1st Media Consulting Group, Inc. Podcast
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1st Media Consulting Group, Inc. Podcast
Revolutionizing Pediatric Care: Dr. Aaron Weiss's Journey with Premier Concierge Pediatrics
Ready to revolutionize your child’s healthcare experience? Join us as we sit down with Dr. Aaron Weiss, the visionary behind Premier Concierge Pediatrics. Dr. Weiss takes us on his journey from a demanding role as a neonatologist to pioneering a direct primary care pediatrics practice that caters to the unique needs of families in Orlando. Through an innovative membership model, Dr. Weiss offers 24/7 access to personalized pediatric care, bypassing the traditional hurdles of insurance. This episode promises not just to redefine how you think about pediatric healthcare but to provide peace of mind for parents seeking comprehensive and convenient care for their children.
Discover how Dr. Weiss's unique approach benefits a diverse range of families—from new parents to those with special needs children. He demystifies common misconceptions about concierge medicine and highlights the symbiotic relationship between his service and existing insurance plans. Whether you’re an expecting mom or a parent looking for a tailored healthcare solution, Dr. Weiss’s insights will empower you to make informed decisions about your child’s health. Tune in and explore how Premier Concierge Pediatrics is setting a new standard in pediatric care.
Welcome to the First Media Consulting Podcast, the Business Chronicles, where we dive deep into the stories of successful business owners. Here's your host, Didi and Nicholas. Thanks for joining today. Let's talk.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome back to our podcast. I'm just so excited to bring to you Aaron Weiss. I should say Dr Weiss. He owns Premier Concierge Pediatrics and we really want to thank you for that. We really want to kind of dig deep and ask him some questions and kind of get to know him and his business, his background as well, as you know, some of the successes and challenges that he's faced over the many years as a successful doctor. But we also want to be an inspiration to those who are looking to start a business and you know, in this economy today, we just got to have some positive things. Go out there to the universe and just get from experts in their field just to give us some feedback, you know, on how they have managed to be successful. Dr Weiss, how are you doing, sir?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on again. It's a great opportunity and I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2:You're very, very welcome. So let's dive in, let's talk about, let's learn a little bit about your background, if you will.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. I'm actually a board certified pediatrician and neonatologist. I was initially a neonatologist by training. I did about three years, from 2020 to 2023, in a local neonatal ICU here in Orlando, but last year pivoted in a different direction and started my own in-home concierge pediatrics practice, and my practice is one of the few in Orlando that provides exclusive in-home pediatrics care, and we actually utilize a membership model instead of a traditional insurance plan, and what that membership model is is it gets you access to general pediatrics care and me 24-7. So, for either a monthly or annual subscription, you get all of your well-child visits, your sick visits in your home and access to me whenever you need it.
Speaker 3:And I think one of the misconceptions with my model there's actually two that I think of. The first is that it's actually not a traditional concierge practice, despite having the word in my name. It's actually a direct primary care practice, and one of the big points that I wanted to mention is that in concierge medicine, every single touch point comes at a cost. If your child has a fever or he or she gets sick and you want to get in touch with the doctor, every single one of those conversations has a fee associated with it and with direct primary care, you either pay annually or yearly, and that covers every interaction that you're going to have with me.
Speaker 3:Another misconception with the model is that this replaces insurance. Actually, it's in addition to insurance. We believe that everybody needs insurance. If you get a bad diagnosis or you're in an accident, I would be unable to help you as an individual, but your day in, day out care is better managed by someone who knows you and knows your family dynamic, and that's really what prompted me to start this whole thing. A lot of my families utilize their insurance benefits for things like labs, medications, images, vaccines, et cetera, but really we tried to carve out general pediatrics care and elevate that service for our families.
Speaker 2:I love that, and so you've actually found a perfect niche. I mean, you help expecting moms, you help families with healthy children. You know, when I was looking at your website, these are a lot of things that you bring to the table that a lot of parents really need correct.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3:We've been open now for about seven months and if I look at my patient population it's pretty diverse, I would say.
Speaker 3:I'm estimating maybe about half just appreciate the convenience they like having peace of mind that when their kiddo gets sick in the middle of the night they have someone that they know, who knows them and is available for them. The other half, I think, see a benefit of having me as their doctor, a neonatologist and baby specialist. In that kind of cohort of families I see a lot of new parents, busy parents, who really appreciate the expertise and having me in their home. And I also have a percentage of families that have special needs children or children with chronic conditions and for them I serve a little bit of a different role. It's almost like a quarterback of care where I'm a liaison between that family and the insurance company. I'm a liaison between that company and their subspecialists helping things or two. Crazy how much faster that expedites things because I've been on the phone as a patient instead of as a provider and it's probably two or three times as long of a waiting period.
Speaker 2:I think we've all been down that road too, and I like how you said you're the quarterback of care. That's pretty powerful man. So you know, I like that, I like that phrase. So let's talk a little bit about what inspired you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I was frustrated. So I was. As I mentioned at the beginning, I was here working in the insurance-based system as a neonatologist for about three years. When you work in a hospital system, you're kind of tied to that insurance-based system and what I noticed as a provider and as a patient and parent is that it felt like healthcare was prioritizing the bottom line and incentives instead of prioritizing patient care, and I was really frustrated. As a provider, I felt like I was really, you know, pulled really, really thin and as a parent, I felt like there were a lot of inefficiencies and things that we could just do better and I really spent a lot of time thinking about how I could provide another option for families to get competent health care from somebody that they know, and trust, and that's what helped me start this practice.
Speaker 3:As a matter of fact, I spent about six months in my neighborhood just kind of hanging out with parents, with my kids and asking them what their pain points were in the pediatric system to try to create a practice that solved those problems.
Speaker 2:And I like that. You know you hung out with your customers, or your potential customers asked questions, right, and that's going to lead us into another question here in this segment. So let's talk about your success. What's the secret to success?
Speaker 3:I think it's a lot of things.
Speaker 3:I mean you could say that I care and I'm there for my families but in reality it's all those things but it's because I have the time to be there for them and care. One of the things we tried to establish that sets us apart from the insurance-based system is really individualizing our care and giving time to each family. A couple of numbers that I try to tell prospective families about our business in general is a typical insurance-based pediatrician will see about 30 to 40 kids a day. Their patient panel they have sometimes between one and 2000. What I'm trying to do with my practice is limit providers to a panel of 150 to 200 patients max and limit their daily intake to maybe four or five kids so that way for each family I'm able to sit down, I'm able to be in your home, really figure out what you need to thrive and spend the time with you and really be able to provide that care, that caring you know different touch, because you have the time to provide it and it basically goes quality over quantity, right?
Speaker 2:That's kind of like the business model that you're kind of implementing in your business, which makes a lot of sense. So every business and we talk about this, every business has industry trends. Is there any trends, up and coming things that are happening in your industry?
Speaker 3:I sound like I'm beating a drum, but it's the frustration that I'm seeing with a lot of families similar to mine.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people are trying to find ways to circumnavigate this insurance-based system and find better access to healthcare. One of the things I'm getting as an intro question when people call me now is do you accept insurance? Which I find interesting because I think the status quo 10 to 20 years ago was that everybody was insurance, but now you're seeing a lot of providers like myself kind of pivot. So what I think is going to happen is, I think, in addition to small business owners like myself and private providers trying to create their own vision for care, I think a lot of these big businesses are also going to follow in suit and start creating, you know, concierge or direct primary care wings of their conglomerate where they can then employ other doctors to do similarly what I'm doing outside of you know insurance the insurance scope and you're actually seeing that from you know, being inside your industry, and so that's very good knowledge for our listeners to take away that you're there, you're the expert and you're seeing what's happening.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of people out there that are wanting to be entrepreneurs or maybe start their business, or even business owners that are maybe you know they're. How would would you say there's a roadblock for some reason? You know there's, maybe that's mental or can't get past that. Any advice to give inspiring entrepreneurs on, or business owners that are looking to start a business or continue to keep moving the needle?
Speaker 3:forward. I think the hardest thing to do is just take that initial first step. I had wanted to do this for a really long time, almost to the point where I was talking about it often and I was, I think, just scared to take the first step to change. And for myself specifically, you know I had trained to do something which wasn't really serving me at the time and wasn't making me happy and I needed to figure out something else. So having the, it's just, it's a lot of courage to take that first step and it's really, really difficult.
Speaker 3:But I think once you're able to make that move and try to start something for yourself, it's almost like a snowball, Like it gathers momentum. You start seeing the successes of your hard work and it's been really, really rewarding. I think I mentioned I just started like seven or eight months ago. Right, I've actually gotten to the place where I got to take a very small amount of salary and just for me to say I have enough to be able to do that. It's just very rewarding. And I guess what I'm trying to say is don't be scared to do it. There's a lot of uncertainties, Every day there's uncertainties, but in hindsight I would do it over and over and over again.
Speaker 2:That's probably the best decision I ever made. Congratulations, man, on sticking through and moving forward and avoiding, you know, addressing those challenges, but pushing forward. That is awesome. As we wrap up here, what are some of the best ways that our listeners can get ahold of you? Your phone number, your website? Absolutely.
Speaker 3:So our phone number is 407-584-7330. Again, that's 407-584-7330. And that number is actually ported to my cell phone. So for all my patients and prospective patients, I want people to understand when you text or call, I get it right away. And our website, which we're very proud of, is wwwpcporlandocom. That's PCP, like primary care physician, or premierconciergepediatricscom premierconciergepediatricscom.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much, dr Weiss, for taking some time out of your busy schedule to kind of answer some of these important questions, so we can help our listeners gain knowledge on your industry and what you do, and we look forward to hopefully having you back again in the near future. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Thanks, didier, I appreciate it. You're very welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to First Media Consulting Podcast. Absolutely Thanks, Didier. I appreciate it. You're very welcome.