Maximizing Practice Efficiency: The Power of Remote Medical Support with Justin Lam, co-founder of Cool Blue VA, and Dr. Carrie Lam, a board-certified family and functional medicine physician

[00:00:03] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Outcomes Rocket. So glad you tuned in to this founder's story. Today, I have the privilege of having two outstanding guests. First, I want to introduce Justin Lam. He's the co-founder and CEO of Cool Blue VA. And I also want to welcome Dr. Carrie Lam, who is a board-certified family medicine and anti-aging and regenerative medicine physician focused on functional medicine and health care.

[00:00:34] Thanks,

[00:00:39] I'm so excited to cover a lot of things that I think matter to our listeners. Being healthier, not being burned out, and so you guys are doing both of those things. To kick things off, tell us a little bit about yourselves. What inspired your work in healthcare?

[00:00:58] here. Yeah, so I'm the sister of Justin Lam. There's actually four of us siblings and we

[00:01:05] actually all work together. So it's pretty amazing and I'm very blessed in that way. But I

[00:01:10] would say it probably stems from my dad as he was the one who actually first got into integrative

[00:01:15] medicine and instilled that into us. So that's why I came out, wanted to be a doctor to be able to

[00:01:21] do integrative medicine. But as you can imagine, going through med school, going through residency,

[00:01:27] you get zero education on any business, any administration, any HR management, none of that.

[00:01:35] So me coming out of medical school and residency and I really wanted to help people get to the root

[00:01:42] cause is what functional medicine is. And integrative medicine is like not only pushing

[00:01:46] pills. I wanted to do supplements. I wanted to do nutrition, lifestyle, IVs. Like I wanted to have my

[00:01:52] home clinic because that's not like in our regular normal system. But coming out and learning

[00:01:58] everything, not only the medicine side of things, but also all that administration side of things,

[00:02:04] I was just like overwhelmed. And it was just so much. I couldn't do it. And when I came out, I was also

[00:02:11] thinking, hey, I have to think I want to start a family. Like I was ready to try having a kid. But with

[00:02:18] all that stress and loading up on me, I just wasn't able to. Okay. So I came out, I opened a lamb clinic

[00:02:26] and we did, we started out with tele because this is like right when the pandemic started. And then we

[00:02:32] opened up, but then you can imagine just me, one person as a doctor coming out and doing everything.

[00:02:38] I was like burned out basically very easily. And yeah, I found that virtual assistants were my first

[00:02:45] in into helping lighten my load. And yes, we got my first virtual assistant. And then after the first

[00:02:51] one, I started getting two and three and four iskin infection, you'll say, just because they're so good.

[00:02:57] You just want to keep getting it. And they're so beneficial because I think we all know we all have

[00:03:03] staph infections. You can say it's so hard to keep staph. There's so such high turnover and you spend

[00:03:09] so such a long time training. It really just like, it's a heart on every person. I'm sure like

[00:03:15] everyone understands that pain, but in the same with VAs, there is turnaround. And that's probably

[00:03:20] something we'll talk about later. The pain, one of the pain points that I had to go through,

[00:03:23] but with our VAs now, I know I've had my VA for the past, the oldest one for the past four or five

[00:03:29] years. And she's been with me for this whole time, grown with me and has really helped me in my

[00:03:33] practice. Literally anything I need her to do, she'll do. That in a nutshell has also helped me.

[00:03:39] Now I am a mother of two. I'm able to do my practice and yeah, to be able to also help other

[00:03:46] doctors to be able to find, hey, it's not all on you. Like my goal is to be able to have integrative

[00:03:51] medicine, be available for all, but I also want doctors to be able to, and health systems,

[00:03:58] practice integrative medicine. But how do you get there sometimes if you don't have that knowledge

[00:04:02] about business or HR or administration or like staffing issues? Like this is one piece,

[00:04:09] the puzzle to be able to lighten your load, that staffing problem that you might be having.

[00:04:13] Well, I think it's changed my life and I definitely want to share that with other people.

[00:04:18] That's awesome, Dr. Lam. Really appreciate you sharing that and congrats on your practice,

[00:04:22] your VAs, your babies. Things are going well over there.

[00:04:27] It is. It's super busy, but I am able to pass it along and not just all on me.

[00:04:32] That's awesome. And Justa, talk to us about you.

[00:04:35] Yeah, the same with Dr. Carey here. Our dad is a doctor, so we grew up in the medical field.

[00:04:40] I had been practicing in the health industry for about five to six years, not practicing medicine,

[00:04:46] but just involved in the healthcare industry for about five to six years before Dr. Carey graduated

[00:04:53] and decided to open up her clinic. So since I was in industry already, I opened up the clinic with her.

[00:04:59] I was basically running the operations, managing the clinic. And yeah, we opened up basically

[00:05:05] at the start of the pandemic. So we were having a tough time staffing people.

[00:05:10] The government was paying people to stay at home and collect paychecks.

[00:05:13] So we had to find a solution. Luckily, we were able to get these virtual assistants.

[00:05:18] That has really helped Dr. Carey's practice grow and balloon. So she's working with

[00:05:23] five other providers now, full-time providers, and that business has really grown up.

[00:05:29] So we decided to open up another business, Cool Blue VA, to really help other providers,

[00:05:36] other healthcare industries really get that experience, get that help that they need so

[00:05:42] that they can really grow and explode on their business as well.

[00:05:45] That's great. And Justin, you also went to med school, right?

[00:05:49] I did go to med school. I had an Asian dad.

[00:05:52] I wanted me to go to med school. So I obliged. My heart was never really into it. I liked doing

[00:05:59] business more. So I got the degree, but I never practiced. I just dived into doing,

[00:06:05] still involved in the healthcare industry, but just doing more business, marketing, and operations.

[00:06:10] That's cool. It's great to have that experience and that background.

[00:06:13] The understanding brings empathy in a big way. So I think that's cool that you did that.

[00:06:18] All right. Let's dig in. A lot of the things that you're hearing in the industry are burnout,

[00:06:25] so many providers leaving, there's not enough providers to patients. Talk to us about what Cool

[00:06:32] Blue VA does to add value to the ecosystem that's in major pain right now.

[00:06:39] Yeah, absolutely. Doctors just need help and it's tough to find good help nowadays.

[00:06:44] And so that's where Cool Blue VA steps in. We basically will find you medical professionals

[00:06:51] that are based in the Philippines and they work remotely during your office hours to help you

[00:06:57] out with anything that you need. So we'll find nurses, you can find pharmacists, physical therapists,

[00:07:04] insurance agents, customer service agents, anything that's a pain point for you, that you need help

[00:07:11] with, that you're struggling with in your practice. We find those staff for you and you're not going to

[00:07:17] have to pay an arm and a leg to get that help. It's basically going to be $9.95 an hour. So it's

[00:07:23] super affordable and you can offload all that stuff. So you can spend your time seeing more patients,

[00:07:30] thinking more high level, running the business more effectively, and not just get bogged down and

[00:07:36] burst out of that. I can add to that. Just personally in my clinic, yeah, so I said we started

[00:07:42] with one and I can say we have now over 40 VAs in my clinic. So we have six for customer service,

[00:07:49] right? Meaning they answer all the phone calls that come in, even the texts that come in,

[00:07:54] they're able to answer and screen through like our answer rate. Our clinic is 95%, meaning all the

[00:08:00] calls that come in, they're going to get answered. And everyone knows that feeling of,

[00:08:03] hey, you're trying to call your doctor and no one is answering. So that's number one thing that's

[00:08:08] great. Like patients love it. And then just personally for me, like I have two scribes

[00:08:14] basically per person so that I can see more patients per provider. So my scribe is with me

[00:08:20] and they are able, they're just like any medical assistant. They're just virtual. So they're on with

[00:08:26] me during my call. They listen to my whole appointment so that even before, let's say it's a virtual call,

[00:08:32] they're able to charge. They're able to look up their insurance eligibility and then they're able

[00:08:37] to do the medication reconciliation. And then after, during the visit, they do the note with me.

[00:08:43] And then after the visit, they send the labs with my approval. They prep the prescriptions and the

[00:08:48] supplements, and then they can counsel on the patient even after the visit. So literally they

[00:08:53] are, cause they are trained medical registered nurses in the Philippines. They have already baseline

[00:09:00] knowledge of all the things that you're talking about. And so it's much easier for them to assimilate,

[00:09:05] to become a scribe here in America, right? Cause they already know how to spell all these

[00:09:10] medications, let's say, and stuff like that. And then I have an insurance practice or I have another six

[00:09:16] days just like running insurance eligibility, doing the billing and things like that.

[00:09:20] And then I have back office uploading, I string to jelly beans, the portal messages

[00:09:25] and doing referrals. So that all gets farmed out. So really all I have to do is, okay, I go see my

[00:09:32] patient and then let's say at five o'clock, I'm like, okay, clock out. I'm done. Like notes are done

[00:09:37] because my scribes have worked on all of them. I still, yes, go through them, but it's much quicker

[00:09:42] process. And then I have nothing to worry about. Just obviously I have so much other things.

[00:09:49] No, no PJ time though. No PJ time. But that's the medical side. Then, Hey, if you need content

[00:09:55] creation, I have another team that just does social media and comments and content creation

[00:10:01] writing are, so it's literally anything to ordering my lunch and scheduling for me. So they can be a

[00:10:09] part of your whole life. It doesn't matter what you need. They're like a personal assistant, but

[00:10:13] they also help you with any tasks that you need in your everyday life.

[00:10:17] You know, that's great. Some great applications. And there's so many things that go into managing a

[00:10:23] practice. The insurance, let's not even start there prior authorization. Yeah. And there's everything

[00:10:29] from the medications to the procedures. So great to hear that. And then even the marketing, helping

[00:10:35] you get more patients in the door, all these things keep clinicians up at night. And you guys are

[00:10:41] saying you have teams of VAs that know the medical side of all of these things.

[00:10:47] And if they don't, they're easily trainable. You have your own standard procedures. They still need

[00:10:52] to get trained, right? Based on where you do, but they have some kind of baseline medical knowledge.

[00:10:58] Love that. Question here then, it was like, there's VAs out there. How would you say what you do is

[00:11:04] different or better than what's already out there?

[00:11:06] Yeah, that's a great question. We're physician owned. So we really take pride in that. So we know

[00:11:12] what the pains are really to help to running a practice, to making it successful. And so that's

[00:11:19] what we really strive to help other doctors with. So they get the virtual assistant, but they also get

[00:11:25] us and they get our expertise as well. If they're having new problems, I'm always happy to jump on a

[00:11:30] call with somebody and say, hey, let's figure this out. Let's see how we can utilize a VA to make this

[00:11:36] work for you guys. Or if they have any idea is, hey, I'm trying to think of how to do this. I'm

[00:11:41] always happy to explore options with you guys to make sure that you're getting the best value out of

[00:11:46] your virtual assistants and that you're helping your practice grow as efficiently as possible.

[00:11:50] That's great. And there's a lot of things that could get you sidetracked. And especially as

[00:11:56] business owners, Justin, you're on the VA side of things. Dr. Carey, you're running your practice.

[00:12:02] We learn more from setbacks than successes. So I'd love to hear from both of you,

[00:12:06] biggest setback and the biggest key learning that came out of that.

[00:12:10] For me, we learned from hiring the VAs in the beginning, right? I didn't, we didn't have Google

[00:12:16] VA four years ago. So then we were actually hiring VAs and seeing who are good quality candidates who

[00:12:23] are not like dealing with all the things you deal with any staff. But obviously there are like layers

[00:12:30] to things like, oh, like earthquakes or typhoons or laughing. It's COVID. Everyone gets COVID. What

[00:12:36] are the ways to actually like maneuver that? So it is just like finding any good staff. It is so hard.

[00:12:44] And so that's what's nice about Google VA because they literally, they vet every person. They make

[00:12:50] everybody go to a training session and then they test them. At the end of the training session,

[00:12:54] if they don't pass, they don't, they're not going to be a good candidate. And so it's already,

[00:12:59] they go through this first layer that you don't have to go through when you're looking for a virtual

[00:13:03] assistant. I personally know we've gone through so many virtual assistants, especially in the beginning,

[00:13:07] but ever since we started this like vetting process, it's just so much easier. People actually stay

[00:13:12] longer, they're more motivated and they don't have as many issues as we did previously.

[00:13:18] That's great. Yeah. Some great learnings.

[00:13:21] Yeah, absolutely. Sourcing the right virtual assistants was real tough in the beginning,

[00:13:26] but that's why we instituted like an amazing three-step interview process now to make sure

[00:13:31] that they're good candidates. And we also have a training program that they have to go through

[00:13:35] as well to make sure that they're really qualified before then, before we even assign them out to you

[00:13:42] guys. So from start to finish, really only about 10% of our candidates actually qualify and graduate.

[00:13:48] It's a very low number there. We took a lot of pains. I've interviewed thousands and tens of thousands

[00:13:53] of people to fine tune that process here. But even then still, there are limitations when we're first

[00:14:00] starting out. You always have to set expectations, right? Because these virtual assistants,

[00:14:06] they're eager to please because they're so happy to be working with these doctors and with these

[00:14:12] practices that sometimes they're going to try and take on more than they can chew and more than they

[00:14:18] can actually do and perform. And so early on, we found that we have to set expectations and what we

[00:14:24] found is better to specialize these virtual assistants instead of having to try and have one

[00:14:29] person do social media, do insurance, do scribing, do admin and billing. And then they're just not able

[00:14:37] to do anything really efficiently or all that. Now we have more specialized virtual assistants who can

[00:14:43] really be at the top of their game in whatever you need to do in that specific tasks. And once you get

[00:14:49] efficient in that task, then you can always train them and add on more and then they can learn more

[00:14:54] with you. Because the beauty of it is that you get the same virtual assistant working for you every day

[00:14:59] and day out in your practice, in your office, in your business. They get to know you, they get to know

[00:15:04] your staff, they get to know your patients. And over time, they can just learn more, they can take on more

[00:15:11] responsibility and they can do more. But we have to set expectations, the fronts that you got to take it

[00:15:17] step by step first, right? Don't just load them up. And then the virtual assistants can get burnt out.

[00:15:22] Right. Yeah. No, I think that's great. Yeah. You don't want to shift your burnout to the VA, right?

[00:15:29] Yeah, exactly. Because these virtual assistants, they're so eager to work. They don't want to work 40 hours.

[00:15:34] They want to work 50 hours. They want to work 60 hours because they get paid well. So they're going to try and

[00:15:40] work as much as possible, sometimes to the detriment of themselves. So what we have to hold them back to is now you

[00:15:45] got to take the weekends to rest sometimes. Yeah, that makes sense, man. Yeah. I love that. Great learnings there.

[00:15:51] And it sounds like tens of thousands of interviews. You guys have distilled the process. And I also like

[00:15:57] the specialization. If you guys are running a practice and you've thought to yourself, I cannot

[00:16:04] keep up. Like Whole Foods is paying people 20 bucks an hour. This is what people expect right now.

[00:16:12] There's a better way. There's a better way. And you could get super talented, highly qualified

[00:16:16] people. It is a global environment. And now's the time. And so I love the success stories you guys have

[00:16:24] shared, but also the challenges, right? Because they're very real with what we're all faced with.

[00:16:29] What closing thought would you leave leaders listening to this today? And where can they find

[00:16:35] you guys if they want to learn more? Yeah, absolutely. My one thing to take away from this is

[00:16:42] if you're just starting out as a doctor, you have to get your phones answered. There's no choice in

[00:16:47] that matter because that's going to be the lifeline of your clinic, of your business, of any business

[00:16:51] really. All right. And we actually had a doctor. They're actually really successful. They had eight

[00:16:57] providers with them, but more than half of their calls were going unanswered. And the patient was

[00:17:02] waiting seven minutes just to talk to somebody on the phone. And they just got two VAs.

[00:17:08] And within two months, their answer rate was down to they were only getting 5% missed calls.

[00:17:14] And the average wait time was under like 50 seconds. So it's a very simple thing to do and

[00:17:21] very easy to implement, but your patients are going to love it. You're going to love it. It's just

[00:17:25] going to be super easy. And what we have really to help people out is that we're going to be offering

[00:17:31] all our Outcomes Rocket listeners a two-week free trial. So you can work with a virtual

[00:17:37] assistant for two weeks, absolutely free, 40 hours a week. That's total $100 in value to make sure that

[00:17:45] you guys are happy with your virtual assistant and it's going to be a good fit for your business

[00:17:50] and for your office here. You just have to go to coolblueva.com

[00:17:55] slash Outcomes Rocket. And that's Outcomes Rocket in just one word.

[00:17:59] I love it. Thanks so much for that, Justin. Folks, we got to take advantage of that. Doesn't hurt to try

[00:18:05] and it's probably hurting you not to try. So definitely take advantage of that. Thank you for

[00:18:11] that, Justin. Dr. Carrie, any closing thoughts from your side?

[00:18:14] Yeah. The nice thing about CoolblueVA is that you won't have to feel alone in a lot of the things that

[00:18:20] you do. I think these medical virtual assistants, a lot of times what I've seen is that also maybe

[00:18:27] providers or maybe institutions, they don't know how to implement the usage of virtual assistants.

[00:18:33] Maybe now in the pandemic, after the pandemic, we're able to work remote a little more, but

[00:18:37] still it is a different breed. But what's special about CoolblueVA is that we're,

[00:18:42] like you said, we're a physician and we take pride in really helping doctors and offices and managers

[00:18:48] to figure out how to really utilize their medical virtual assistants in the best way. We're not just,

[00:18:54] okay, here's the VA here, go and figure out how to use it. We're able to implement and work and

[00:18:59] consult and make sure that you're happy with your VA and the VA is happy with you and it's a good fit.

[00:19:04] So they are also, we treat them like family at our clinic. Like I said, they've been with us for a

[00:19:09] long time. So we want good staff that stays with you and that you can also keep for a long time.

[00:19:16] So quality is what I would say for CoolblueVA. And yeah, take advantage of the three,

[00:19:22] two weeks and you'll be hooked from one to 40. Yeah. The virtual assistants in Lamb Clinic have

[00:19:29] been around longer than the physical staff. The clinic actually. Yeah. It's pretty wild.

[00:19:35] There you have it, everyone. Make sure you check out the show notes. If you're driving,

[00:19:40] hit pause, pull over. CoolblueVA.com forward slash outcomes rocket. That's where you're going to find

[00:19:47] the offer. And just think about this. Now's the time to take your practice to the next level with a VA,

[00:19:53] a medical VA and get your phone answer rate as high as Dr. Carey. And how about marketing? You got

[00:20:00] at me at marketing. Like that in itself would be huge. So now's the time. Thank you all for tuning in.

[00:20:06] And Justin, Dr. Carey, thank you both for being with us. This was a lot of fun.

[00:20:11] Thank you very much. Have a great day.