Truth in Love- Interview with Collier Family Medical

Christian Faith as the Foundation of the Interview

Hello, this is truth and love you so much for watching the videos or listening to the podcast. However, you come across this. We really appreciate your support and we would really love it. If you would give us a like a follow a share on social media.

We love partner partnering with you because who we are is we want to get Jesus out into our community. We want to share him with our community and we want to share his word the truth of his word with our community and we love doing it with you.

And we love doing it with my special guest tonight that I'm going to introduce here in a second. So people who are watching this interview may know me and may not know Amanda people may know Amanda but may not know me.

So that was a little bit about me. Also, if we can ever pray for you, all you have to do in the comments is hide me. You don't have to say what it is. We'll see the notification and we can pray for you then and I'm going to use that as a transition to introduce my special guest and I'll tell you why I'm using that as a transition here in a few minutes.

But without any further ado, let me introduce you to you Amanda and she is with all your family medical. So Amanda, would you introduce yourself and tell folks who you are?

Yeah.

Hi everyone. Thank you so much for watching and thank you all for giving me the opportunity. I really appreciate it. So we're a new business growing in Lincolnton, North Carolina, and I have centered my clinic here on, you know, faith.

It's faith-based. Jesus has done so many wonderful things for me and I am honored and not worthy of him, but definitely honored to be able to use my services to glorify him. So that's where I started with this.

I am married and we moved down from Indiana and my husband Tyler and we have two beautiful children. They moved down here with us. We moved down here originally for a different job for myself and then I decided I think it's time for me to branch out on my own.

And I know that I wanted to involve my family and my faith in it. And so that's where we started and we've been open for about four months now and it's going strong. Hopefully it gets bigger, but still in that chugging phase, I guess we want to say.

So we're chugging along. So yes, we're excited and happy and I'm so happy that I have the opportunity to serve Lincoln County.

Absolutely. And so you gave us a little bit of a hint of your testimony. Do you mind to briefly give us a little bit about your Christian testimony?

Testimony of Peace, Providence, and Serving the Lord

Yeah, absolutely. So Jesus has done, I mean, he's never failed me, never. And we were having some issues in Indiana and just wanted to, we felt the urge that it was time for us to move on. And you know, everyone has things that come up and we decided North Carolina.

So my company, I asked them if there was anything open and they said yes. And so we ventured out and there was a moment that we didn't have peace about it. And we had very many struggles to get down here with, you know, buying houses in the market today and everything.

And not once did we say we should turn back. I mean, there was just so much peace about it. And so that's just a little bit about my testimony with the practice and moving to North Carolina. You know, in the past, as far as, you know, I grew up in a Baptist church, grew married into Methodist.

And now we say we have no denomination and we just want to serve the Lord and give him all the glory and glorify him in everything we do. We've taught that and instilled that into our children. And he's blessed us.

I mean, beyond measures that we can even think. You know, we know that he's doing more behind the scenes than what we'll ever be able to see. And so my mission is to serve him and glorify his name with my practice and help those that need help and serve those.

So I can, you know, I'm his servant and I want to serve those. And I just I'm grateful, so grateful. And I love what I do. And it's been amazing trip down here.

Well, I can speak for myself. So I'm thankful for your family and your business to be here in our community. And I and I believe that as you guys grow, more people will join me in being thankful for your family and for your business being in this community.

So the next question that I wanted to ask is for me, it's a good one, because in the Christian community, you have people who have a dualistic kind of mindset. Where I want to keep my faith over here and then my my secular life over here.

And they don't really mix. And you may we you may have professed Christians who own local small businesses or as Christians. You know, we were employees somewhere, but we really don't bring our faith.

And I guess a small business and as an employer or small business owner, you have a little more flexibility and freedom to choose how you express that freedom. But but some Christians who have small businesses, the mindset is I hope they will see my character and they will see that I'm reflecting Christ.

But but you have chosen to take a step further with that, that you are open about your faith with your local business. And I would like to hear why you chose to to be so bold about your faith in your local business.

Putting Faith First in Health Care

Yeah, I couldn't done any of this without Jesus. He is I mean, he has held us. He's walked us through this entire thing. And without him, I can't serve and I can't I don't have the wisdom. He gave me these tools.

This is my gift that he gave me. And I love so much what I do. But he he gave this gift to me and I have to get it out there. And so there's no question. Why wouldn't I put him first? And that's what we're taught, right?

We're taught. We put him first. And so that's what I want to do. And that's what I want to share with others is that we put God first and health care doesn't have to be the scary place, you know, that we can bring people in and we can show them love and I can help them do and get on the right track.

And then also say, you know, faith has brought me here. I love sharing my personal experiences and my and my appointments because then I can testify to each person. You know, I've been there. I've seen that.

I've prayed about it. And when I can say God brought me to this and he's leading me to serve this community and serve others and he gives me wisdom and uses my hands to be able to do that for this community.

And I wouldn't have been able to do it without him. So my thing is I'm supposed to serve him and I feel this is the best one of the best ways that I can is by serving him and I have to put his name on it.

Not mine. I mean, my name is on it. Call your family medical, but my emblem and what I stand for is that cross and the stethoscope around my neck. So that's that is putting him above all else and making sure that I'm doing right by my patients that come in here and by the community.

And I'm hoping that it just grows and people see that. That Jesus is the one that died for us and that we should be eternally grateful for that and do whatever we can to serve him and glorify his name.

Yeah, the verse that comes to my mind when I think about what you're doing. Think about your practice and think about how you're an example about how we should live is is the verse that says, whatever you do in word or do you do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?

And so, to me, that covers that covers everything. So I think you were example in that for our community and for our Christian community. So I'm thankful for that as well.

And so, yeah.

Prayer Requests, Christian Community, and Direct Primary Care

So now for the transition that I was speaking of earlier when I spoke of offering your prayer request. So Amanda Collier is the owner of Collier Family Medical. She is direct primary care physician. Can I say physician practitioner.

Nurse practitioner and it's it's different than traditional primary care.

And so.

Ask yourself this question. Have you ever seen on the website been to your family doctor to your hospital? Look on the website and have you ever seen a place on their website where they ask for prayer requests?

Amanda has that on her website a place where you can request prayer. And just imagine going to your family doctor and and having a place where you can request prayer to me. I mean, that speaks volumes about how much you care for your patients and for this community.

It speaks so much to me, and I hope it will speak to our community as well. Yeah, with that being said, go ahead.

No, I was just going to say like our, you know, the prayer request is so important because prayer is I mean, it is it is most important. And when you have an army praying for you, then I mean, it just.

It's so hard. It's not hard to explain. I mean, if you've seen God's work, you know, and but just praying and having the knowledge that somebody else cares and somebody else is praying for me and they're giving it to God.

And that does wonders for people and wonders that people don't even know about. So we have to remember that how much prayer does for us. So it's not just I mean, it's medication and it's working hard and stuff, but they don't realize that even a prayer or just a prayer does it for you.

So that's so amazing. And so I do want to appreciate I think we got to the our priorities in order. We talked about our faith first, but I do want to promote your business because we want to unite. We want to support and we want to promote with with churches, with other believers, with local businesses that are saying we believe in Jesus.

We want to, you know, share Jesus with our community and we want to do it together. And so that's what I'm about. And that's why I love having you here and having your business in Lincoln County. So let's talk about your call your family medical and I'm just going and if you're watching or listening, you can do this as well.

You can go to the website, call your family medical dot com, click on blog and you can read, read all this yourself and see what all they are about there. So in this article that we're going to look at first, I'm going to let you discuss the benefits.

So you have two columns. The first one is traditional primary care. For these insurance paid and I want to read the column and you give the difference between traditional primary care and direct primary care, which is what you represent.

Direct Primary Care Versus Insurance-Based Primary Care

So the first one is multiple providers. Whoever can get you in.

Yeah. So whenever you go to a typical what I call the insurance world primary care, you don't if you're sick, you don't necessarily get in with your provider. The person you established with it, whoever has an opening that day and they they will work you in because they want to.

And sometimes it's the first day when you call. Sometimes it's the next. Sometimes it's weeks. And so the difference between them and me is that it's only me here. I'm only accepting. I have a limited panel.

And if I were to ever expand, then one of the things is that my patients see me. I keep appointment office office appointments open so that I can see my people the same day or the next day. Or you can text or call me.

And so in the traditional world that that doesn't necessarily happen. I can't say it never happens. But you know, when you're in with multiple providers, it's whoever has the opening that day or the next day or the next week because they're so overbooked by, you know, having to push and get these patients in.

Because there's so many. And so with direct primary care, we can limit that and offer those extended appointment times and same day sick appointments or text me. You know, if I can't get you in, then you can text me.

But as long as I've worked in the direct primary care world, I don't think there's ever been a day that I haven't got somebody in that called the same day or took care of their issue through a text message, you know, something simple.

So that's that's kind of the difference there. And I think it's just because the insurance, traditional insurance paid, they they have to see so many an hour. So I have another job and my schedule is every 15 minutes and I have to see between usually it's supposed to be four patients, but it's usually at least five to six every hour.

Here at direct primary care, we see one to two. The most we want to see in a day is eight, 16 max. If I had a nurse that was doing labs with me. In primary care, my schedule is oftentimes 30 to 40 patients in a day.

That's what I see in a week. So very different. And it's because their insurance paid and insurance will only give them so much per patient. So and if they're healthy patient, then they get even less money.

So it's it's interesting.

Well, since you said that, we could bring it up later, but you brought it up. So what's the difference? I saw this in something that you wrote the traditional primary care that works with insurance. They they get money if you're sick and with the direct primary care.

So you correct me if my wording's off here. So the direct primary care is focused on your health.

Yeah, yeah. So in a traditional insurance world, they get paid by how sick you are. So high blood pressure patient comes in. They only get a certain amount of money for that diagnosis and it's per year.

So it's not necessarily per visit. So you can go as many times you still you as the patient pays the copays each time you go. But then the provider doesn't necessarily get paid that money. It goes to I mean, you pay the copay, but then it goes to insurance deductibles and that sort.

So and for each diagnosis that you have on your chart, you get the that company gets paid a certain amount per year for that. And then they get dinged and they get money taken away if it's not managed correctly.

So they want diagnoses on your chart because they will get paid more money. So that's why they have to have more people in to and filling their waiting rooms because they have to be able to supplement for that, you know, and get that those payments with direct primary care.

The goal is to get you healthy. I don't want you to have these because you're not going to come and pay back for your membership. I mean, your membership. And so the membership allows you to have access to this clinic.

And you are, you know, we only get if we're seeing you every day and or seeing you every week, then we're not getting paid because that's taking time away from other people. But we're not doing our job.

We want you healthy. So the healthier we get you, the less visits you have. That's how we make our money. So I oftentimes will take I ask, what concerns do you have? And so they will list out their concerns.

Most people are not familiar with the direct primary care. So they're like, I have and they, you know, spill off a whole bunch of things. And I'm like, okay, well, we can talk about it. You know, I have plenty of time to talk with them.

And so I sit and talk with them and I address four or five problems if they have them in insurance world, traditional primary care. I'm told I can only address to address two or three and have them come back and move on so we can get the next patient in.

Yeah, I can't provide quality care like that. I sit and talk to my patients like I'm sitting talking to you. I want to have a conversation. I want to know about your kids. I want to know that you're just found out you're pregnant or you just found out that your sister's pregnant.

Like I want to know that the more you can tell me about your history, the better. I'm going to be able to predict things in the future for you or get you medicine quicker because, oh, we know that this happened in the past.

We don't want to have a recurrence of that. So it's just for me to have 15 minutes or less with the patient because that 15 minute slot also includes the nurse. So I can't I can't do that. I don't feel and provide the quality care that I want to.

And if I listen to you and give you time to speak, then you're going to listen to me when it's time for me to say, OK, I think this is what we should do. Or what do you think of this? So if I don't listen, then you're going to you're not going to listen to what I have to say.

So I think that I've learned my lesson on the patient side of things so that when I go in for a physical. I keep I keep my lips closed because if I speak on anything else besides what I'm there for, I'm getting charged for it.

And I hope people didn't miss what you said earlier. You know, they are they schedule you for or trying to get you in and out of 15 minutes to where you are with a patient. You said 30 to me.

My extended appointment times are 30 minutes to an hour, 30 minutes to an hour. Yes. And so like right now, because I don't have that full patient plant panel, which I'm working towards. But even if I do get that, I don't know that I've always done direct primary care and I've always had 30 minutes with a patient.

So that 30 minutes. And but right now, currently, just with my patient panel, every single person, even if you're coming in for a lab draw is scheduled for an hour. So I have plenty of time to say, oh, you're here for your blood draw.

How was your week last week? You know, how did how'd your day go? And then they say, well, I wasn't feeling too well. And then, OK, so do I need to draw different labs? You know, so. You know, right now I'm in that phase, getting to know my patients, definitely having that extended time is priceless.

Access, Scheduling, and After-Hours Care

Yeah. And to me, that's an amazing difference. All right. So let's see weeks, weeks to months for traditional primary care, weeks to months for scheduling an appointment.

Yeah. So, I mean, they try and get you in as soon as they can. But I know I've been working with a few patients and trying to get them in for a visit. The soonest I can get her in is two weeks. Like, you know, it's for something that I can't take care of, unfortunately, with, you know, being a specialty, something that she needs in specialty.

But two weeks, I mean, she really needs to see someone now. And that's pretty typical, you know, a two week wait to get into your doctor, if not months. Or if you don't have an advocate for you, sometimes it's months.

Like she called and they told her the end of May. I called and I got her in in two weeks. But still, that's two weeks. So the benefit of going with great primary care, it's the same day or next day, if not the same week.

You know, if it's an established appointment, like for somebody that's new and I don't have anything that specific day, then I definitely get them in within the week. And then if it's an acute, like, you know, sick, strep throat, things like that, we get them in the same day, if not the next day.

Or we can do it over the phone by you texting me.

An on-call provider service versus with traditional primary care, it says an on-call provider service.

So most of the time they give you a number, call this number, right, whenever you're sick or if it's after hours, call this number. And so a lot of times it goes to a nurse, which I'm a nurse, but it goes to a nurse and they triage and they'll send you to whoever's on call that day.

It may be your doctor, it may not be, or it could just be simply the nurse that says, oh, I don't think it sounds that bad. Let's just get you set up with an appointment. It never gets to the doctor, the health care provider.

With me, it comes directly to me. And you always deal with your provider. And so it rings my phone, either you text me and I text you immediately back or you call and it'll say, if it's after hours, it says you called and then I call you right back.

But the point is, is that you get me. I'm your provider. I know what we talked about in the office two weeks ago. I know what we talked about two months ago versus a doctor that's never seen you before, never heard of you.

And, oh, you have this and this and this. Okay, well, I'll just treat it the cookie cutter way because that's, you know, they don't know you. So you get me.

Wow, that's amazing. I'm going to have to fly through some of these last questions because our time is flying. No, that's okay. It's amazing how time flies when you're doing these things. So with traditional primary care, no, I missed one.

Costs, Membership, and Insurance Savings

So this is where we get to money and people will want to know about money. So most of us are familiar with traditional primary care. We have insurance, whatever your provider is, and you have copays with that.

And then you have to meet a deductible with that. So with the direct primary care, how does that work?

So it's a small monthly membership fee or membership, just kind of like a Netflix. So you pay $65 a month with me, your first appointment. There's a $10 enrollment fee. And then you just pay that $65 a month.

And that includes no copays. So you have unlimited offices with no copays. Some medications are free. Routine lab work is free. And the after hours care and app is free as well. And let's see. And so and we have other medications that aren't free, but they're all lower cost.

They're lower than a good RX coupon. For example, I have one medicine I prescribed for a patient. It was $145 at CVS. It was $15 with me. I had one today. She called and she said, did you know that medicine cost that much?

I was like, no, it cost $112. It cost $5 with me. Lab work, $908 and it cost $35 with me. So your lab work that you traditionally get doesn't even meet your deductible. So you're going to have to pay that $908.

Or you can buy a membership with me for a year for $750, $780. I mean, and it covers all of your visits, all of your sick visits. Some of those medicines, your routine yearly physical, all of it. And it's just better quality care, one-on-one relationship.

And you deal with less people that know your story and know you.

Right.

And we'll pray for you on top of that.

I just want to recap that because I think it's so important. And people want to know. $65 a month. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. I think this is what I read. So if you come in as a couple, it's $120.

Yes, sir.

And then you can add a dependent if you want to after that.

Yeah, for $20 a month.

But that's unlimited visits with you. That covers everything. And then I'm sure that I'm sure it's not the case with every medication, but I mean, you're talking about medications that were, you gave examples of medications that were over $100 and you're getting them for $5, $10, $15.

And then LabWorks in the $900s and for you $35. I mean, the difference is astonishing. It's amazing.

People don't like the idea of paying that membership. You know, they're like, oh, but I don't go. But if you get this with a high deductible plan, you're saving money. I mean, or if you don't have insurance, it's obviously ideal for you.

But yeah, I mean, so it covers all of your appointments. There's some things like I do some surgical, minor surgical procedures. So I had a patient, when I was at Indiana, she just went, she did the same procedure with me and it was free at that clinic.

It's not for here, but with the, she went to insurance dermatology. They charged her $3 ,000. Here, it would have been $50 for the same exact procedure because you don't pay for my skill. You do that with your monthly membership.

So you're not paying for my skill. You're only paying for the tools that I have to use and the cost of like testing it.

So.

Benefits for Patients, Families, and Small Businesses

So.

So I'm just kind of changing it up and I'm not going to be able to follow the format that we talked about. So I'm wanting to get a few things in. So somebody who's thinking about checking you out, you're checking your call your family medical out and they have insurance.

What would that look like? I already have insurance. What would be the benefit of partnering with call your family medical? Help somebody who's thinking that through.

Okay. So your insurance deductible is about $3 ,000. Most people's average is about 3 ,000 3 ,500. So you have to meet that deductible before insurance will even start paying. Not only do you have to meet that deductible, but you also have to pay your monthly payments for your insurance.

And so you are paying. Substantially more than $3 ,000. So with coming with me, then you get the $65 a month and that covers a majority of things, 80 to 90 of everything. And then for your insurance, the reason why we have insurance is for those catastrophic events, the unfortunate events, you know, hospital visits.

Whenever I can't figure out a problem or my colleague or I can consult to a specialty for $30 rather than $3 ,000. And then you're saving that money, your insurance, you don't run things through insurance.

So your insurance premium stay lower for the next year. And so you don't have to meet that deductible unless you have that catastrophic event. So then you're saving that money because every time you go to the traditional insurance world, then you pay that deductible on top of, which is sometimes hundreds of dollars, you know, urgent care visits, $100 for one visit.

So this allows you to save that money and then hopefully lower your insurance premium by not using that insurance as much. Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And so if somebody decides not to become a monthly subscriber, a monthly member, could they still be a part of your network and come visit you?

So they can come for a one-time visit. It is a little bit more expensive to do that. So it's about $75 per visit rather than $65 a month. But yes, they can do that. And then there's not, the medications aren't for free then and they'll routine lab works, not for free, but it's still substantially less than what it would be if you went to the doctor's office or the urgent care.

And you said there are some medications that you have that are free.

Yes, for members,.

For members,.

For members, for non-members, those one-time visits, they're like five or $10. So for a hundred day supplies.

So, yeah,.

That's amazing. And you are wanting to also benefit small businesses that offer insurance to their employees. Would you like to speak to that?

Yeah.

So whether they offer insurance or don't, this is a great benefit to help keep those employees. You can, you can provide this better quality care, things that lower costs to them. And then it's substantially smaller price or lower price than buying that high deductible plan for each one of your employees.

So I do suggest to have the high deductible plan if you can, but I understand most of my patients do not. And so with small businesses, we're contracting, we're giving you a discount. So it would be depending on how many employees you have, it'll be less than $65 a month.

And if you, and then let's see, I explained that.

So,.

Yeah, it's. It's a good benefit for the small businesses around here that don't are unable to offer the healthcare, PPO plans, even high deductible plans. And then with the high deductible, it'd be the same as an individual, like we talked about a while ago.

Okay.

Closing Invitation, Prayer, and Final Blessing

Well,.

I'm going to wrap things up. There's so many other things that we could talk about. We could look at all the blog articles. There's so much information there. And I would encourage you if you're watching or listening to look at the website, check out all the information, share that information with your friends and family,.

Support,.

Pray for, call your family medical and welcome them to the community and support them any way that you can. So anything that we left out that you really want to get in before we wrap things up?

I don't think so. I think I could talk for hours. So I'm a talker. So no, any questions,.

Anyone,.

Feel free to text or call me. It's the office number. So that's not the after hours app, but you can text that office number and it'll come straight to me and I'll be able to get you an answer.

Okay.

I want to give that website one more time is call your C O L L I E R call your family medical .com and you can also find them on Facebook and I hope that you will go and check them out. So before we leave, I want to pray for you guys.

That's okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Father,.

We thank you so much for allowing us to have this conversation.

And I,.

We pray that you will use it for your kingdom and your glory. And we pray that you will bless, call your family medical. We pray that you will bless Amanda and Tyler and their family as, as they seek to serve you and seek to serve our community.

We pray that you will bless them, protect them, give them strength and encourage as they work for your kingdom. And we pray all these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

Amanda, thank you for joining me. I really do appreciate it. And for you watching, remember that Jesus is King. Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ and continue to go out and share the gospel of Christ.

We hope to see you soon.