Ep. 172: What a Cat, a Tulip, and a Vet Visit Can Teach Urgent Cares About Patient Experience

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What's going on? Walk-ins welcome fam, Nick and Michael here. We're here for helping you get more patients, deliver better care, get repeat visits, scale your clinic. And what's funny is we're doing this on an atypical day and we both have our Nick the Marketers swag. Yeah, we do. If y'all are wondering who we are, this is OG marketing for us. My core company has been Nick the Marketer for forever, but we haven't ever focused on it. It's just been...

patient care marketing pros is all we ever do. Funny, I just now noticed that that happened. I saw it. I'm over here looking at the playback and I'm going, oh wow, we're in full ATM swag. You know what, least we're being completely transparent with all that. Actually lines up real well to the one email we got from that random guy a couple of weeks ago where he was like, who are y'all? was like, actually it's the same people. Same people. It was so funny. Anyway, hey Michael, what's up? So if also if y'all are watching on the YouTube, the YouTube, found us old all of sudden. The old YouTube. Or Spotify video.

Nick standing. Yep, I am. You're suffering through some back issues. Got me a nice little back brace on. Yeah, back brace, all the things. It's a good recommendation. And you're way better now than you were like two weeks ago. Last week was a sad state of affairs. Yeah, you weren't moving. least you're moving now. Well, a week before last was really bad. Yeah, you were done. But anyway, so yeah, like I said, this is not our normal day to do this, which hints the change in the look by accident.

No intention there. Go check us out. Yeah. Actually send us an email. Say NTM is the best. Hello. Patient care marketing pros. That's right. And we'll see if somebody's watching. But anyway, we're doing that because you're traveling this week. Yes. I'll be in Miami. You'll be in Miami in the later part of the week. And so just like we need to take care of an episode. So let's go and do it. But anyway, so this episode is actually more for me to talk about because I'm going to talk about an experience.

And think it's an experience that urgent cares could take, could take a good note from and has to do with my cat of all things. So just to paint a quick picture, we have a cat, a black cat named Poe, P-O-E. And not to be confused with Poe the Panda Bear, but like Edgar Allen Poe. Cause he's a black cat. I got him from the Powell, or not Powell, Shelby County Humane Society back in November. You know, I found him for a couple of months and

Here in Birmingham, we have the Tulip Festival. So Courtney loves going to the Tulip Festival. She got a bunch of tulips, brought them home. And he is one of the most curious cats we've ever met. And he ate one. And if you're a cat that eats a tulip, you're in trouble. And I didn't know that. Courtney knew that. And she was he's very sneaky and very curious. He's so curious that one time he caught himself on fire. because he was curious about the candle. Well, and so we're just waiting for something.

So this was another like life. He was so, he was so curious. He opened up a vent to our HVAC, went into the HVAC system and went around if we had a fish amount. So this is the type of cat we're doing. This morning he was in the dishwasher and I took a picture of that. One of the most curious cats I've ever met. Anyway. you rehoming your cat on this episode? We love Poe. He's a great cat, holy crap, he's a curious cat. so. Curiosity, literally.

That's what we keep saying this cat will die of a very interesting way Like he'll just something stupid will happen like of course it happens like a life number four or five at this point It really is he's already like gone through two or three lies at this point. He's only like a year and a half old but Anyway, so here's the story. Here's why I'll raise urgent care. All right, so 334 o'clock this past Friday I get a call from my wife saying hey the cat ate tulips and I know it's bad. I called our vet

And Melissa does. I called our vet, the vet that's seen this cat before, and they said, we're too busy. Go somewhere else. Go to this urgent vet care. And I was like, OK. So one off, like, you know, respect to that particular vet saying, this cat probably could die, and we may not be able to get to it soon enough. I that was probably the mindset. So good for them. But also, they gave away, like, hundreds of dollars by not saying, we'll work them in.

So it's kind of like a balance there, I think. But anyway, that's not the point. So we did some, my wife's like, OK, we're going to the urgent. It's literally called Urgent Vet Care, Urgent Vet Clinic 102. And it was like 20, 30 minutes away. So she calls us and hey, I have this situation. They literally said, how far are you? Like basically, you're running short on time. You should probably get here. So she gets there and goes to the process and says, yeah, we're going to make them throw up and do all this stuff.

Yeah, which is really funny how they did that. But and I'm sure those who are listening probably know anyway, but here's the interesting part of it. So my wife and my daughter, my five year old with the cat are there. And so I'm here at work and I'm like, well, I'll just go from here straight over there to see how they're doing. And let me tell you, the experience of that urgent vet care. So they're just a vet, right? Was like, why don't urgent cares be this way? And let me explain what I mean. So you walk is very fascinating.

So you walk in, there's no front desk. It's just a wall. Like it's kind of tripped you out because you walk up and there's like little refreshments and then two iPads and then just a wall. And then one side you see a door or two and the other side is a hallway. And I walk up and I could hear like my daughter saying something. So I was like, I'm nearby. So I start to walk one way and a guy comes up, hey, can I help you? And explain. He said, yeah, let me take you over there.

So, but the mind says, I had zero interaction with people. I could just hit the iPad and say, I'm a new patient and whatever, and someone would walk out to me and take care of me. But let me kind of say, like, one, that was very smooth. Like, it was very smooth. Two, it was quiet. I don't know if you've ever been to a vet. Vets are loud. It was whisper quiet. Lots of animals barking, lots of cats meowing. Yes. So it was whisper quiet and it had a great smell, which is...

interesting to me because most animals, yeah, because you go into a vet and you're like, OK, I can smell the animals. Great smell. I was really just I was like, this is so fascinating to me. So he takes me back. So we get taken to a room specifically for cats. So it wasn't just like a generic exam room. It was a cat exam room. So a couple of things that made a cat room. One, I had actual paintings of cats on the wall, which I thought was funny. Two, it had cat treats.

right there on the table. And then three, like the scale and everything they were using was cat size. It wasn't for dogs. And so was all very, it was so clean. Everything was super clean. Everything was branded. And it was just like even the mat that the cat stood on was a branded mat. So everything was branded and it smelled great in there. And then to me, this is the part that I think is so fascinating because there was a child, they had a branded

color activity book to give Addie to keep her entertained while they took care of the cat. That's pretty cool. So think about that process, like where my wife, I think I'm thinking about toward an urgent care. My wife called, great, how close are you? It's like the concern. She called me, I think they're really concerned because they asked me how close I was. They wanted me to see immediately. And she said she went straight in, they knew what to do, and they took them straight back. And then within an hour of her

talking to me that he's throwing up. All of it's been done. And it was funny on the throw up part. So apparently they gave him some medication and throw up, but then to make sure they got everything, they sat him in a chair and spun around. That's crazy. then they gave him medication to make him stop throwing up. So it's impressive. But they said, but the guy would come. That was at her part. The doctor came out. He was the most vet style doctor you could imagine, like older guy.

with long white hair and a ponytail with a white beard, like just kind of fits the vibe of that. And but he was like, let me explain what we're going to do. And then they said, we're going take him back and do that. And he came back and said, OK, he did great. This is what we're going to do next. It was just very, it was well informed. It was very fast. Like everything about it was just very nice. To the point, like, why don't all human doctor visits feel this way? I don't even like the care of it was so different to me. And I didn't like discounting.

like doctors in general, I'm just saying like what they did was what you would want someone to do for you. Right. It was a very positive experience. And then they even the next day called my wife and said, how's he doing checking in on them? That's pretty cool. So it's like layer after layer. And then I got a call today from the original vets who referred out and said, did they take care of you? Like, yeah, they did. Well, that's nice of them to follow. Yeah. Right. So they even followed up and there was no, you know, I thought that was really cool. So I was just like, how are you like?

These are all the like y'all are checking off all the right boxes. It's almost as if they listen to this podcast. That's what I was thinking. Part of me is like, God, it sounds familiar. they real life example of all the things we talk about. That's right. The follow up. The are we taking care of them? The smoothness of the process from the second I step into the second we check out, even the checkout, they just handed us like a little clover handheld credit card thing.

So I didn't have to go to the checkout window. Oh, that's cool. Just tap to pay. Tap to pay while you're standing there. Man, I wish I had pet insurance. All of a sudden? That got real expensive, real fast. Yeah, I remember you talking about that. Yeah, that was like, was $350 for an hour. not buying any more insurances. Don't ask me. I don't want to buy any more insurance. Well, it's kind of funny. was like $350 to make my cat throw up, which is just funny to me. But I get it. He's not dead. So.

And Courtney tried to make him throw up her set. She didn't spin the chair. She just spun the chair, which is so funny to me. Could have done that. no, so that whole thing was a super amazing experience. And it's kind of one of those, they did everything that we talk about doing. And if a vet can do it, why can't an urgent care can do it? a point. And now I do recognize that vet doesn't have the high volume that an urgent care does. I don't think they see.

50 plus pets a day. They might, I don't know. they designed everything to handle that. you know, I think there were probably six or seven exam rooms. And the way they designed the building, best I could tell at least, it was U-shape. Where you walk in, so you walk in, just, mean, when I say Luria Wall, like this, our podcast room is wider than that hallway was. And so you walk out, you probably got like four feet in front of you, and there's a wall.

with iPads and then there's no obvious way to like go somewhere. Like you'd have to stand there for somebody to come get you. But then kind of use around either side is the exam rooms. And that's it. Like it's very clean, it's very focused and it has some seating areas on the left hand side. But ultimately they're trying to get you to follow a quick path type of thing. And they avoided like the large squared out waiting room that we're all used to.

which is I think probably a good thing because from a pet standpoint you can spread your pets out a little bit and they're all congregating in one spot. So I know, just overall it was such a good experience and what triggered all this was just the branded color and activity book where it entertained my child for most, most, know, she got bored soon enough, but the idea that here, take this, this will help you. Like it's one of the things, you know, you would get as a kid at a restaurant here, take this thing to scribble on, on the menu.

But like they do it for that side of it because they realize like this is not a quick conversation. It's not a quick visit. This will take some time. Let's entertain your kids as long as we can. So I just. That's pretty cool. I mean at the end of the day, like I thought it was like this is something I think all urgent care should take a look at. And the fact it's called urgent vet care, it's like they understood what they were going after. Well, I mean you walk into a restaurant typically. I mean they hand you a kids menu with crayons. Yes.

Right? Knowing that that's not the demographic that they're targeting. They're not trying to get you to bring your kids in. They just know that you're going to have them as part of that experience anyway. Or at least there's a probability that that would happen. you know, if you run a mainstream urgent care and sometimes people don't feel good, well, some of those moms or even dads, they may have their kids with them because they don't have anything else that they can do with these kids. Right? So for you to have a coloring book and some crayons on hand.

Now we're working on something like that, right? Yes. So we're actually work because we recognize our urgent cares could have a use for this. And this was actually a conversation before this event. Yes. Wow. Did that even happen? It happened within like hours, technically. But we're actually working on building a color activity book for our urgent cares to utilize and have it branded for them and all the things. Because this is like a legitimate thing that there's a need for. Because we look at all the data. Like you're talking about

Most of the people who are interacting with you are mothers and things like that. you know, and if it's after two or three o'clock, the kids are with... guys aren't going to the doctor. They try not to, right? But then, you know, chances are the kids are with them, especially if it's after three o'clock or two o'clock in the afternoon, or if it's first thing in the morning, they still have a choice, or they have young kids that are just aren't in school yet. Right. So, and then of course summer is hitting those type of things or during winter break.

So yeah, like we're looking at how can we add bring some added value to our urgent care and say, like, well, not only will send you a nice little thank you box, but like, here's some activity books that actually can use if you want some more, let us know. So that's the mindset we're going for. I like to have feedback from our audience like this. Is that something you guys would want? Because we're right now experimenting with it. But I just know as a patient, I just went through all my cat as a patient, but me as a payer going through that like

That was really good. Even my wife's like that was great that she had that. My daughter was probably colored three or four of the 10, 20 pages that were in there, which kept it entertained. And it was just, it just added to the experience at the end of the day. Cause I didn't like, yes, it's cool that you can keep a child quiet for a short period of time. But it's the overall experience. Cause it's like, that was like the cherry on top, right? Cause yes, they were available. expected that. Yes, they were able to

keep the cat from dying. We were expecting that. Then the little add-ons of it smelled great in there. It was very quiet coloring book. And then the follow up the next day, those were all cherry on the top situations. That's cool. know, applying this to urgent care, not really applying it, but just thinking through it. You know, I study urgent care models. I want to know what's coming. Really so that I can tell you all some listeners what's coming.

And I'm not 100 % sure this is happening, but I know it started overseas already. And I know it's being dabbled with on the West Coast a little bit just to test it, test market it. And it's these urgent care pods. Have you seen those yet? just, well, first of all, if you go to Japan, it's common that there is a bathroom that you pay to go into. And it's like a pod, right? And you pay and that payment keeps the bathroom up.

and kept right. Right. And it keeps people from sleeping in there, I guess, you know, which I don't see that being a problem in Japan. you know, and like, that's the same concept, same concept, like you go to Aldi, pay a quarter for your buggy, right? The buggy doesn't get destroyed and it gets returned. So anyway, this keeps the this keeps the bathroom clean, public. And what's really wild, I know we're not here to talk about bathrooms, but what's really wild is when you walk into it, it's all glass. Yeah, you can see in it until somebody's in there occupying it.

And then it's one way out. So you can go to the other, look at it, everybody, but they can't see you. I hope. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I guess you got to have some faith in that point. I'm trying to make though, is that same pod technology that's small and compact. They're now testing it with urgent care. And so you have this pod, you go in, you pay to go in and then it's got a chair. All of the vitals are checked in that chair and then sent to your doctor in real time. And it's like a tele-visit with real men.

You remember Tito Care was on our podcast. Yeah. And they had that thing that attaches to your phone and you can breathe in it and put it under the air and it sends all this data like in real time over at telehealth. Well, this is just a box telehealth at the same time where you can get convenient access without all the overhead. Yeah. I it's kind of wild, but it's coming. It kind of sounds like, what was the futuristic movie with the

the Taco Bell fast food. Oh, demolition man. kind of reminds me that. realize we were going to be talking about demolition man and the three seashells on this podcast today, but here we are living the dream. Michael. Don't they actually have a, isn't there a scene where the guy's like talking to somebody on a screen in a public booth about his mental health? Yes, but that's fantastic. That was a good, I haven't seen that in so long. Illuminate. De-illuminate. Exactly. So, but no.

Interesting, mean, it makes sense because the challenge with telehealth is the, don't have the equipment or if I do, don't know where it is now, or there's a convenience factor that's not quite there yet because there's a process to it. And then from the doctor's standpoint, the connection may not be great. They may not be getting good enough information where they have to say, you got to come in. But the idea of a pod is you go, now, I guess my mindset goes to how sanitize that thing.

Because if sick people are walking in. So go all the way back to the thought process of Japan, right? Yeah. You pay. There's somebody attending it. They're cleaning it after they're taking care of it. It is checked on. It is sanitized. It is clean. All of those different kinds of things. So there's reason I told that story was to set up for how they're looking at urgent care by literally docking a box, Like actual box. Docking a Docking a cube.

I'll have to send you that link later. Just let you see if I can find it. I mean, it makes sense. It does. mean, some people are going to still want that human interaction, but I'm telling you the next generation of people don't care about that. What you just said, I walked up to an iPad, you're a millennial, right? Yeah. Okay. So we're, another generation removed from you at this point. Right? So I'm a, I'm a gen Xer barely. Like I'm almost a millennial, but

Anyway, I qualify as a Gen X, thank God. That being said though, like even my generation, I don't mind going up to an iPad and doing everything on an iPad and being ready. I told my story about going to Colorado and I went to Three Peaks, which is one of our clients. And when I went in there, I'd already done everything online and I walked in there like, Mr. Hoard, like they pointed at me. Mr. Hoard, I'm like, yeah, there's three people over here who did check in online. They're like, yeah, come on back. We got you. And I'm like...

Yes. Like that's awesome. Yeah. Right. So for me to bypass that all together and go into a cube, I'm not saying that's what I want. I'm saying that it wouldn't be unrealistic to me. I mean, I can imagine like, especially if you're a returning patient. Oh yeah. And so they just have you like scan your ID and say, hello. Does we have everything that we need to know? Please wait. And then I mean, think about the implications from this, Michael is let's just say that I own 30 cubes.

And then I have the red box of urgent care kind of, look at what urgent care. Look at, at Kroger grocery stores business model now. Yeah. Like we do not have a physical, I'm from Memphis. Kroger is everything there. And we don't have one here. There's not one here. We need delivery. But do you know that it's the largest chain in Alabama now? I didn't know that. That's because they have 5,000 trucks running around little grocery stores. It's now the largest chain in Alabama.

not for any other reason other than they just changed the business model completely. All they do is deliver food to you now and then you get a discount on your gas at every Shell station you go to. And it's not a sad little discount. It's 30, 40 cents per gallon. Right? So it's no joke. So you can get the Kroger experience with the Kroger store. I don't know that's good or bad. I'm from Memphis and the Kroger experience is typically you getting shot at. You're laughing. Go look at the news.

You think I'm joking the one right across the one that I went to the one I worked at when I was a kid has dead people there. So like I'm not this fog has gone everywhere. I'm not making jokes out of this. The whole point I'm trying to make though is like the business models like everything in the world right now feels like it's changing. Yes. For better or worse. I'm not going to get into that debate, but everything feels like it's changing. And when I say everything, man, down to the way you get your groceries, the way we shop has changed the way we interact.

work is changing, everything is changing and urgent care is aging now. It's not new anymore. No, it's not. You you're talking mid 90s where it became a thing and now we're in this actually kind of follows the product life cycle a little bit because we're hitting that 20 to 30 year mark. So the early adopter phase is over. Now it's in the maturing phase. So it's trying to figure out who it is.

So you're going to start seeing some major changes and eventually it'll come get to the phase where it's just as is until some disruptor comes around. Which, innovation. Right. And so in classic examples of this is like the idea of Blockbuster which got destroyed by Redbox, which Redbox got destroyed by Netflix because of streaming, because Netflix came in as a mail option and then...

Now streaming just took out everything. That's right. Now everyone streams and now that's our new standard. And now it's so funny how we come full circle. I only paid $8 to get what I want. And now if you combine all your streaming services to get the more than what I was paying, they get the programming that you really want at your fingertips. It's now costing you more than your typical cable bill was 10 years ago. And I'm shaking my head for those who are in their car because

Like I just, I just went through this yesterday and I'm going, man, I ain't watching Netflix. Yeah. mean, Netflix has been actually in the notorious recently because they keep increasing prices very quickly. It was 7.99. It's 21.99 now. Yeah. And then you can have the ad supported model, which then you're like, what's the point? Everything else is ad supported. So, mean, honestly for us, so we, fell into the trap of Peacock where we bought Peacock to watch the Olympics.

And we never turned it off because they had the office. And so we were literally paying eight or nine dollars. It's not bad. like eight. I think it's eight bucks, eight bucks a month for one show, which technically at this point we could have just bought the DVD box. This podcast is off the rails. It is. is. We go full circle back. Experience doesn't matter. Do the things right. And this is a Monday podcast.

But so all that being said, so experience doesn't matter. I encourage you guys, if you are looking for like, if you do great things, if you're a great doctor that does the patients love you, look for the cherries on the top type of thing. And in my world with my cat, it was a really great smelling place that had it was very quiet. So it was the opposite of everything I thought it was going to be. Right. So think about your urgent care. What is something that you would surprise people with? And the first things that come to mind to me is

It's always quick, which there's expectation there. But I'm confident in what you told me. And if there's a follow-up afterwards, not just a number. And that's sometimes really hard to figure out what makes sense. But I'm just telling you, there are options out there. And we're offering up the activity book as one small thing that can make a little bit of difference in the way your patients feel towards you. That's good.

Good episode, man. Yeah. I got a little derailed with the bathrooms and demolition, man. But if for some reason you're still listening to this episode, one, thank you to this. Ain't the episode to leave a review on. Please be gentle. All right. You'll have a great. right. I'll see y'all later.