We hear it all the time.

“I’ve spent untold amounts of money educating myself, and yet none of it has taught me how to get paid for what I know.”

Sound familiar?

Dr. Michel Dupuis found himself in the same struggle but lucky for him his first “Ah ha moment” came just in time and has enabled him to restructure his practice from a fee-for-service hamster wheel into a value-based revenue generating machine.

Now he calls his practice “fun to work in,” it lets him spend time with his family, and it gets amazing results for his patients.

In other words, Dr. Michel Dupuis is a pretty happy guy these days.

In the interview we did with him for the podcast, he teases out his story and the many “Ah ha! Moments” that have served as guideposts along his journey.

If you listen closely, you’ll catch the lessons that created the turning points in the success of his practice.

I’ve also teased out some of his key lessons for you in this condensed version of his story below, but you can get the full experience by listening to the interview or watching

Dr. Michel Dupuis’ Story

Dr. Dupuis has had his own practice - chiropractic for most of that time, but more recently adding a focus on functional medicine - for nearly 20 years now, and it’s been successful by most common measures along the way.

However, the common struggles of the fee-for-service model slowly got to him more and more as time passed.

“I felt like I couldn’t take a vacation because it would be like throwing away $20,000,” he said.

That would be the cost of the family vacation plus the services he could render that week if he was in the practice seeing patients.

And there it is:

That’s a big reason why there are so many burnout stories among fee-for-service practitioners. It’s too easy to get trapped in the practice and feel like you can’t even take a week vacation.

But back to Dr. Dupuis:

If you know him, you’d know he’s a pretty curious and enterprising guy, so it wouldn’t surprise you to hear that he invested consistently in continuing education for himself, both to feed his curiosity and also to help him provide superior service to patients.

Somewhere along the line this landed him in San Antonio for a meeting with one of our many mutual contacts, Dr. Charlie Webb with Freedom Practice Coaching.

In our interview, Dr. Dupuis showed he remembered this experience in incredible detail.

He must have learned something important there.

He remembers hearing the term “concierge” used over and over, and details of his experience backed it up.

A member of the FPC team introduced himself before the meeting and asked if he’d like a coffee.

Michel remembered having passed a Keurig machine on the way in so he was expecting a quick mediocre coffee in a styrofoam cup (no offense meant to Keurig here, I’m a habitual user myself).

Instead, 5-10 minutes later the gentlemen returned with several drinks from a Starbucks down the street.

Dr. Dupuis was doing some important experiential learning - Ah ha - this is what the “concierge experience” feels like. I could do this for my patients.

Then his conversations with Dr. Webb began.

In one of these conversations, Dr. Dupuis remembered a line of questioning that forced him to respond with details about how much money he was spending per year on additional education and training.

Dr. Webb noted that it was great he was investing to better his practice for his patients.

But then came the kicker:

“And how much more money are you earning from all of this new knowledge you’re gaining?”

Ah ha - another important realization struck Dr. Michel:

As he says less than 4 minutes into our interview for the podcast, “Man, I’ve gotta start getting paid for what I know.”

From there, the eureka moments came faster and faster as he absorbed knowledge from other industry guides like Dr. Webb, James Maskell from the Evolution of Medicine, and maybe even Mac and me.

Mac (our co-founder and CEO) met Dr. Michel Dupuis for the first time only a few months back to discuss a pain point he was having with his new educational programs.

By this point Dr. Michel had turned his knowledge into a foundations of health program that could be delivered via online course for his patients.

It scaled beautifully and was generating tons of revenue for the practice, but there was one big issue:

When he transitioned from providing these educational sessions to his patients in-person, to offering them via an online course, he quickly realized he was losing key relationship-building personal touchpoints with his patients that were necessary to make them feel supported, feel that special, concierge experience he was striving for, and ultimately feel accountable to him to stay adherent.

It turned out Nudge Coach was the perfect fit. :)

This article isn’t the whole story, there’s plenty more to take away from the podcast episode, so I hope you’ll give it a listen.

Also, if you’d like to follow in Dr. Michel Dupuis’ footsteps, he and his partners have made a ton of educational resources that have added value to his practice available to you through their new program, the Doctor Success Summit.

Nuggets of Wisdom

"Man, I've gotta start getting paid for what I know ... Education won't get you the money you need, marketing will."

"I realized that often times we get so laser-focused on treating people that we miss their health."

"When you begin to compete on price you begin to compare yourself with every guy down the street, and then you're not leading the pack, you're following the pack."