We were lucky to catch up with Saundra Lauer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Saundra, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

Hands down the hardest part in initial parts of business planning, was when you were riding the line between the decision of making the jump or not. Once you make the jump, you don’t look back. Those first three months of business planning were spent around creating a business plan and putting your napkin numbers onto paper to be able to present to a bank to help support your initial start up cost. Creating a business plan is so incredibly helpful because it really organizes your business thoughts and puts them to paper– providing a blueprint to really sharpen areas that may be identifiable weak points as well. Your business plan will be a fixture, growing with you as your business continues to develop. I’ve found that initially the greatest challenge was time allocation. In those early months and years of entrepreneurship, you wear so many hats. I don’t think I can offer a real solution to time management initially, and here is why: for those who have successfully been in the entrepreneurial world, those first few years are such a learning curve and initiation of mistakes and preparation, you need to make mistakes to be able to grow from them! The more comfortable you become knowing you will not do this 100% correct (and no one does), the more prepared you will be to move forward when the inevitable happens.

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

I started my career as a Family Nurse Practitioner in a rural healthcare setting doing full spectrum family practice, emergency room, and in-patient hospitalization. It was a fantastic experience, but I quickly noticed what felt like a conflict of consciousness, especially in the family practice setting. Patients weren’t having access to me as their Provider, care was fragmented, and care was often driven by the patient’s financial abilities or whether or not they could afford primary care. With that being said, I started a personal search on how we could better deliver high-quality healthcare PLUS cost-effectiveness for both parties and ultimately bring primary back to prevention. This fear of billing was driving patients only to come in AFTER disease processes had progressed, and we know in healthcare that means worse outcomes. In my search, I was introduced to Direct Primary Care. This is not a new model; DPC has been making a comeback for the last 30 years. DPC is described as “the new ‘old’ way of medicine, ” resulting in more intimate care between patients and their Providers, a smaller work environment, and an affordable monthly membership billing approach. What instantly appealed to me is that members would have access to Providers and nursing staff as often as needed and still only pay the flat monthly fee. WELL & Company, my practice, was then born based on providing accessible, affordable, and high-quality healthcare in primary care and urgent care setting. Our community of Alexandria and beyond has been so responsive to this business model, and we currently provide care to individuals, their families, local businesses, and their employees.

WELL & Company was founded on providing accessible, affordable, and high-quality healthcare. We are a Direct Primary Care clinic, meaning we do not accept insurance but rather offer a monthly membership fee to our patients. We find that this allows for a greater emphasis on primary care and preventive services by putting patients back in control of their care with the assistance of a Provider who can get to know them. Healthcare doesn’t have to be complicated and expensive. At WELL & Company, we also have a medical spa, offering advanced modalities for skin concerns through laser, peels, and injectables. Our team of skin care specialists, estheticians, and nurse injectors are continually pursuing their education to provide the latest technologies and techniques in the esthetics world.

What sets us apart: I like the saying, “once you’ve seen one DPC, you’ve seen one DPC.” Each DPC has a different look, a different niche, and a different feel, most operating under the same vision of highly accessible and affordable care. Our goal at WELL was to take this vision to the next level and make it feel even more comfortable for our patients. With this healthcare model, we can greatly customize the experience for our patients. Women drive 80% of healthcare, so originally, we focused on the clinic being primarily for women’s health (which has since evolved). Still, that put us at a great advantage from the beginning as we planned the space to aesthetically appeal to women and have a warm, inviting feel. And as it turns out, everyone we welcome into WELL, men or women, appreciates that palpable and inviting feeling.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

It comes down to giving time, setting clear boundaries, and continual investment into your team. I completely underestimated the amount of time, effort and resources that go into managing people. More than that however, I underestimated the amount of time, effort and resources I needed to grow to become an effective leader. In the first couple of years in ownership, I did not have HR support. Being owner, HR, colleague, provider– all of these roles were hard to navigate in themselves but together they blurred boundaries, making it difficult to grow as a team. It was not until I brought on a contracted HR generalist 5 hours a week who managed most inter-office communications reviews, corrective action plans and general check-ins that I was able to focus on being an owner/CEO. From there I could focus on developing company goals, mission, vision and being able to execute them in our daily operations. Hiring consultants have played a significant role in the moral of our team, whether it be sales, marketing, professional or personal growth and development. They are lower cost than hiring full-time employees, but provide such a rich investment that your full-time team deserves.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

From early on in business, re-investing into structures that help scale your company. CRM platforms, HR platforms, Fractional CFO’s, all have been invaluable. I wish I introduced them within the first year of practice. I, like most entrepreneurs are operating on tight budgets initially, but making room for these platforms that ultimately help you scale, decrease risk of burnout, help to provide clear financial health which in turn helps your sales and marketing planning, along with employee retention. It absolutely makes the investment worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wellandcomn.com
• Instagram: wellandcompany_theclinic wellandcompany_thespa sandy_thewellnp
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wellandcompanyalex
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saundra-lauer-ab474025a