioned this, he's not. Um, he didn't do business. He's not super, not really interested doing business necessarily. I mean, not business smart guy and all. Oh yeah. Super smart. But, um, I don't know, when I have business things going through my head and even if we both agree on em, it's so great to have, you know, more minds to kind of bounce those ideas off of as well. Well, and you guys should definitely listen to my conversation. Actually, it might be in the late fifties, 57 or something with Dr. Bobby and Jamie, but they put a wall of separation because they didn't want. The business needs to color the way that the, the service Sure. The product was really delivered. You know, they didn't want him to be talking people into a bigger procedure cuz the clinic really needed more money. Sure, yeah. Or whatever. Sure. And, and that's one of the things that we've since done since, you know, in the last, again, some of this, this change is we've put, you know, a lot of separation between the, the the clinical and the, the non-clinical. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Where, you know, all of us are together to grow and different things. But there's definitely some separation between those two. And just like she said, you know, I can, I can absolutely see it cuz you know, we, bringing on a second doc for me is super exciting cuz I've got someone else in the office that we can talk medicine about. Right. Dialysis is like, you we're gonna have to pay them every month. Right. But we can bounce ideas off of each other and, hey, I've got this and you've got that and hey, how do we work? You know, that collegiality of, of that. And so Allison being able to go to, you know, some of these things like local, think tank and whatever, and, and, and being able to bounce those ideas off and get ideas from others. It's, uh, it's, it's super helpful. Cool. All awesome. Um, I am going to suggest that, uh, we jump in the time machine. Let's do it. Um, do you need a break or anything? We're happy. I'm rolling. I'm good. I think we're good. Yeah. My beer is empty, but I'll get a little bit more time. Um, so you guys are both from Fort Collins born and raised. Yes. Uh, neither of us born. Okay. But, uh, but definitely raised. I, uh, I was born in California, but uh, we moved here when I was, uh, about five. So started kindergarten here and went all the way through high school. You, nothing to do with that decision had nothing to do with that decision. But I'm glad my parents actually, you probably had a lot to do with that decision. Did. Cause they were like, we heard, we wanna raise his little trevin. Sure. Yeah. So my, my father, um, was a, uh, professor at CSU for, for a long time. Um, and so that's the, was the reason we moved over here. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. So, um, but yeah, from kindergarten all the way through high school, um, lived here. I'm a, I'm a Pudder High school grad. Okay. Let's come back to you. We don't, how are you, Allison? Well, I'm a rocky grad. Yeah, we don't about that. We don't talk about that at our house. Um, but yeah, I moved here when I was eight with my family. Um, my dad's actually also a professor at csu. Okay. Um, top physics, but yeah, from eight, eight years old all the way through high school, he went to, let's see, McGraw, Weber, and then Rocky. Okay. And what did your. Dad teach. My dad's a soil scientist. Oh, I took a soil science class or two back in the day. One from a doctor. I would've to say physics definitely has more street cred than, uh, fair scientist. Don't. Most people don't even know that there're, you know, are such things as a soil scientist. So, so, um, So both, you know, townies, when did you guys meet? That's a good, that's a great, uh, great question. We didn't, we didn't meet until, uh, we both, uh, we met at college in, in Utah actually. Oh, really? We met at byu, which is where we both went. Um, met through a mutual, mutual friend, mutual acquaintance, and, uh, uh, it was probably for the better. She didn't meet high school Trevin. She met, uh, you know, a few, a few years later. And, uh, but yeah, we, it was funny. We, we met and started dating and realized that we had a lot of, uh, a lot of mutual connections, um, you know, between living here and, and church activities and different things. And so, uh, for me it was great. My parents said, uh, my parents moved my senior year high school, they moved, uh, uh, to Utah. Mm. Um, and so my family doesn't live here anymore. And so when we started yeah. Dating and things, it was a, it was great cuz it was a reason for me to come back here and Right. Cuz we still have a lot of friends and, and and whatnot here. So Yeah. Connections. Yeah. So, um, I'm gonna jump back a little bit mm-hmm. In time. Tell me about that five year old, or maybe, maybe more like a 10 year old trevin as you're starting to turn into you. Scary. Were you, you seemed like a fairly athletic guy, maybe. Were you into all the sports? Yeah, that was, yeah, that's why I said, that's why I say it's better that she met me after high school. I mean, it was, I was ath it was sports, you know, grew sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports. Family is a very competitive family. I'm the second of four. Um, everything's a competition. Um, but yeah, grew, grew up doing, uh, you know, lots of sports. By the end of high school, my main sports were, were football and, and track. Um, but played basketball, played baseball, played, you know, soccer as a kid, golf, you know, all the different things. Yeah. And that was kind of the main, the main focus was, you know, athletics and fitness and that kinda stuff. Yeah. A good student too, or not as interested. Yeah, no good student, uh, um, was able to, you know, luckily get some, you know, academic scholarships to go to school and different things, but, uh, yeah. But yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a testament to, to my parents for sure. Yeah. A lot of work ethic involved there. And, you know, Athleticism doesn't get you that far in sports either. You just gotta be a lot of teamwork. Sure. And training and effort for sure. How about you Allison? What uh, what was that experience, uh, say plop you into upper elementary school to start? Um, I mean I, it's funny cuz I didn't grow up in a sports family, but still loved sports. None of the rest of my family were really into'em. But I was a total tomboy and played all the sports. I ended up playing field hockey and then doing track. Okay. Um, in high school, um, my parents always said that I was gonna be a lawyer. Um, literally would argue everything. It always had valid and logical arguments. Um, they were for sure I was gonna be a lawyer, but, um, you know, ended up going the business route, which is so funny because I was always, you know, in high school, um, and beyond hustling and looking for side jobs and doing things to make money and find ways and, um, I can remember from like eight years old, eight years old, on, um, having some kind of a job, whether it was clean my dad's office or, um, mowing lawns or doing this or that. Um, keeping, you know, records of my money. Um, just always, huh? Just, um, interesting. Always on the hustle. I still don't remember ever doing that. Just kidding. That's why I married her. Right. That's cool. Born to be an entrepreneur. Definitely. Yes. Yeah. Well, and, and you know, business and, and managing people and stuff, you know, there's a lot of persuasion and. Debate even in a sort, you know, you're not gonna really have a great employer-employee relationship if you're a great debater, but, but really laying down the, the cause of why we do it this way Sure. And things like that. Like, that's all good prep on that too. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, were you guys same age when you landed in college? Uh, I'm a couple years older. Okay. Um, which I think part of the reason we didn't meet here, um, partially, we, you know, lived on opposite. I didn't, I, I grew, I grew up across the street from Veli Elementary, so the north side of town. Yeah. Allison grew up in, uh, you know, harmony and, and taf. So opposite corners, I was a couple years older, which had been in high school is kind of a big deal. Deal. Well, it's a pretty big town too. Yeah. And it, yeah. So, um, part of the reason we didn't meet here, but, uh, I had, uh, I had, uh, gone taken a couple years off of school, um, and, uh, had served a mission for our church and then had come back. Sure. And so when I came back we were both, um, sophomores. Yeah. Um, so same kind of level in, in, in school, and. And I talked to Allison about this before, but you guys are part of the church of Latter Day Saints. Of course, yep. Is it just the boys that get sent out on Mission? Yeah. Its after high school or Tell me about that. No, it's, uh, it has morphed and changed over the last, you know, five, 10 years probably. It, uh, it's opened to anybody, both, uh, men and women, and we don't have to go. Don't have to, you can. No, it's, it's a big part of, of, um, you know, kinda growing up, you're a, you're, if you don't, if you're a boy, especially not necess No, it's, uh, there's, there's been a lot of that that we've tried to weed out that, you know, absolutely. Everybody has their own, own, own liberty and, and decision and there's a lot that goes into that decision. It's two years your, what do you feel to actually do? Oh, yeah. Huge. And so we don't want folks, even if you live to a hundred, that's 2% of your life. Right? Right. So, you know, it used to be that, uh, um, you know, young men would go at the age of 19, um, if, if, if young women wanted to go was at the age of 21. Um, that's since changed where now young men can go at 18 and then young women go at 19. And so a lot more, um, a lot more girls are going out on, on. On missions, um, you know, the change is nice too that a lot go straight outta high school. I went and did a year of school and then left for two years and then came back. Okay. And so they're trying to minimize a lot of those interruptions and different things. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. And do you go like different places or do you go to like somewhere for two years? You go to one place for two years, you kind of, you kind of put in an application if you will, um, and say, Hey, I'm, I'm willing to go wherever, you know, God sees fit and, and uh, sends that into the church headquarters. And then you get a, and it's kinda a cool, we heard from God, it's, yeah. You get a, yeah, you get, you get a, you get a, what's called your mission call and it's a big, it's a fun thing. You used to be an envelope that you get now it's all electronic, but uh, you open it up and you, you, you see where you're going for the next two years. I went to Argentina. Oh, cool. I was, uh, the western side of, of Buenos Aires. And so, um, was a amazing two years and. I'm sorry to stay on this, but No, it's great. So like, is there a, a few other people like renting a house together or something? They just, it's give you a flight. It's very, you're like, good luck. It's, it's very, it is very organized. Um, okay. So within it, there's, uh, there's, there's someone who's called this, what's called the mission president, which is, you know, you know someone usually in their, you know, older, not older, wouldn't say old, but, uh, you know, usually someone in their, you know, forties, fifties, a couple that's called to, to, to serve and they use usually serve for a three year period and they're mm-hmm. They kind of manage all because it's a bunch of, you know, 19 and 20 year old. So, um, you gotta have some organizations. So, um, so yeah, you go, you, you're, you go down, usually there's a, there's a period of training before you go to the, whether you're going to a, somewhere within your own country or a foreign country. Um, there's a, there's a certain period of training and that's often, you know, language training as well as you know, how to, how to teach and those types of defend the faith, I presume, whatever. Um, and so there's a period of training in that for me, I think was six weeks. Um, and then from there, yeah, you get on a, on a flight, you go down to your, and, and you get, you met by other missionaries down there. And then, and then you're assigned different areas within in d different zones. Yeah. So there's a, there's a old geographic area for the mission itself. Within that it's broken up into smaller zones. You're always with another companion and Yeah. That's all assigned. And so yeah, my year, my two years, um, I bounced between, I think I had six different we called areas. Yeah. Um, that I, you know, so two to three months. I, I was in one area for, um, just over a year, which is actually Wow. Quite a long time, um, to be in one spot as a missionary. But I was in one spot, kind of in the countryside of, of the province of Buenos Aires for a year. Huh. And then the rest of it was, you know, a couple months here and there in other little places, huh. Yeah. Wild. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Wild experience. I'm sure. I'm sure. Especially, uh, Probably your first time out of country, even whatever. Yeah. First time really outta home. I mean, I'd gone to a year of school, um, and, you know, lived on my own for a year, you know, my freshman year of college. But, uh, yeah, first time outta the country, um, you know, learning a whole new language, a whole new culture, the whole thing. And we met after that, which is absolutely better to meet after that than Right. It was better to, better to meet me post mission than it was to meet me high school, I'm sure. Yes. Very different focus in life. You know, I've, I've thought. I guess thinking, not that I think a lot about it, but that it was more about spreading the faith and evangelizing, and I'm sure that's why they get the funding to do all this stuff and stuff. But I bet the transformation factor on turning boys into actual men is a big part of why they do it. Yeah. Well, I will. And ladies, young ladies into women. Yeah. I will say it's all self-funded. Oh, so you pay your way, you pay your own way. Which is, which is again, a big piece of it. Um, but yeah, it's, so you got a job while you're down there and stuff? No, you, you just, uh, save up or whatever Are your folks up for checks for your parents and whatever. If you can't, you know, the, the, the community helps and, and different ways to help, uh, you know, folks, but it really is all kind of self-funded. Um, but really, yeah, it is, it's, it's, it's obviously, it's, uh, you know, about teaching about Jesus Christ. It's about serving other people. That's what you're doing for two years. You're serving anyone that you can find and help. Um, But yes, it's, it's, it's as much, you know, as, as it is, you know, prose, lighting and, and, and teaching. Um, as it is kind of just self-growth. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's a, that's a, it's two years benefit. Invaluable, yeah. Experience of the church community. Yeah, for sure. And Allison, nothing like that in your experience, I guess, or No. I mean, when, um, when I was in college, the age was still 21. Sure. Um, and we actually got, I was 20 when we got married, so it didn't get that far. Um, but yeah, not, is it something, if it, if it was today, would you want to do that or is it, I mean, it was something I would definitely consider more. It was so far, you know, I was, you know, 18. I was 19 when we met, and I knew that was, you know, it can't go till I'm 21. So something that I don't know, I didn't feel super strongly about. Sure. And not everybody does, and that's okay. Sure. Um, but something as I approached 21, I would've considered more strongly if that was the direction I felt pulled. Yeah. Um, but we met and that was, you know, you're like, well, I'm not leaving him direction that I, uh, you know, felt that, that God was having me go. Sure, sure. So one of the things that I found was interesting is I. Like you talked about, um, your kids being off to school and stuff, so you could help this thing. It's like medical school education is so long. Like you can make babies and send them up to school before you're done virtually. Yeah. We, we, we did. We, uh, we, as she said, we, we married young. I was 22, she was 20. Um, our first child was born in undergrad. Our second two were born during medical school. Um, our oldest is now. 12 going on 20. Wow. Um, but she jokes that she has the young parents. Um, but uh, right. In, in, in today's world, it's that way. Yeah. Yeah. So it, yeah. Yeah. We, we, we've seen people, you know, we, we, we joke sometimes that man, we, you know, we'll be empty nesters by the time we're mid forties. Yeah. Um, but at the same time we always, we, when we were in the throes of, you know, newborns and med school, you know, seeing our, our colleagues who weren't, were newly married or didn't have kids really looked enticing, you know? Yeah. Right. There are obviously pros and cons. Yeah. You had a lot of obligations right from the start there. No, we wouldn't change it, uh, for anything. Can I ask about your, your financing? Did you have to take a bunch of student loans for that whole thing? Or did your folks save good and stuff and No, I mean, our folks did. Our folks did great and amazing things for us. Um, but no, I mean, medical, that's, that's, um, you know, if you look at. The, the flaws or the big problems with, with healthcare and, and different things. Some of it is, you know, just the expense of medical school Yeah. Itself, the training. Um, you know, it, uh, we definitely are, we, we, we were able to get through under our undergraduate. Both of us graduated with degrees, both got through that without any debt. Wow. Um, through, you know, different scholarships and different things, which was amazing. Um, once you get to medical school, I went to a, you know, a private school. Um, The cost of tuition was when I was, there, was, uh, 60,000 plus a year. So, um, and we had two, and then eventually three small kids. So it wasn't like Alison was working a full time job, so Right. Most people in that situation, I mean, you just, you just have to take it all that money, so you just borrow that money and know that you'll have to pay it on the back end. And, you know, we did get, uh, um, you, not, not lucky, but, uh, fortunate that, uh, I did this extra year fellowship. Um, it was actually spread over three years, so I actually got a scholarship that covered all my school for the last three years. Oh, okay. Um, even with that, graduated with, I look at Allison, I don't know the money. I mean, I graduated with, it was like$300,000 in debt, med school debt a little bit. I mean, I think most of our colleagues were graduating with about 500,000. Right. Yeah. And that was, and that's compounding, you know, it's always the interest. So here's a controversial question. Yeah. Like, do you need to be that smart to be a decent doctor? Like I'm sure it's hard to tell because your depth of knowledge is painted in so many layers. Sure. And things like that. But it feels like, especially with. I hate to say that, but with AI technologies and stuff, sure. You could make just a kind of a caring, fairly well educated person with a four year degree, a pretty good doctor potentially. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think, I, I, the, the, the education is invaluable. Um, you know, the cost of it is, is a little bit crazy in my mind. Yeah. But, uh, you know, the four year medical school and the training and, and I think a lot of the focus on the training, the residency training, the hands-on training, those kind of things is definitely invaluable. And, you know, there's lots of pieces to it. Yeah. I think there's a lot of pieces to it that, uh, whether that's ai, whether that's, you know, we see a lot of, you know, mid-level providers, you know, physician assistants, nurse practitioners totally can do a great job with a lot of things. Um, you know, I think there's, there's pieces of it where, yeah, you, you still need the personal piece. Um, there's definitely, you know, Pieces of it that I think you need that, uh, that background and that training. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, the, the, the price of it is, is, is a little bit crazy. There's a huge impediment, right? It is having more doctors and honestly, and one of the reasons the care costs so much is cause there's not enough doctors. Sure. There's, there's a shortage on things, especially the primary care. Cuz again, you know, as I said, we get paid to do things to people, not for people. So a lot of people get into it, want to go into some of the higher specialties and surgeries Totally. Or whatever, and make, make more so you can pay back that debt and, and, and, and whatnot. But, uh, also the reason that, uh, People always ask, you know, when I talk about this direct primary care that, uh, it sounds great, right? I have better, a better work life balance. I see less patients, I'm able to have more relationship with people. And I say, well, why aren't more people doing that? Yeah. Well, because you have 300,000 plus of debt, right? And starting your own business and, and, and the grind. And the hustle, right? And the not having the, the guaranteed, whether it's the salary or the income or whatever, is really scary to a lot of people. Totally. Right? By the time you're done with med school and residency, the last thing you wanna do is now you start a business. And so, yeah, it's, uh, it's an unfortunate, you know, a lot of my colleagues, you know, take jobs that, that, uh, you know, may not be, you know, what they always dreamed of the work-life balance, but it's, it's probably a runway what it means to a Yeah. Right. Like, I'm sorry to jump in there. No. But with your, like, your membership costs and mm-hmm. How many members, like I can do some math and be like, you know, at. 200 members, it's kind of, you know. Yeah. And then at three or whatever. Yeah. And, but you got a whatever, a x thousand dollars a month. Yeah. In student loan payments soon, if not already. Yeah. Yeah. So we, uh, one thing we did mention is I, I direct primary care and hometown Family health is our baby and is gonna be the main thing long term. Right now I work four different jobs. Oh, you do? Um, so we've got the hometown family health, which is the long-term thing. Um, I work one day a week. I'm still at the residency program, so I teach over there. Oh, cool. Which is partly a way to kind of work, kind of giving back thing, kinda. It's, it's staying connected with that. It's teaching, which is a huge piece and I love doing that. Um, but it also is some stable income while the business grows. Um, I also work as a hospitalist, um, so in hospital inpatient medicine out in Fort Morgan. Okay. I do that one week a month. I go out there and do 7 24 hour shifts in a row. What, um, And, and work in the hospital out there. It sounds a lot worse than, than it's, I hope that pays pretty good, but it pays well. So it, it pays. It does. That's the one that right now pays the bills and allows us to, to, to hire another physician and grow Sure. And different things. And then the fourth hat I wear is, um, I'm the, uh, this one's more of a fun thing, but, uh, I'm the, the team physician for the, the, um, Northern Colorado owls and the NOCO Hail Storm. Oh, cool. Which are the, uh, you know, baseball team and, and soccer team that play out the future Legends and Windsor. So, yeah. Yeah. But a lot of that, uh, some of it's for fun, but a lot of that is the hustle, the grind, having something to, to put food on the table for my three kids and grow the business while the business grows and Yeah. You could starve it to death otherwise. Right, right. And so I'm, you know, yeah. Eventually, you know, we'll, uh, you know, the hometown family health and DPC is gonna be the one and the only. Um, but, uh, until then, Maybe about a grind. You might keep teaching, but whatever. Yeah. But, uh, but for a lot of my colleagues, like going out and doing that, you know, if I didn't have Allison, the, the business side of this I'd, I'd be lost. Right. Right. I wouldn't be able, I'd sign a contract and go, you know, see my 30, 40 patients a day and I'd do what you have to do. But, uh, I, I got lucky and, and convinced her to stick around and, uh, open this up with me. So, uh, it seems like she's, it's worked on board so far. Yes. Anyway, um, so Allison described that, uh, meeting this young man recently returned from missions. What was the first, uh, impression, if you remember? Oh dear. Oh dear. I don't think we have enough time for that. Well, well, let's see. Oh, we found out we were gonna be moving into the same apartment complex. Our friend had figured this all out. Um, so I was literally moving in 10:00 PM. I don't know, some night in August right before school started, she calls him up. Oh, I had just bought a car from your mutual friends? Yes. So our mutual friend had come along with me, helped me move in. She was gonna hang out for the week. Um, I had just bought a car from my sister. It was, well this is one of my hustles. I was paying my dad for this car, so it had to be, have Colorado license plates on it. And, um, I couldn't figure out how to change him. So she calls him up, he comes over with some tools. Um, turns out it was harder than it looked, it was stripped or something. Okay. Um, helps me change these license plates. Um, I invite him over for dinner, which he agrees to, and as he leaves, I'm like, that guy is too cool for school. I'll never see him again. Um, and then the next day he texted me and canceled on dinner. Um, turns out his sister had a volleyball tournament that weekend in the same place. Um, but yeah, and then we kind of just. Started hanging out. Um, I learned very quickly that um, he is a man of very few words, um, which doesn't seem seen. So on this podcast sometimes. Exactly. Depends on the situation with his patience and everybody, he's fairly chatty, but he, um, and I think that's probably, he was so, he was crushing on you. That's hard. That is very true. But, um, so yeah, he wasn't, he wasn't too cool. He was just a little shy and didn't, you know, wasn't as talkative. Oh, I gotcha. Yeah. And started just hanging out after that. And, um, I mean that was kind of, that was it. That was it. Does, is there like, Rules of engagement with the, the church of Latter Day Saints or anything like that? I, I, you know, not, yeah, not, not you have to be like officially courting or anything like that. No, no, no, no. Nothing. I mean, we, we both went to, we won't, we were at byu, so Brigham Young University, which is a church owned school, um, in Provo, Utah, um, at, at byu, because as church owned, um, there is a thing that you, you signed called the Honor Code. So there's certain things that you, you live by, you're not staying over at her place. Right. And so, for example, so you had to live Yeah. You lived in, in, in, in university approved housing. And there were, there are curfews and, and certain things when, you know, being able to be in a, the apartment of the opposite, the, but otherwise there's nobody. But No, no, you don't, yeah. You don't have to declare that you're, you know, more, more than, more than you do on, I'm fixing to More than more than you do on fa you know, making it Facebook official if you'll, but no, there's nothing. There's nothing there, you knows. Wasn't there, uh, was this still my space? No, not that there. No. We had looked on a few years ago, we had grown up a little bit. So pretty rapid courtship. Then by the time you got, yep. Yeah, we, uh, yeah, it really was, we met in August, the first day that we moved in. So we met in August. Uh, we got engaged on, uh, Valentine's Day and then married in June, so. Wow. Yeah. Less than a year. Less than a year. Fast. Less than a year. And then, uh, how long before the first baby after the marriage? We, what was that? Um, let's see. She was just a little over two years. Okay. Or a little under two years after we've been married. So you had a good year together without. Yeah. A year where we didn't have any money, we didn't have any, any responsibilities. And then we had less money. Less money and more, more responsibilities. Yes. Yes, for sure. And I did graduate. That was the big thing, is we were waiting till I was graduated and then we kind of were reevaluating, do we wanna start a family? Should I go, you know, start a career. Right, right. Um, and kind of the difficult thing with accounting is, you know, you go, there's, you know, the big four firms and really what you do in that last year, they grind you up for a while. Yeah. You interview and then you almost get placed somewhere, um, across the country. And I knew that just wasn't gonna be an option with, um, you know, his plans for medical school. And I was honestly okay with that. Um, knowing that that type of accounting wasn't my love either. Yeah. Um, and so we decided that was a good time to start a family, even though we were poor and yeah, young. Um, why did you choose accounting? Uh, What do you think? It's, well, it's kind of, um, a funny story. Not necessarily a story, but, um, I've always loved business and I've always, you know, loved the hustle. Um, and my mom, my mom was actually a single mom, um, for quite a while. Um, from probably the time I was one until I was eight when I moved here. Um, my mom and my stepdad got married, um, and that's what brought us to Fort Collins. Oh. But she was a young mom. I was actually born in Taiwan, so it's a, a Wow. Really crazy story. Um, but I, she had gotten married, went to Taiwan. Um, her then husband was studying herbal medicine. Um, and so that's why they went there. Um, it didn't work out. They ended up getting divorced. Um, and she was then a single mom in Taiwan with not a college degree. Wow. Um, so we moved back to the States. She actually went to B Y U as well. Um, And hustled. Hustled hard. Got a bachelor's. Wow. Got a master's. Um, we moved here and I think she recognized that hustle and always wanted me to have something to fall back on. Something stable, um, that I could always have a job in. Um, awesome. And I love business. So, um, the two worked together. The accounting program there is super rigorous. Um, so it was hard to get in, but something, and they work you really, really hard. Um, but something that you come out of with a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience. Mm-hmm. Um, something to be, you know, really proud of too. That explains a lot. I you, not to stereotype you, but when you were like, your dad was a college professor in physics or whatever, I was like, oh, you know, because it's a different existence being. A professor's daughter Sure. Than it is being a single mom's daughter. Sure. Yeah. And, and hustling through that journey. And I can tell kind of how that Yeah. Inspired and capable eyes you in some ways. The one, the one thing her, her fa, I mean her stepfather, but it's her, I mean, you know, her father, her dad. Yeah, her dad. Um, you know, when, when I, uh, approached him to talk about, Hey, I'm gonna ask your daughter to marry me, you know, the one thing, and he's a man of even fewer words. Um, but the one thing he said is she's gotta graduate. So, um, you know, we made sure that, uh, yeah, I upheld that, uh, that promise. Fair enough. She, she got her degree and, uh, now it's, uh, it's paying off. Yeah. Cool. Um, I guess, uh, yeah, tell me about kind of the milestones along that, that journey. Leading up to, you know, you're going through, where'd you move off to for like, residency and stuff like that then, or, yeah, so we, uh, we did, uh, um, medical school, so we were, again, we, we met at byu. I actually, oddly, I, I had gone to the University of Utah my freshman year of college. Okay. Um, I was actually in the biomedical engineering program, um, and thought that that was the route that I'd wanted to go. Um, kind of the, the medicine world, but more the engineering world of it. Mm-hmm. Um, got a scholarship there through the engineering program, which allowed me to be in a, in a, in a lab as a freshman. Um, and, and realized real quickly that I didn't wanna be in a lab, um, that I wanted to be out with people. Yeah. Even though I, yeah. Shy in some, introvert in some, but wanted to be out on kind of the clinical Yeah. It takes a special type to just wanna get through microscopes all the time and stuff. Yeah. And it was, it was, I mean, the science was un unreal. It was amazing what they were doing, but it just, it wasn't what I wanted to do and I went off and ended my mission, learned Spanish, fell in love with that. Came back and, and transferred down to byu and actually my degree is in Spanish translation of all things kinda with a focus in the medicine world. Sure. Um, and then took that, you know, finished up there. We did, we did, we, I say we, we did medical school, um, um, in Phoenix, the Phoenix area, so Glendale, Arizona, Midwestern University. So it took us down there for five years. Um, and then was lucky enough to get a residency spot actually here in Fort Collins. There's a family medicine residency here in Fort Collins. Um, so came back in 2018, did my residency training here, and most of that being at, uh, at Putter Valley Hospital. And then the, the Fanny Medicine Center, which is the clinic, um, associated with that. And then, you know, stuck around. And were you Allison, just full-time mom mostly during this whole series. And, and like, how, tell me about that for you. Was that super fulfilling? Were you missing doing hard things with people and business and stuff like that and, and Yeah. Yeah, totally. So, um, we had our oldest, um, It was, well, so about six months after I graduated, I finished in December. She was born in April, so I guess four months. I actually, you don't walk until the April graduation. I missed graduation because she was born and in the nicu. Um, so that was like my first kind of, um, You know, welcome to motherhood. Um, my family came into town for graduation. Chauvin's family came into town. We all went to dinner, sat down to dinner. The NICU calls me, she's ready to eat. Um, so they all had my graduation dinner while I headed over to the hospital, celebrated it without her. So that was like my first, Hey, welcome to motherhood here. Um, and then the first year Trevin applied for medical school, didn't actually get in. Um, we ended up going to Logan, Utah, Northern Utah, for that kind of transition year. We both applied for jobs. Um, but with Spanish translation, there's not much out there. Um, so within accounting degree you can go work in the accounting department at the hospital. Okay. Um, which is actually what I did. So he turned into Mr. Mom for the year. Oh, cool. Um, and I went to work and that's like, um, really put a huge perspective on our marriage ever since then. Um, I would come home from work, kick my feet up, I'm just so tired. And he'd be like, I cleaned the house. You didn't even notice. Right. And it was, and now the, and now the tides have turned. Um, so yeah, it was, um, I was always kind of hustling. So I worked there. Tri got in the next year, um, as we left for medical school, um, we actually moved to Phoenix. I was eight months pregnant with our second kiddo. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, and so it was, here's welcome to medical school, you know, have a newborn and a. Two year old. Yeah. And you're in a brand new community where you've known nobody and it's, and it's August in Phoenix. Right. And you can't go outside. It was, yeah. A transition for sure. Um, kind of laid low and tried to figure that all out for a while. But also we're living on student loans, we have no money. Right. Um, always looking for a job here and there. I'm trying to think of all the different things I did. Um, but really, and in there I was like, I got certified as a personal trainer just trying to do something for me that I love. Um, didn't have an opportunity to use it down there because then number three came along. Right. Um, During our third year of medical school. Um, but I worked, you know, a couple seasons doing taxes. Sure. Um, I, at one point I worked remote work wasn't as easy to come by at that time. No. It, it wasn't. Um, and so, yeah, it had to be remote because I have three kids, no family. Um, and couldn't afford daycare either. Right. Um, at one point I had applied and was working for Kaplan, like teaching prep courses. Mm-hmm. Um, but that got tricky cuz I'd have to leave to teach'em, so it didn't work. Um, just always looking for something because, you know, in medical school anything that you can make is less money. You're, you know Yeah. Living on in loans. Um, so, Always doing that, but always knowing like, Hey, when the, when my kids go to school, I know that I'll be more fulfilled. Being able to do both. Yeah. Being able to be a mom, um, but, but then being able to step outside the home as well and to have a career. Um, it's funny that when I was a kid, I can remember being 10 years old and my parents saying, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Um, and I said I wanted to be one of those ladies who wears a business suit and has a Bluetooth and flies on airplanes. Um, I always, business woman was kind of my, um, My dream job there. Um, and I don't know why, but I've always, that's, yeah, always felt like, um, you know, being fulfilled, doing both, for sure. Sure. Well, you've got a great opportunity now. Yeah. I mean, your business is still young and are you, what's your youngest age now? Um, she's seven. She's going into second grade. Yeah. So she's already, uh, you know, has a lot of the day to herself and stuff like that. Yeah. So, yeah, you got still a lot of youthful vigor to, you know, dominate the world with hometown family health. That's what we wanna do. Yeah. That's fun. So, um, well that's a really great, like being able to get back here to Fort Collins and, and really testify testimony really probably to the, both your interview style or your, your reviews along the way and stuff like that. I mean, I'm sure that's not the. Not the easiest residency to gain. No, no. It worked out wonderfully. And I, I, I as a, you know, your last year of medical school, as you're deciding on what specialty or whatever to go into, and you do, you can, you can do rotations. So a month at different programs as kind of a a month long interview almost. Right. Test. Yeah. Yeah. Um, where you go and you work with the, with the program. And so I came and did a month here and made it very well known that, hey, this is my hometown. This is where I want to come back to. This is, this is, these are my roots. Um, just in case you didn't hear Yeah. In case you didn't hear the Yeah. I'm from here and I wanna stay here. And, and, you know, residency programs are incentivized to, you know, how, you know, train people that are gonna then gonna work in that community. Sure. Yeah. So, yeah. Um, that I think was a big selling point, uh, for them. And, uh, you know, lucky enough to, to get in here. Is that kinda lost for. You see in some ways they're like, oh, we lost him into the DCP world. I don't, yeah, I don't know. I know. Or at least they've got another provider in the marketplace. I don't, I dunno, don't ask questions about that. And it's great. I still work. As I said, I still work there one day a week and so yeah. Um, you know, that good relationships, training and teaching piece and, and, and love the people over there and a lot of my, you know, colleagues and, and, uh, and mentors and, and being able to work alongside them is fun. So, yeah. Awesome. Um, I feel like we might as well, um, get into our closing segments. Sure. Here, is there, uh, anything else on that kind of journey that we, it doesn't seem like there's any major chapters missed No. On that way? No. Was sweated for a few years in Arizona, made your way back up here. Yeah. Funny story for you is that, uh, you know, we, we met, we got married, you know, she always, as, as you're, as you're dating, you asked, Hey, what do you want? What do you studying? What do you wanna do? I say, Hey, you know, I'm studying this Spanish translation thing, but I wanna be a doctor. Um, which, which we, we, we then got married and, and, and one of the things you have to do before, you know, before medical school is take the mcat, which is like the entrance exam into medical school. And I had signed up and was taken a course and, you know, studying for that. And we'd been married for a couple years and Allison finally said, look like. What do you really want to do? You know, this doctor thing, she, to some degree thought it was the way that I impressed her in order to, you know, and I said, no, I really wanna be a doctor. And that was a light bulb thing, I think for her. Like, oh, okay, we're actually doing this thing. Yeah. Yeah. So kind of a, kind of a funny, you know, it took a couple years to, to, to convince her that was really what I wanted to do. Right. Um, but yeah. Well, and doctor's, wives don't necessarily start businesses. No. Um, you know, or be business women. And so this is a great, like, hybrid of both of your dreams. It's the perfect, no, it is, it really is the perfect. Um, as I said, you know, these Alison and our kids got dragged along through some hard times. Sure. Between, you know, medical school is a lot of it's grueling, it's a lot of time away study and it's a lot of doing that, you know, residency is, is even more Yeah. You throw into it residency in the middle of a covid pandemic. Um, and so these guys got dragged along to a lot of things and, and missed dad in a lot of places. Um, and so to now have something that's, that's ours, yeah. Is really cool. And to be able to work together, um, and build something together is really fun. Awesome. Well, I'm glad you're doing it. Yeah. So, um, we're gonna call a short break. And we're back. And so, as you guys know, and we were just discussing, we always talk about faith, family, and politics. Uh, we've dipped a toe into faith just a little bit. But, uh, start wherever. Wherever you'd like and with whomever you'd like. Yeah. Well, We could start, I guess with, with with Faith. I think, uh, our faith journeys are, I think, are a little bit different. Um, you know, both are obviously now members of the, of the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter-Day Saints. Most people know it as the, you know, the Latter-Day Saints or Moron Church. But, uh, um, if you look at my, you know, one of the things that we really, uh, Put a focus on, in, in, in that faith is family. Um, and, uh, you know, a lot of, you know, family tree and genealogy and that kind of stuff. Yeah. If you look at my family tree, you know, my, uh, we go, I go back to the, the pioneers, if you will, the first, you know, members of the church. Oh, interesting. That, uh, you know, crossed the great, great, great, great great Uncle Jedi Smith or whatever, both sides of my family, my father's, you know, family joined the church in, uh, in northern Italy, then moved to the United States to then come be with, with, with, with, with other members of the church. My par, my mother's in England and, and came that way. And so you go back generations and generations. Wow. Um, whereas Allison's is a little more, uh, at least in, in Faith is a little bit more, uh, recent. Can you share? Yeah. My, um, so my mom is a convert to the church. Um, I wondered, is that like after even the trauma of being a single mom over there in Taiwan and stuff? Yeah. So she actually joined the church in Taiwan. Yeah. Taiwan, sorry. Um, yeah, she, her family was, um, real staunch Catholic. Okay. Um, she joined the church in Taiwan. Um, and then as a single mom moved back, um, and moved to Utah knowing that, Hey, wherever I go, there we go. There's lots of Mormons in Utah that take care of me. This well, where I go, I'm gonna have support and I'll have the church. Yeah. Um, which was great. They helped her. They helped us. Um, I ended up marrying my dad, who's also a member of the church. Sure. Um, and then we were raised in the church. So that was kind of, um, yeah. Mine started, you know, much Yeah. Much closer to home, um, than Trevin did. Yeah. Very much more practical, uh, faith in some ways. Not that it hasn't developed and stuff Absolutely. But for your family at least. Yeah. I think if you talked to, if you talked to Allison's mother, it was, you know, now I'm now a single mother in Taiwan, a foreign country. You know, that was part of the reason for joining the church. Not, not only the, the, the spiritual aspect of it, but the community aspect of, well, there's been other churches too, right. Like, or is, is there a pretty vibrant, uh, LDS element in Taiwan? Or why know? I mean, you really moved back to the, the missionaries, you know, Trevin served a mission and the people that found her were the missionaries Yeah. In Taiwan, um, who were willing to help and serve and, um, right. Part of their weekly routine became bringing some food to this lady and giving her a ride to church or whatever that looked like. Teaching her lessons. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Teaching her lessons in Mandarin or whatever. Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. Huh. That's really, uh, dynamic. Um, and what, like, from your perspective then, like, did you just fold into, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of family pressure in your space, I guess, but, but for you, Alison, it's like, well, I'm, my mom was a Catholic. Uh, I could kind of be whatever I wanted, but the, the church message, I guess really resonated with you as you became a teenager and started thinking, Independently about those big questions. Sure. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, always. Yeah. From, you know, middle school, high school. Um, it was always kind of my decision, my choice. Um, something that if I wanted to do this, this was my prerogative to go and do. Um, and then that moved into college. Um, You know, we got married fairly young and have had our share of, um, trials and experiences that you keep coming back to your faith. Um, yeah. And it, it strengthens your faith along the way. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. I'll say, you know, on my end, again, you know, my, you know, one of the testaments I think to my parents is that, uh, you know, not despite, but you know, despite this long line of, of family, um, you know, it's, it's very ingrained into everything that we do. My, my parents were very good at, you know, Teaching and, and teaching principles and, but, but giving space to, to go out and learn on your own what thinking Right. And go out and, and, and learn this and learn that and learn from your mistakes and experiences and, and, you know, become who you are and, and, and who you're gonna be. And, and, and. With the hope, obviously I think that, that you continue in the, in the faith in the church, but obviously, you know, set that present and hey, we're gonna love you no matter what you do and what you decide to do and where you decide to go and, uh, you know, give that enough freedom, which as we have kids now, it, it's, it's a hard thing to, you wanna hold onto'em. I wanna, that balance is challenging. We gotta, we got, our oldest just finished her first year middle school, and man, I'd rather just, you know, lock her in the basement until she's 18. Right. Or go with her to school every day, you know, cause it's scary and, and, and you know, what kids face nowadays and, and, and things. And so my parents did a, a really good job of, of that. And, and all of my siblings, you know, kind of went different routes in learning and did, you know, made different mistakes and had different experiences and, uh, you know, we're able to, to, to learn, you know, and come to a, a decision on our own of, you know, of how we wanted to go. So, um, anything more to add on this topic? I mean, I think about, I think about like some of the, especially related to our business, um, you know, starting out our business has been. It's been hard. I mean, starting any business has been hard. Sure. Starting a business during covid, starting a business. When you're finishing residency, you think that you're at the end of the tunnel and suddenly hit a new tunnel. Um, but it feels like every step of the way, we're constantly reassured in our faith and by God that we're on the right path, that this is what we're supposed to be doing. Um, and you know, it comes in kind of the smallest ways. Um, an example that we, that like has always hit me really strong, um, is right after we started, um, Trevor had been doing these Veterans evaluation exams, and this was to make money, um, while our business was growing. Okay. Um, but you know, an exam is about 15 minutes and about a hundred pages of paperwork. Um, you can imagine veterans disability is what was awful. Paperwork was endless, and this was our plan. This is how we were going to pay our bills and feed our family as our business was growing. And you know, after a few weeks he's like, I can't do these. I am so miserable. This isn't good for my mental health, my physical health. This is just awful. And I can remember just feeling so worried and praying and saying, what are we gonna do? Um, and then I can tell you the stop sign or the streetlight that I was at when I just felt like, you know, we've called some rural hospitals to find other jobs and things, but Fort Morgan, it's just where he works, you know, rural, that rural hospital job that he does on this side. And I, we had never called that one. And for some reason it popped in my head that day, well, I won't say for some reason to me, um, because God put it there for you. That was God, um, saying call this. And it has been the biggest blessing, um, something that has, you know, completely taken that financial stress off of us and allowed us to just grow the business. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, every, every step of the way when we feel a little discouraged, it seems like, you know, God's God sends us something else to say, Hey, you guys are on the right track. You are, are doing something incredible. Um, something and you're serving the community and doing good. I love that. You know, I like to say that, uh, you know, whether, whether it's God or the force of the universe or whatever, like you can tell when you're swimming with the current and you can tell when you're swimming crosscurrent For sure to the whatever that is For sure. Uh, that if you can deny that thing, then you're, uh, easier fool than me, I guess, but whatever. Totally. Um, yeah. So let's talk about family or politics. Yeah. It seems like we should. I do politics last today. Sure. Totally. You pick. Sure. How about family? You wanna talk a little bit more about, actually let's start with you this time, Allison. Let's talk a little bit more about your mom and just the influence that she had in, in your life, and obviously your stepdad Yeah. As well. Well, I will say right now my mom is watching our youngest, so she's always, she there. Shout out to Nancy, always there. Yeah, exactly. Um, but yeah, so I have one sister, um, and then three stepbrothers. Okay. Um, and you've never realized it's not, I never call'em my stepdad or my stepbrothers. I mean, I was eight years older Sure. And we kind of just blended into a family. Um, my three brothers are older, um, and they all have families as well. They all live locally. Um, and my sister lives in Utah. Okay. Um, But yeah, we've always, you know, enjoyed getting together for family things. Um, and my mom has always been kind of that driving force behind me to hustle and work hard. Um, you know, she, that's what she did. Um, and she did it for me, you know. To give me a better life. Um, and it's super inspiring. She's always been, you know, I got a lot of scholarships to college, um, and has always kind of been that driving force behind the hard work. Um, but also my dad. My dad was the one who, um, You gave, gave us allowance, gave us jobs to clean at the office. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, if you want a car, you gotta work for it. Here's jobs, you can paint the garage, you can mow the lawn. Um, so he was also, you know, a big role in teaching me how to do those things and how to navigate money and finances and yeah. Um, those kinds of things. I like it. He was the economic engine in some ways of your household, but he was willing to exactly. Have the honey do list partly taken care of by your hard work. So that's nice. Sure, totally. I got the garage painted honey. How, how about family on, on your side? Yeah. Family, um, is, yeah, a huge piece of, as I said, I'm the, I'm the second of, um, the second of four, four, actually technically second of five. My youngest, uh, my youngest passed away when she was real young. Oh, sorry. Um, but, uh, youngest sister, but, uh, yeah, second of, of four living. Um, my older brother's, uh, only 14 months older than me. Oh, wow. Um, which my parents told me growing up that I was a mistake. Um, as a kid that was like a, it was a little bit offensive. Um, but then we had our first child and realized that, yeah, no one was gonna do this in the right mind. So it made a lot more sense. But, uh, super close with him. He's also a family physician, so Oh, wow. I've kind of followed similar, but different but in the traditional track. Different path. Yeah. He's actually in academia. Oh, wow. So he's, uh, in academia and military. So he's an Air Force, uh, physician. Went through air, the air Force for his medical school and training, and has stuck on as a, as an attending at a residency there with the Air Force. Um, actually lucky he, uh, he just took a job at one of the residencies here in Denver, so they'll be moving out. Cool. Closer else would be cool. But, uh, but yeah, so really close with him and then my younger siblings as well. But, uh, um, you know, parents, um, Know, owe a lot to, to them, obviously. Um, you know, my father, as I said, you know, soil scientist, uh, you know, very educated, you know, within that small realm of things. Right. Don't even know. One of best soil scientist. One, one of the best, most, he's traveled all over the world teaching and, and speaking, and, uh, is, is, is a brilliant, uh, person. Um, but also one that I think instilled a lot of hard work. Uh, he's one that, uh, he's never in his life paid someone to do anything. Hmm. Um, and we joke that part of the reason he had kids was to do that labor. But, uh, you know, we replaced, you know, this is before the days of YouTube when you could, you know, jump on and learn anything. You know, he, we replaced the roof on our house. We replaced the radiator. Wow. In the car, you know, with his background. We always had the, the biggest guard. A real renaissance man, kind of. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and, and, and, and, you know, now it's the same. Alison, I'll tell you, you know, in medical school, the dryer broke, you know, and had jumped on YouTube, figured it out, ordered the parts and fixed it. Right. And so he instilled that. And then, and then my mom has always been the, uh, um, You know, the moral compass, if you will, our kids, we joke at home that, uh, you know, it's, it's always a question of what would Grandma Carton do? Um, whenever there's a decision that needs to be made, you know exactly what Grandma Carton would do and that's the right decision to make. So, um, you know, big shout out to, to Graham. Obviously a quick, uh, quick loco experience in light of the times. But I had a soil science, I had a soil science class I mentioned. There you go. And uh, when I was probably a junior in college, they sent three groups of us out in three station wagons to go to where there was layers that we could examine Sure. In the soils. Cause it was Red River Valley in Fargo, so there wasn't no layers that you could find there cuz it was all just flat. Right. Sure. Anyway, they let me drive one of the station's wagon on the way back along with, I think it was Brian. Uh, and me and Brian were racing on the way back from this place. We had these two old. Eighties station wagon's going like a hundred miles an hour down the interstate with a wagon full of kids each Anyway, there you go. That's a small story. There you go. Love it. Um, I want to, uh, shift it to your family now. Yeah. Um, we always do a one word description of the children. I, if you would like to attempt that. Uh, okay. It's busy. Not for all the children, for each one of them, but Yes. Oh, for each of'em. Yes. So if you would gimme a name and, uh, and an age just to give some centering and then, uh, and you can expand a little bit too beyond our, our oldest is, uh, Addison, she's our oldest, uh, she's 12. Just finished her first year of middle school. Um, you're gonna have to do, I mean, confident independent. Um, 12 going on 16. Gosh, absolutely. Yeah. I have so many. I mean, but she's helpful. This is the girl who was nice five years old and getting her brother cereal cuz we, I had a newborn and he was often, you know, medical school and she's always been like our. Honestly kind of my rock. If he's gone, she's just helping to the max. So there's, that's really cool. Probably a lot of words there to describe her, but No, that's great. That gives us a good understanding of who she is. Yeah. How's your relationship with Daddy? It's, it's good. She's, she's getting to the age where, you know, mom and dad aren't as cool as they used to be, but, uh, we, uh, we actually just went, uh, not too long ago and, uh, with her 12th birthday, um, you know, took her just with just by herself. Left the other two kids with friends and took her to New York City Oh wow. Uh, for a long weekend. And, uh, reminded her that mom and dad are fun, uh, that mom and dad can stay up late, try to reconvince her, that mom and dad are fun. You mean. But it was super fun. It was, it was, it was a wonderful time cuz it was fun to travel with a kid who was independent and Right. And, and different things. So yeah. Really becoming an adult of their own thoughts and stuff. Yeah. She now wants to, every night now she's says, dad, are you, are you a vacation dad? Are you a home dad? Vacation Dad, vacation Dad lets her set up, you know, stay up late and be cool, you know, home Dad makes her go to go to bed and all those things. So I like it. It's great. How about, uh, who's number two? Number two is Maddox. He's our one son. Okay. Um, he is, uh, nine, we'll be 10 in, in in August. Um, what's the one word to describe Maddox? Maddox is really smart. Very smart. He's crazy smart. Um, he's really creative. Um, and man, that kid knows every. Statistic there is about football or really literally any sport, right? I mean, ask him what number 25 was in the draft and he could probably tell you, oh boy, who scored the most touchdowns last year? So it sounds like his dad's there. Sports, sports. Sports. Sports. Sports, sports. Yep. And all the kids are involved in sports, but he is, uh, he's definitely, that runs his life right now. So, Very cool. Yeah. And who's third? Third is Harper. She's our youngest. A Harper's. She's seven. Um, she is, she's your typical, uh, youngest child. Oh yeah. Diva is maybe a word. Describe a some point SAS Harper. Harper Sassy, spoiled. Yeah. We'll just say sassy diva. Yeah. But she's, she's actually, I also also say, yeah, I also say she's the peacemaker. Oh, that's nice. If you look at it, um, you know, the two olders, uh, you know, you get them in a room together and they're button heads. Sure. Um, if you get, uh, her involved in the mix, things, you know, settle out, it's, if it's just one with her, they're really, they're real easy. Then make that real easy. Um, she really does kind of set that she's, she's very easygoing. She's very, you know, goes with the flow, but also kinda dig it. Brings that to it. So I dig it. Yeah. Politics, politics. All right. Um, I don't know where to go with this. Like when it was Covid Nation, we could talk all about what was happening there, but how, how was that for you guys trying to launch a business during lockdowns and whatnot? How was it for you working? It was in the industry, so Covid. During, you know, in the industry was, was, was tough. Um, and, and, and, and you know, may the, the, the biggest, you know, the, the, the bulk of Covid time I was in residency. Mm-hmm. Which means you're already in the hospital, you're already pulling long hours, you know, you're working in the hospital, working in the icu, working in these areas, um, er and and whatnot. And, and, and then, you know, for that. And so, you know, we ended up, you know, you're already working long hours as a resident, um, you know, with, with the, the volumes at the hospital and things. Yeah, yeah. You know, we were one of the, the groups within the hospital where you could mobilize more people to the hospital. So we, we added a, a second, you know, service of people brought more docs in the hospital to overflow, you know, take some of those patients. Um, and yeah, it was, uh, it was a tough time. We, we, you know, we had a lot of talks at home about things with the kids and, you know, cause you're in the front and Sure. You know, dad, dad's going into a place that's, well, and most of the stuff that was done, you know, the lockdowns especially, and even the mandates I suppose was done in the. You know, to try to protect the hospitals from being overrun. Right? Sure. Like that was kinda a justification at least. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, we, you know, we even had talks of, you know, do Allison's parents have a, a motor home? And you know, we, we'd even had as much talks with them of, hey, you know, can we, if it gets to it, can can tri take the motor home, park it at the hospital. Oh wow. You know, cuz you, you didn't know we, I'd come home and I'd, you know, strip in the garage and, you know, go straight to the shower and, you know, was it, was it, was it unsafe bringing stuff home and gosh, does dad need to move into a motor home for a little bit? Yeah, yeah. You know, for, so for the kids it was, it was a scary time. Um, and, and, and working in that, in that, in that environment was, was, was tough. And so, yeah. You know, and unfortunately, you know, I think got, uh, you know, the, the politics that came outta that were, um, you know, it was, it was a, a weird time to, to be in, in the healthcare world. Yeah. You know, on one hand, you know, there were weeks where, uh, you know, we, we kind of joke about it. There were weeks that, uh, we were heroes. Right. You were, you were heroes as, as a first line worker and people were bringing food to the hospital, people were putting signs out front and then, Gosh, you fast forward a couple months and you know, now we have a vaccine, and now I'm a, you know, I'm, I'm the big bad guy with the, with the vaccine, with, with the needle. Right. And so you went from being heroes to being villains. Um, well that's an interesting dynamic. I was listening to somebody talk about it on the other day with, with Trump and mm-hmm. Kind of, he's still pretty, uh, proud of the warp speed program and, and all that Sure. Stuff and whatnot. And in the meantime, his quote unquote followers have largely become, you know, Don't jab, no Jabba jab in my arm and whatever, and is that gonna reconcile? Sure. And I have no idea. Right. I know, I know. It's, it's fascinating. As a social scientist sort, it's fast. And, and I think, you know, one of my, one of my, uh, my mentors colleagues, I think put it best in that, you know, we'd get, again, a lot of questions now even with, with the, with with the office of when you do as mandate vaccines, do you have to mask? Right. Do you have all those different things? Is, you know, a lot of people that have a lot of opinions about it. And I'll tell you that, you know, when you're working in the front lines with it, you know, I didn't have the luxury to make an opinion. Yeah. Right. I was, we were there and uh, yeah, we, this is the policy different. This is how we, we saw it, well we, we also saw a very different side of it. Right? Sure. People who then, you know, transition to work from home and you're working from home and you're isolated. Life is easy, you know, life is easy and what's, what's, what's the big deal when, you know, I'm pulling, you know, now, you know, a hundred hour weeks in the hospital because it's overflowing and Right. Sure. I see that small piece of it. But I didn't have, we didn't have the time to make an opinion. We were just treating people. Right. We're trying to, we were best you can and Sure. As best as we could. And a new thing came out, you know, let's, and summer dying ventilators and blah, blah, blah, you know, and yeah, you're so intense. A lot of crazy experiences, you know, through that time. And, uh, you know, I think is, has shaped who I am as a, as a physician to some degree. Cuz did it make you kind of, More open, more humble, like just about what you know and what you don't. Oh, kind, sure. I mean, you realize real quick, you know, what, uh, what you didn't know, um, but also what you did know and, and, and, uh, you know, pushed you into a lot of situations where, you know, you had to step outside your comfort zone a little bit. And I, I always doing some rural work at the time, and so, you know, I, you know, some of those had different set of expectations there, different set of expectations. But you're the only guy. And you know, you're used to working in a hospital, pooter Valley Hospital where you have every specialist and every support system, and then you go out into a rural area where it's just you. Um, and yeah, man, you now you're doing things that, uh, you know, you're asked to, to do. And so yeah, it was a, it was a, a great time and an awful time at the same time to be a training. Alice, I wanna shift it over to you on the business front, and we don't need to stay on topic of Covid, but Sure. Like, there's a lot of regulatory challenge and hiring and different things from a, from a political perspective on the business managers. Side. What, uh, what do you think, what's important to you as, as a business owner in that space? That's, that's a really great question. Um, I mean, we are such a small business that almost all of that stuff doesn't totally apply. You know, it's usually 50 or more employees. Sure. A hundred more employees. Um, so, so you haven't felt, no, not from the over challenged, from a regulatory or any otherwise really? Not from the business side. I think just in general, I mean, if you, you know, go back to the Covid piece of it, um, I think was trying to find customers at that time was sure, but also really difficult because we do want people who are, you know, Open-minded. And we do want people who are going to respect physicians in that sense. You know what I mean? Sure. Sometimes it gets difficult if, and we, we offer consultations, we talk to people beforehand. I mean, it's really to make sure that you are a good fit for us and we're a good fit for you. Um, and a lot of that kind of got difficult, the political piece when people come in and they, you know, covid is fake and this was all, you know, made up or, you know, kind of some of those things that are hard when you know that your husband's working a hundred hours a week when you know that, you know, he's sacrificing his life. There were plenty of doctors out there who got Covid D and died, um, before. Excuse me, before the vaccines and things like that. Um, so really that political and social interactions, um, really, really got to me, um, to the point that, you know, there were some people that maybe I'm, maybe we're not gonna, you know, not gonna be the right for you see each other as often either, you know, socially, um, this is really hard to hear, you know what I mean? Like, your husband is gone doing this all the time. It's hard to hear that this isn't real or you know, what they're doing doesn't matter, um, when you're sacrificing so much for it. Um, so business wise it really is. Um, you know, just making sure that. Patients are a good fit for us, and that's really just, yeah, that's good. You know, I don't know if this is the right way to say it, but respecting science and understanding, you know, a, a doctor's training and their knowledge and there's absolutely, you know, other things out there as well, but, but also understanding that your doctor has your best interests. Um, and wants to work with you. Um, sure. I think the biggest word that comes to mind here is trust. Then, you know, trusting during Covid there was so much information out there. Yeah. Um, I mean, you could literally find, trust something, find anything on Google, on Facebook, um, but knowing that at the end of the day your main re resource for medical things should be your physician. It shouldn't be Dr. Google or Doctor Facebook. Um, in looking for those patients who, who want that as well. Yeah. And if you can find that doctor that you indeed do trust. Right, exactly. I think that's the criticism is that a lot of people feel like a lot of doctors just went along Yeah. You know, for the ride without really doing their own research. Sure. And whatever. Uh, I wanna shift it because we do have a quick timeline here coming, but, uh, let's jump on the Loco experience. Have you processed that? I thought one. You did. Did. Oh, good. I think it may be the same one. It ties in with, with faith and family and things and medical a little bit and a little medical. Yeah. Okay. Um, I, I guess I'll, you know, we'll start and tell the story, but, uh, that's alright. But Allison has mentioned that, that she was born in Taiwan. Um, you know, mom was, uh, you know, single for the first eight years of Allison's life, you know, part of that in Taiwan. Then moved back here. Um, yeah, fast forward we got married. Um, After each of our first two kids, Allison got sick, got sick after our first kids, um, took about a year to figure out what was going on, got everything settled. Had a second kid. Oh wow. Got sick again. Took about another six months to a year to figure out what was going on. And these kind of, we Yeah. Without getting too much into her medical history, but autoimmune, my brother's wife Yeah. Had the same kind of thing. And he is like, well, we'd, I'd have another kid except for I don't want my wife to die. Well, that's the thing. We had a third kid. We had a third kid, and we were kinda like, who's eh? Who's gonna have something? And, and nothing really happened. But, uh, it kind of brought why are these things happening? And, uh, um, you know, with our third kid, there was a research thing that she was involved in, uh, that did that 20 23andme Oh, yeah. Kind of testing. Um, and we knew that her, her, her, her biological father was, was, was Jewish. That was kinda all we knew about him. Okay. In some, in some levels. Um, and, uh, um, she did this study and, and called me. I was, I remember driving home as a medical student, a third year medical student, and she says, I got my results back. What is, uh, Ashkenazi. Jewish, what is, what is that? And I said, well, you learned in medical school that that's, you know, that's the real serious, one of the worst genetic lines of all time in the sense of, has a lot of high risk for lots of different diseases. So we kind of, oh, that was interesting. And kind of put a piece of that puzzle. Fast forward a few more years, and without getting into too much of the medical, some of the recommendations change for breast cancer screening, um, especially around brca, which is kinda the genetic, uh, component, the genetic hereditary version or, or, or or piece of, of, of breast cancer. Okay. And one of the things that, uh, they recommend is if you're of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, that's a huge piece of it to recommend getting genetic testing. Okay. The other piece of it, about 50% of it is that heritage alone. 50% of it is your family history. And we didn't know any of her family history. We knew her mom's side of things but didn't know any of her dad's side of stuff. Sure. And so I, I was working in a rural area, um, had a lot of time on my hands. And so I called her and I said, Hey, this just changed. I wanna know, do you need to get tested to our, cuz it down to our kids and all these things. And I said, do you mind if I try to find someone in your family? Yeah. I said, I'm not gonna try to find your dad. Um, but can I find a, a relative of some sort that I can ask medical questions to? Cuz this is a big piece of things. She called her mom, and her mom said, yeah, that was fine. And I think maybe mom didn't think I would find any, anybody, but, um, The social media and the internet's a powerful thing. Sure. Um, and within three hours had an email and a phone number for an aunt of hers that we didn't know that existed. Sure. Um, and, uh, you know, was fired off an email and said, you know, enough information that, uh, would know that it was coming from a real source. And, um, about five minutes after, got a, uh, an email that said, you need to call me right now. So, got on the phone with, with Allison's aunt, um, got some really important medical information, which was the piece I was looking for. Um, but then I, uh, you know, hey, would, I knew I had, I've never met my niece. I knew she existed, you know, can I, would you, would she and I trade this information? Liked to, would she like to connect? And I say, yeah, that's not my place, but I'll give that to her. And, uh, took some time. Um, But, uh, they're now, uh, they're kind of adopted third grandparents now for our kids. And, uh, they live in, in Florida and we, we see them at least once or twice a year. And, uh Oh, cool. It's been a big, it's been, it's been super cool. I mean, and there's lots of more layers that we could take forever to talk about, but, uh, different coincidences and, and things. But, uh, it's been from Allison, from, you know, I came from this family that, uh, You know, I have super stable in all knowledge. Super. Every record also. Yeah. All these records. And you know, we went to, you know, Sunday dinner, we went to Sunday dinners at grandma's house for 60 years. Right, right. You know, she was doing these things and uh, you know, cousins and all these things. And, and Allison came from this family, single, single mom. One sister didn't really know family, um, and obviously got adopted into, and to build all these new traditions. But now he has this wonderful, you know, other side of things and, and it's been really cool. So never No. In involvement with your dad or anything, or that didn't come up? Not yet. I don't, he's alive. He's, he's alive. Don't, don't have time. Probably don't. We don't, uh, yeah, there's, we've, we've, we're, we're happy with the, well, I'll say it's been awesome for me. Yeah. Yeah. I let her speak to that, but yeah, I mean, kind of the same thing. Um, just yeah. I mean, you could go all into that, but yeah, we're, maybe there'll be a time and we'll been really good, you know, so see how God directs our steps. Yeah. Yeah. But it's been, it's been good to, to reconnect, but it was, yeah, it was kind of, it was a funny journey of a medical piece of it. Some, some private investigating work online and, um, coming up with it. Yeah. Or did you find anything more alarming in the medical thing? Well, we did, or aunt without, again, going in too much. But, you know, there was a, there was a line of, you know, Allison's, uh, grandmother on that side passed away early from ovarian cancer, which is one of the things that's connected with it, the aunt specifically and things. And so, you know, it was, it was enough to say, Hey, we need to get you tested genetic. And Allison doesn't have the BRCA gene. We convinced Allison's sister to get tested and she doesn't. So it's not something that they can pass along to kids. And so sure. It was that piece alone. If that's all we got. Yeah. It was worth, it was worth it. And now you got bonus, Florida Family Bonus family and cousin and all sorts of things has been awesome. So, well. I think that's a great story and a good way to end. Um, let's wrap it up with, if people wanna find Hometown Family Health, where do they go and how do they find you? Yeah, you can find us on a couple different platforms. They, like we said, we're down in the Front Range Village, down by Target, off of Harmony, and so you can come to the office and, and check us out. Um, hometown family health.com is our website, which has most information. Um, but you or Facebook Moms groups, Facebook moms groups are all, what will that just Yeah. Search, search, hometown, family Health, and you'll find us all those lots of posts and you can find reviews. You find us on Facebook and Instagram with those same handles. Instagram's the fun stuff. I think we do a lot on there. Just kind of, you know, trying to show our personalities, trying to show what we're doing and yeah. Help people understand what we're doing. Yep. And, and it, my personal at Trevin Cardin dio on Instagram, you can see some, we put out some educational stuff, but also some, uh, TikTok dancing with my oldest daughter. Oh gosh. I love it. There you go. Well, thanks, you too. It's been a really nice conversation. No, thank you for having us. Have you guys. Thank you. All right. Cheers.