We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Daron Mathena a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Daron, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.

I never wanted to own my own business or practice. I wanted to get my degree, work under someone else, and go home and enjoy my kids. I ended up graduating during a global pandemic and getting licensed in March 2021. I got a job at my dream clinic, only working for someone else wasn’t as dreamy as I thought it was. Instead of being an employee, I was misclassified as an independent contractor and I was giving 50 percent of everything to the house. I ended up spending more to drive there, pay my Au Pair (nanny from a different country), and buy needles than I did working. I wasn’t getting the balance I craved. I stayed so long because I loved my boss, my colleagues, and my patients. I asked for guidance from a mentor that worked with me and she advised that I start seeing patients locally in Ramona, where I lived. So I did just that. I started talking to people here about how acupuncture could help them. I developed a solid patient base when I found out I was pregnant with my third son and I realized that I needed to step up and secure a future for my family. I dreamed of a clinic where I could ethically hire employees, make sure they made a living wage, and could get benefits that they were entitled to. So with no money and some credit cards (because you can’t get a business loan unless you’ve been in business for 2 years), I opened my own four room clinic in Ramona. First, I got one room done and saw patients out of that one room until my husband and I could get the other rooms done one at a time. I told myself I only needed seven returning patients a week to cover all my expenses. I had seven patients a week in November and December, then each week in January I gained more. Ten the first week, twelve the second week, fifteen the third week. My goal was to see 25 a week to have a living. By March I was seeing 45 patients a week, they were following their treatment plans and getting better and telling their friends and family about my clinic. I have never gained any patients from advertising myself. My patients have done all that work for me.

I had my baby 5 weeks early on March 23 of this year. It was unexpected. I had worked a 12 hour day and had my third son 4 hours after I got home from work that night. I had my mom and my Au Pair call all my patients and book them out three weeks and went to three half days a week. Much more sustainable than the six days a week I was working before. All of my patients expected this and even praised it, because I had prepared everyone for it. They kept up with my baby’s story and growth through social media and checked in for herbs occasionally where I would come to the office to give them refills. My first few weeks back, my schedule was booked, I had an office manager to help, and my husband was on paternity leave as the designated baby holder so I could breastfeed in between patients. You do not have to choose between motherhood and being a student or motherhood and a career. When I had my second baby while I was getting my doctorate, I fought to get a lactation room put in my school and brought my baby for his first three months during his “sleepy stage.” My husband would come and hold him while I was treating patients then too!

I treat a lot of fertility, pregnant, and postpartum patients and I think the greatest part of that is caring for a postpartum mom and giving her an hour to rest while we hold her little one. One day, I would like to have a child watch room established in my future clinic. Childcare should never be a barrier to treatment or barrier to gaining employment.

Things I would’ve done differently is getting an accountant right off the bat. My accountant had reorganized my life and helped me move away from a sole proprietorship to a S-corp, which has so many more benefits for opening a practice. I would have also found a clinic that I could intern at where they showed me how to run a practice in detail. Patient care is important, but that’s all for nothing if you don’t know how ordering and keeping track of inventory works and how to speak with suppliers or manufacturing companies, and how to communicate to patients about how often they need to come to have a successful treatment plan. There are so many details in opening a practice, like getting a resale license or posting about your fictitious business name in the paper within 30 days of filing for it. Also, when I was first starting out, I got a lot of pressure to take insurance and even looked into it extensively enough to see that it wasn’t worth taking. There were a lot of acupuncturists talking about how they hadn’t been getting paid or the insurance companies were asking for money back and I just couldn’t risk that in my first couple years of practice. Plus, I don’t want someone that’s not a doctor coming to me and telling me what my patient needs and what they don’t need. People value results. And if I were to take insurance, I wouldn’t be able to know my patients properly. There are so many things you can miss if you don’t have the time to listen to your patients. A medical condition they forgot about, a tumor that they omitted because they were coming in for back pain, a smoker that was suffering from circulatory issues.

Also, find yourself a mentor that is aligned with the current laws in your state to practice. I am prior military, so I like to keep everything legal to the letter of the law to set my business up for success. I am still building up my practice and my employees and figuring out how to continue expanding my practice and how to be a more efficient practitioner, but I am excited for my future. I only work four half days a week and get the balance I have desired and will soon need to hire an acupuncturist to take on more patients or to continue care on days that I want to spend with my family. You don’t have to choose between parenthood and your own practice if you have built the right team to support you.

Daron, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I fell into acupuncture. Hard. I was fresh out of the military, flaring with Ulcerative Colitis, in pain with panic attacks with PTSD. Through a volunteer doula opportunity, I met an office manager at an acupuncture clinic that was talking about the wonders of acupuncture. I took her aside after and asked her if acupuncture could help with autoimmune diseases and she said “of course it can!”
I grew up in New York and was never exposed to anything except for western medicine, that two weeks prior that the only way for me was either long term steroids or a colostomy bag. I looked my GI doctor in the eye and said, “there has to be another way, I know it’s out there and I just haven’t found it yet.” And sure enough, there was.
I went to the acupuncturist she worked for, and although it was hard to afford, we made it work. I got acupuncture weekly for 3 months and I stopped having blood in my stool, I was able to go to the grocery store without wearing a diaper, and I was able to hold my son. My ten to twenty panic attacks a day gradually decreased to nothing. I went on to continue to get acupuncture twice a month until I started school for become an acupuncturist myself. I felt a calling to bring this medicine to people that needed it.

Becoming a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine is the best thing that could’ve happened to me. I am constantly researching for my patients. When me or my family starts to feel a cold or flu coming on, I can stop it in it’s tracks. I can make headaches go away with my hands. I had a sweet elderly lady come in for her appointment tell me that she’s ecstatic that she can finally garden without having prolonged pain. I had a neuro patient come in with slurred and slowed speech and poor balance after brain surgery start walking to the office without his cane and talk clearly and really quite quickly! With my cosmetic treatments, I see teenagers have their hormones regulated with acupuncture and their scarring healed with my holistic microneedling. I’ve seen patients with horrific hormone cycles finally have painless and regular periods. I’ve helped facilitate healing sprained ankles, torn ligaments, and more. You think it, acupuncture can do it. I see things in my clinic every day that should be classified as miracles. I know acupuncture works, but it’s nice that I get to see it work. I read pubmed articles for fun so I can continuously learn to be a better practitioner.

My clinic does everything. Fertility, neuro, pain, cosmetics, autoimmune, everything! Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine has treated everything for more than five thousand years, it’s truly amazing. I think something that sets us apart if that my patients are family. Ramona is such a special town and I care about every single patient that walks in my door and try my best to help them. I think patients can feel that and they know they’re in good hands.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

MINDSET! I took the six-figure acupuncturist course with Allyssa Dazet and it really helped! The scarcity mindset is poisonous. Your patient’s will feel it and they won’t come back. Also, if you’re not working on yourself, you shouldn’t be working on other people. Get therapy, get acupuncture, fuel your body with nourishing foods, and exercise! Model how you want your patients to live.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to learn to not give discounts on my services. It was a really hard lesson I learned when I was a doula. I was getting my “certification births” done so I was only charging $200 to be on call for 6 weeks and go to people’s houses and prepare them for birth. It wasn’t enough to pay for childcare or the time spent. I wasn’t in remission yet and I was spending long hours in pain and my body was wrecked from it. I think the big “ah hah” moment was when I drove to LA for a birth and they lived in a huge fancy apartment that you could see the Hollywood sign from. I ended up paying more for that birth than they paid me and that’s when I realized that most people won’t value your advice unless they’re paying enough for it.

So as a rule now, I make sure I’m paid enough for my time so I can do research for my patients and make sure they’re getting quality care. I don’t pay people for me to work anymore, they pay me.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.gatheringblueacu.com
• Instagram: @Gathering_blue_acu
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/GatheringBlueAcu/

Image Credits
Maranda Beck for the photo of me and my son. Shelly Mullin for the ones in my clinic with my hair down. I took the other pictures myself.