Looking to Partner with Doctors? Read This!

Two Health Coaches have shown the way to develop relationship with and partner with doctors most likely to employ or refer to them by partnering with the Functional Forum. Now you can too.

Functional Medicine has been growing in popularity over the last few years as medicine looks for systems capable of dealing the modern epidemics of chronic disease. In 2014, that growth took a sharp rise with the announcement of the new Functional Medicine Center at the Cleveland Clinic, which adds a lot of legitimacy to this new paradigm (and will be employing health coaches!)

This should be music to the ears of health coaches, not only because one of the foundations of Functional Medicine is ‘food as medicine’, but also that some of the top Functional MDs have been using health coaches in their practices to add more value to the patient experience.

In our 2014 Evolution of Medicine Summit we featured a few doctors who have been ahead of the curve on this, like Dr. Frank Lipman who employs seven health coaches in his Manhattan practice. More recently, Dr. Robin Berzin opened Parsley Health, a digitally advanced Functional Medicine practice with two health coaches in her model.

· But how do you, a health coach, find a Functional MD to work with?

· How do you introduce them to what you do?

· How to you get them to answer my calls?

These questions and more we have heard from health coaches all over the country. There are a few ways to solve this, but none as easy, eloquent and valuable as what I am about to share with you.

Over the last year, we have been building the Functional Forum, a monthly 90-minute live web show for Functional MDs and other integrative providers. At first it was just in New York, but more recently we have had 8000+ doctors and practitioners watching the stream all over the country.

In January, we created a pilot program for health coaches to start a meetup in their area and get together once a month and create a local community around the show. The results of the pilot have been astounding. Our guinea pigs, Fiona Barrett and Sarah Konkel managed to do the first ever satellite meetup in none other than Mass General Hospital in Boston, one of the most conservative hospitals in the country.

By setting up the meetup, Fiona and Sarah were able to use the credibility and speaking talent of the Functional Forum to engage with local Functional MDs and create a remarkable event. We recorded a 30 minute podcast with them about their experience creating the meetup and you can find that, along with step-by-step instructions on how to set up a meetup in your area on our meetup page.

http://www.functionalforum.com/meetup

Some of the major benefits that health coaches can expect from creating the meetup include

· Connecting with doctors who could refer to you or partner with you

· Become a leader in creating positive change in your community

· Get hired by companies looking to connect with those doctors (labs, supplements, etc.)

· Benefit financially from creating community (more details to follow)

Our next few Forums we will be focusing on topics that would be interesting not only to those MDs already practicing Functional Medicine, but also to mainstream doctors looking to make the switch. Our March Forum is entitled “Microbiome Madness” and features some of the leading names and rising stars in Functional Medicine.

All that stands in the way of you having the career and practice situation of your dreams is a little initiative and a few phone calls. The time to act is now. If we can all take massive action to create community for integrative providers all over the country then we will really see medicine evolve much more quickly, and health coaches take their rightful place in a modern medical system!