We were lucky to catch up with Mindy Thomas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mindy, thanks for joining us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?

I started my clinic to serve the needs of women particularly as they age. There is so much focus on valuing women only when they look and act young we often ignore the needs of women as they inevitably age. Even in medical school gynecology care is focused on pregnancy, birth control and births. Many GYN docs do not get taught how to mange women who have severe and life altering symptoms of menopause. For example, one symptom of menopause can be muscle aches a pains which can be quite severe. You can imagine how difficulty it would be if you are an active woman who suddenly has such stiff joints it’s painful to even go down the stairs. One patient in particular found an immediate difference once she started bio-identical hormones. Like many women she had planned to just grin and bear it as she moved through the discomfort that can accompany hormonal changes of menopause. After nine months of pain she reached out to me. It took less than a week and she was back to exercising and feeling great! Finding the right treatment plan was truly life changing for her and remembering that motivates me to continue to bring these services to more women.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a family nurse practitioner with 15 years of experience working in medicine. I started my career as a registered nurse working in a busy emergency room and then moved into the intensive care unit. Much of my experience in the hospital setting inspired the work I do today which is truly preventative. My ultimate goal is to help women feel good in their own skin and support them physically and emotionally so that their health span is as long as their life span. I will explain if you are unfamiliar with those terms. Health span means the number of years days that your heart is beating and your souls exists in this physical form. Health span is how long you are able to live a life you want to live and that includes being able to dance, walk, paint, read, travel. The amount of time you are able to participate in the activités of life that give your life meaning. Most people do not want to live their final days or years in the hospital or a nursing home unable to enjoy family, pets the outdoors. My aim through the work I do is to optimize health span to match that of a person’s life span. I specialize in bio-identical hormone replacement therapy with a focus on women, although I do also treat some men I focus my advertising on women in particular as they are generally underserved in this area of medicine. I also offer weight loss services and thyroid optimization. Services are provided via telehealth but in the near future hope to offer in-person and telehealth services. I am currently licensed in Ks, MO, Iowa, Wyoming and coming soon Nebraska!
During visits I discuss with clients practices such as breath work and body love practices and plan to create programs around learning to love ourselves. Ultimately, being thin or fit is useless if in the end we still end up hating ourselves and feeling unworthy.
My clinic is cash pay only. As we all know our healthcare system is a need of an upgrade and I find insurance to be limiting. Most insurance plans do not want to cover the treatment plans I believe are the most effective and safe. I also like to have plenty of time to understand and talk to patients and so I like to schedule 1 hour or 45 min consultations which insurance will not cover. So I have cut out the middle man and just offer cash pay services. I am aware this makes my services unaffordable for some. As I grow I hope to be able to offer a sliding scale or reduced cost to increase access to what I offer. I am bi-lingual in both English and Spanish and would love to be able to offer my services to at an affordable cost to a large Hispanic, largely immigrant community that lives in Kansas City.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I opened my business at the end of 2021. I originally planned to offer multiple services lines. One being in home COVID-19 testing. I had heard on other NP entrepreneur websites that this can be easy a profitable. The plan was to use this service line to make money and invest it back into the business. Ultimately this failed for me, There are many reasons for that but a big one was, I felt like I was profiting or trying to profit off of a crisis situation. I had one mother call me who needed all her children tested but couldn’t afford my services and it just didn’t feel right since many places were offering testing for free. I let that service line go pretty quickly but it taught me a lesson. If I want to be successful then I have to offer services I believe in. I cannot just pick up the latest fad or hottest trend to get rich. I have to truly believe that what I offer brings value or I won’t be successful in selling it.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I have learned that starting a business and marketing it is a very vulnerable thing to do. It is terrifying to create something and then offer to the world of social media or the community not knowing how it will be received. It really brings up all the thoughts of imposter syndrome in you. Also people can be mean on social media which is weird to me because why? You have to have to develop a thick skin and know that just because someone says it, doesn’t make it true. Like I mentioned I also have to really know and believe that what I offer is valuable. That does not mean that what I offer is for everyone, but it is valuable for those that it resonates with. It is tricky running a business that is based in healthcare. I am not offering people the latest and hottest jeans or newer tech gadget. I am working on their most valuable asset and the thing that literally allows them to be in this world, their body. I don’t want to “hook” someone into thinking they need what I offer if they don’t truly need it. I also believe that for some people their path is not to work with me. Maybe they can find the answer they need working with their PCP and get treatment through their insurance and if so great! The goal is to help people feel better, more contented live a long, happy, fulfilled life. I know that insurance does not always increase access to care but often barriers to the care you need and in those cases I want to fill that gap.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hummingbirdhealthcare.com
• Instagram: @hummingbirdhealthcare.com
• Facebook: @hummingbirdhealthcare.com