So 2021 Happened
… And What’s Coming in the Future
How do I even start! This past year has been an explosion of growth and change! I know that has been true for many people, but let me bring you along for the ride that Be Well Clinic has been having the last year, and give you a sneak peak into what we are thinking for next year.
Be Well Clinic has grown! We were already growing at a steady pace, but because the interest in natural health care has increased, and the topic of medical freedom has become commonplace, we have left the “normal curve” of our growth and found ourselves trying to keep up with a growth spurt!
Before I go further I want to acknowledge that, as part of our community, you also have been affected by our growth spurt. Some of you have been with us from the beginning, when our clinic location was shared office space, or in Amy’s home! We appreciate you hanging in with us through the many changes over the last few years. And to everyone, thanks for telling your friends about us. You are an integral part of fulfilling the mission, and ultimately the reason I started Be Well Clinic in the first place.
Our goal and mission is to bring empowerment to each person in the world. I believe this empowerment should have always been yours (each individual or parent). Much knowledge of care, nursing and healing has been taken away from individuals and given to the medical field. I believe this is wrong… the best person to know your body is you! And this has been done very quickly, most of the shifting has happened over the last 100 years or so. Fortunately the knowledge has not been lost altogether, it has simply not been passed on to you from your parents and grandparents. That’s one of the main areas we want to fix!
Don’t get me wrong. I believe there should be healers, or people whose job and study is health. You should not, as an individual or parent, have to be alone in your health journey. And our toxic, nutrient-depleted world has made this even more difficult and complicated. But there are many things you can know: ways you can learn what the body is trying to communicate, and how to partner with the body to achieve the highest pinnacle of health available to you. And this is what we strive to do in every appointment you have with us… it is one of our most important practice philosophies.
Let’s talk a little more about what empowerment gives us. Empowerment itself brings freedom. When you know something, you better understand your choices, and you are better able to choose which one is best for you. And this freedom won’t stop with you. We see the work we are doing with you as a new beginning in your family… we want to teach you so you can teach your kids, who will teach their kids, and so on through the generations. We think the power and freedom of health choice should be yours, and it is our mission to give you that opportunity. You are an important part of your health care team, but to make the best decisions you need to learn and know things. Empowered health care is not a nice and ethereal term. It is tangible, real and practical, and I hope every person understands and has access to this empowerment before the end of this generation.
Okay, enough “deep thinking with Amy” for today. Let’s talk about some practicals!
We are growing our practitioner team!
It has been great to have Hollie as a practitioner for the past year. The more we talk, the more we confirm that we are on the same page in our practice philosophy, and our conversations help us grow and refine how we go about our mission. I’m also very grateful to have a like-minded person to partner with that can help see more patients, especially as the interest in our approach to health will only continue to grow. It didn’t take long for Hollie’s schedule to fill up with nutritional consults, sick calls and families using the GAPS diet to heal. As amazing as it’s been to have her, we already need more help! We are looking for at least one more practitioner to join us, who can take over seeing children and adults in a primary care role. Growth and more practitioners has been the plan for years now, but so far God has not brought the correct person. As we are busting at the seams, it seems like that time is fast approaching! All practitioners that join our practice will be taught our practice philosophies, and commit to follow them as long as they are with us. Our goal is larger than just providing a primary care appointment for you (although we recognize how helpful and important that is), we want to bring empowerment, education and community support. So as we bring on more practitioners, they must be willing and excited to join us on this mission!
Our goal for the next couple years is to bring on and train a few additional practitioners so I can move to a support and education role. Even if I saw patients 24/7 I couldn’t see everyone! It’s better to duplicate myself (many times) and move to a support role for these practitioners, stepping in to help when needed. This will give me the chance to focus on growing the Be Well Clinics, and providing more education that is available to anyone in the world. I have so many courses and videos in my head, but no time to create and share them! I have already started, but I hope to be able to move more into this role soon, because the benefit to you and everyone is so much greater, and it’s the only way we will be able to accomplish our mission.
We have grown our locations!
Most of you probably know that we have a second location in Northglenn, that we opened at the very end of 2020. Amy only goes there occasionally, but we are confident that we could easily have a thriving primary care practice there as well, as soon as we find and train a practitioner to be there. But for this time Hollie is seeing many patients out of this office.
Our Loveland location is very busy, and to replace Naomi we have hired two people to share the important job of taking care of communication, scheduling and connection with you. Anna and Alayna are settled in now, and I am thankful to have two more people on our team that want to help us achieve our mission. However, we know this also was a bit of a rough transition this summer, and we appreciate everyone sticking in there with us!
We also now have a sick line, available to current patients, for more urgent sick questions. This is just starting to be utilized by the Be Well Clinic community, but as the kinks are getting worked out it is showing itself to be a valuable resource that gives you quick access to a practitioner for a quick question when someone is sick or hurt. We do not post this number publicly, but it is available on Practice Better. If you can’t find it, call the office!
When people move away from Colorado they always ask if there is something like our practice where they are moving. I’ve never heard of anything, which is another reason why it’s important for us to be growing. It’s not just for those in Colorado… everyone deserves to have access to empowered health care for their primary care. BUT we can’t grow any faster right now. So if you are not located in Colorado please do contact us… when we are able to add another practice it will likely be in an area with a group of people that can help us get going!
We have grown our practice!
For the last 6 months we have seen 30+ new patients a month! This growth rate is mind blowing, but we feel so privileged to be trusted and recommended so many times by you. The full and busy schedule has caused me to evaluate what is important for me to cover during an appointment. I could have shortened the well-child appointment time and seen even more people, which many new parents have asked me to do. But ultimately I could not, because it would have compromised our mission. I can barely teach and show all I want to in 45 minutes, I would be doing a disservice to the parents if I went shorter. So much would get missed! It was helpful to have done this evaluation and come to this conclusion, even if that means we are scheduling new patients out so far! We don’t want to take shortcuts… each person should get a full, unhurried opportunity to learn about their body. It took us a while to come into balance in our calendar. It’s also important to keep current patients supported. We now have time set aside in our calendar that is available only to current patients. Unfortunately with how our scheduling software works, you can’t claim one of these slots online, you have to call or message our office. But if you are a current patient please do call our office and we will get you on the schedule as soon as possible!
We have moved into the 21st Century!
We have used paper charts for years, and although I have tried to switch to electronic charting in the past, I’m a paper girl so it never stuck. However, with our plans, expansion and desire to have our patients be able to walk into any Be Well Clinic (around the country, eventually) and have their charts available to any of our practitioners, we had to go online! The platform we use is called Practice Better, and if you are a patient and don’t know what I am talking about, maybe check your email or reach out to us! This platform provides a secure way for you to share files, message us, and otherwise communicate in a secure and protected way (email, btw, is not!). There is an app you can download onto your smartphone, which makes messaging us feel like texting! If you are a patient, please start using this platform for any communication about personal medical information. This keeps all your information safe, gathered and always accessible. But before you get started you have to accept the Practice Better invite on your end, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about maybe give us a call!
We have changed in how we talk to you!
Social media was (and still is) a useful tool, but it’s not a reliable way to communicate or connect to our community anymore. Content that is posted on social media, or forwarded in an email is hard to find again, and it’s not really owned by us… those platforms have quite a bit of control over that information. This has become even more obvious over the last year. We have mostly used social media for a teaser of what we do, but starting this month we are making that even more true. Because we don’t pay FB or IG for “reach,” our posts are seen by only a small percentage of the people who follow us. Also, we can’t share ideas as freely there as we can on our website. Finally, many people are leaving these social media platforms for various reasons. All this makes it a bad place to invest much energy anymore.
Don’t worry, we aren’t leaving those platforms! Our posts will shift to become announcements or invitations to view content that lives on our website, where it will be easily searchable and always available. We have also changed our newsletter format to fall in line with this idea. We are excited about this change and hope you will find it convenient and useful!
We are working on some changes to our website as well. Very soon we will publish “child” websites for each location under the “parent” website of Be Well Clinic. The location websites will be more simple, and allow us to share about staff, practitioners, events and resources specific to that location. The main Be Well Clinic website will link to these as locations, but will itself house the bulk of our information sharing. Recipes, GAPS resources, articles, and more will make up the bulk of this website’s content. And if we do our job well you will be able to navigate between all the “child” and “parent” websites with seamless ease.
To sum up…
What a wild ride we are on! If you made it to the end of this article, wow! I feel so blessed by the community of people coming alongside Be Well Clinic. God is building something amazing, and I feel privileged to be part of it! I want to say thank you again… to my amazing team, and to you, the amazing people who are building a Be Well Community and making the fulfillment of this mission a reality!
Onward!