Ep. 208: The Strange Connection Between Storm Patterns and Healthcare Visits

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Welcome into the show, everybody. Hey, we're glad to have you. If Michael sound a little tired, it's because we have been on a content tour, man. We went to ⁓ the Soroka event in New Orleans, which was probably the best food I've ever had an event that was definitely the best event food. And the paninis were good. The potato bar was legit.

The potato bar was legit. The potato bar was legit. Anyway, the pasta was good. Anyway, I was like event food typically is is it's okay. I don't want to go with like beat anybody up on their food. But you're correct. That was it was a good venue. I mean, the venue was fine. If I wasn't running, then I use that venue. Yeah, that was a good a good venue. played pickleball. We did play some pickleball. And we surprised the people we played with. I think my favorite comment was, y'all are using the cheap rackets. Yeah, the cheap battles were like

Yes. I mean, these were like 40 bucks a piece, which I didn't realize there was a level of pretentiousness. came along with pickleball. ⁓ yeah. But then the best part, but then like I had told you with pickleball is so funny because you can like equal out somebody's skill pretty quickly. Right. And we did, which was really funny to me. Well, anyway, you're listening to walk is welcome with Nick and Michael. We're glad to be back for what feels like a typically a normal episode. We don't have a guest.

⁓ Yes, we have a topic, but it's going to be more of a discussion today. And we're back from our content tour. We both had a speaking spot. Michael spoke to people. did not. But we had them both recorded and we will be having those as episodes in the near future. You know what's funny about that is I went back and I listened to my talk, which I don't always do that. our preacher talk, my preacher talk. I was like, I was dropping some fire content in there. Yeah.

Like, mean, you were in there. Don't give me. There were three of us. Yeah. You who are partner in the company, a competitor and an urgent care that we can't even serve because we're locked out of that. Yeah, we're locked out of the area. So I know wins there. No, what it did is it took all the pressure off and I was able to go in and just give what I felt was one of my better talks because I had nothing to gain, nothing to lose, nothing like I'm just going to like legitimately.

I try to do this anyway. You always tell yourself like you're just here to serve people. you know, if there's somebody in there that may want to buy some marketing from you, you know, that's always going to be in the back of your mind. That was not in my mind. And so I was able to just go into that talk and get it. And I got to listen to you kind of the middle to the end of yours. You had a lot of good questions, very engaged audience. One. Yeah. But yeah, but you had more people in there. So a couple more for sure.

But that is the challenge when you're the last speakers of the of an event on a Saturday where there was already hardly anybody there in the first place. Not to not to the Seruka events. No, it was it was circumstantial. Yeah, because the government shut down created issues with air traffic controllers, which didn't create some like, I don't know if I should fly or not. Yeah. And then people just backed out last minute because they weren't sure we have our own plane. So it didn't really matter. We had air traffic controllers the whole way through. Yeah, we did.

But did notice that it was remarkably quiet. was like the the air traffic was very quiet. Exactly. It's kind of cool. Well, we do have somewhat of a topic that will will kind of unfold. We were having a conversation with somebody. Honestly, with all the conversations, I don't remember who, but we were having a conversation with somebody. I think it was with a company out of North Carolina. But ⁓ the topic came up. Why are we only at 20 percent of our volume of last year?

Not them. I mean, they haven't even started working with us yet. just like it's dead. The trend was weird. The trend is 20 % of what it was last year, which means out of 100 patients, you would only have 20 this time. Yeah. Right. So you're like, great, Nick, you explain math. Sorry about that. Anyway, and it came up, I guess I was doing some research. I had had something show up in my feed. And then my general nerdy pilot weather knowledge.

kind of tied it all into a knot and apparently that piqued your interest. So yes. So I this has been an interesting year. We had a late flu season that came up a little later than we're all used to. But when it came, it came in hot and hard like it made people real busy. Our summer was slow, but not super slow. It was actually less slow than normal. Then we've noticed with

almost almost all of our clients patient volume was generally lower in September and October and parts of November compared to summer. And that's very odd behavior. Right. So it triggered like, OK, what's going on here? This seems very odd because I did an initial search and just looked like, mean, urgent care searches are down like 30 percent. Like just demand is down 30 percent. This is weird. I'm going to dig a little deeper.

And so I went to Google search trends. By the way, you can do this yourself. Just look up Google, Google search trends, and they'll have there's a search trends function. You can drop it any keyword you want, and it will show you the search trends. It doesn't show you like actual 10 million people search for this. It shows more of the percentages of searches versus historical percentages. And that's where the 20 % mindset started coming from. So I pulled it and I was like.

Let's see how real is this. So I pulled up the whole country on Google search trends and lo and behold, when I did a flu symptom search, because most people when they think they're sick, they always default to flu or common cold. And so that's kind like our indicator of like, you know, people are people actually sick, are they looking for things COVID is another example of this. And so you look at search trends and you follow the graph and the graph is based on 100 is the peak scenario like time.

And of course zero is the least time. And so when you went and looked and I did like 12 months worth, know, 100 was mid December of last year and then February was very strong and then it started falling and then summer was like 40%, 30%. We enter September, October, November, it's like 10, 20 % significantly lowered in summer, which is bad, right? Like that's not good. ⁓

And I was like, this is absolutely wild. Like, why is this even happening? I mean, we all have trends of like when the weather changes things, typically we see a shift. When you go back to school, you see a shift. And then when holidays happen, you see a shift. And that that normal shift of the weather changing just did not happen. Like it just did not make an effect. The people are just aren't as sick or what we were discussing with the other day with the client was

Yeah, we're kind of sick, but we don't feel sick enough to like justify a copay. I can hear a little bit your voice right now. Yeah, I got like just a hair like a sign like literally y'all talked in the existence yesterday. Sorry, like just like a hair of a sinus, but it's like not enough. Like I can feel it here, but I don't feel like garbage. Right. So like I don't want to go a doc. I don't want to go to an urgent care. It's been the copay just so can make me feel better. I feel like I'm going to feel better anyway in a day or two. Nothing that a little.

Nyquil or Sudafed or something over the counter. you know, just to knock it out enough and then you're like, I'm fine, whatever. And so I think and that's what we're like, okay, this is happening across the country. Like people are in that mode and you have an economy that's not very fairable right now. So people are, they don't want to spend a copay or cash price just so they can feel better a day quicker in their mind. And so like you have this weird spot. And so take all that.

Because we're trying to figure things out like what is happening. So you take that info and then you combine what you saw from James Spann. Our local weather celebrity. Yeah, so if you're made a comment, it just kind of blew my mind. Yeah, so just some reference here. James Spann is a meteorologist here in Alabama. He is the man of Alabama. If there was a superhero for Alabama, James Spann is the guy. He has saved lives with his weather reporting. ⁓

Not even joking. he, when we had tornadoes go through Tuscaloosa, he was on TV live for like 30 hours straight, trying to keep people alive. And it worked. Like he saved lives. And he also learned along the way how to make things better. So the whole state respects him. And we also joke if his suspenders are out, we're all going to die. is extreme. The suspenders come out. There was even one time where a tornado was coming through Birmingham, hit his house while he was on the air. And he said,

Give me a second. Let me go check with my wife. He comes back. She's fine. Our house is kind of messed up, but she's fine and just kept going. So he's just like this hero that we all respect. We all love. And when he speaks, we listen. anyway, so go. Where does that all tie in? Yeah, where does it all tie in? So Nick saw a post or a comment on something and this is where we're connecting in dots. Right. So the comment from Spann was simply that it's been a full year.

since a hurricane has made landfall in the United States. Which is wild. And up until that point, it had been 40 years since that had happened. The timeframe is kind of... Mute. Yeah, it's kind of irrelevant other than just kind of to give you some scope here. So why does that matter? Well, okay. ⁓ We're talking about urgent care and tying it to a hurricane. How in the world are you going to do this? All right. So ⁓ hurricanes come in in a high pressure system.

high pressure weather system. And you know this, ⁓ and I know this, because we've both had wives that have been pregnant before. When that high pressure comes in, your body changes, right? It puts pressure on your body, also puts pressure on your sinuses, right? And okay, great. There's not a high pressure system for putting pressure on the outside of our body on our low pressure internal, right on our sinus system. Well, what I learned in aviation is a lot of the pressure system affects your inner ear.

Yeah, right. So I'm clearly not an anatomy person. But I had to learn that being a pilot because we're at altitudes, the pressure changes at altitudes, which is why you can get sinus, sickness and pressure. Well, sinus, when you drain, that's where your upper respiratory problems come from. Well, none of this is happening right now because there's been no high pressure system. But all of this was triggered from low search volume.

no hurricanes, which made me think, okay, well, there's no high pressure systems. Well, if there's no high pressure systems, we're not getting pressure put on our sinuses. If we're not having pressure put on our sinuses, we're not having drainage. If we're not having drainage, we're not having sore throats and we're not having upper respiratory issues. Well, no wonder search is way down. This is an anomaly. It hasn't happened in 40 years. Yeah. So we're in this weird weather system that's ⁓ countrywide. And we haven't been around our families to go spread germs and disease and cheer.

Well, and it's real. so and it's a real thing that we're seeing. Where I was looking at search because I can see as of yesterday, there's been just a small uptick in national search trends for like flu. So we can see a star-ending shift just a little bit still to hurricane around. So it's people taking those early Thanksgiving breaks. Well, right. Like they're like they've hit the point. Also, honestly, this is the most stressful time of the year coming up.

So people are like getting mentally ready for that. Guilty. Yeah. Or as my dad would say, happy holidays, boohoo. ⁓ And it's real. Like there's a lot of parties. mean, I had my haircut this week and I was talking to the barber and he asked what are doing for Thanksgiving? He said, well, we just had Thanksgiving yesterday being on Sunday. so like that's going to be contributing when people are having Thanksgiving right now versus just next week. So you're going to see some trending there.

But yes, the idea of the hurricane situation, it all makes sense. We're not scientists here and we're not data scientists where we can connect all the dots, but we have enough dots to say, well, this is oddly related to each other. And you were talking about the wise with children thing. My child was four weeks early and...

They even said it's because the hurt because there was a hurricane Dorian. We have a really does make a difference. Well, we were and we have and the reason why I know Dorian is because when she was born her first stuffy thing, we named it Dorian just so we would always remember the hurricane that caused her to show up real early. So right. But it was so funny because we went there to the hospital. They said, yeah, usually we have like five or so five to eight maybe.

deliveries today were at 20 or 30 because of the hurricane. so like if I heard and we're in Birmingham, Alabama, that hurricane was in like Florida, like, but it made that much difference. Pressure systems are what it's all about. Yeah. And that's the, that's the reality of it. So, but yeah, I think the idea, like when you have science, cause I really do think, cause right now I have a little bit of something going on and I'm just like, I don't care enough. Right. And I think that's what's happening to a lot of people. Like I don't

care enough yet. It's not hurting enough or it's not making my life miserable enough. I may wait and not go to that doctor just yet. So I can see this is we're trying to say to our audience here. Like we're trying to connect the dots because we see the data. We have a lot of data and we see all the things and this is what makes sense to us. I wonder if it makes sense to you audience. Does this make sense? Are we crazy? I'd love to have comments on this or email to say you're crazy.

Michael, that's a stretch. Y'all are really trying here. And I'm like, I get that. I really do. But there is a weather anomaly and it's a good one, by the way. mean, technically lives are not being sacrificed right now by the hurricane. This is the weather anomaly. If you're going to have one. no, we're not getting destroyed by weather. Yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah. mean, that is there is a balance, right? But because I because I was curious because when you said that, I want to see when all these hurricanes. I did not know that Noah

Would you say you fact check? I fact check, but it's out of curiosity, out of pure curiosity. Cause what I wanted to do was correlate the search trend data with hurricanes. And there's some correlation where it's about 30, 60 days after a hurricane that seems to be an uptick in issues. That's what I was seeing at least. But it was just so fascinating cause I

I didn't realize that they kept up with how many hurricanes have hit landfall in US since like the 1800s. That would make sense. Which is super cool to me. they're right. Like every year there was one year like multiple hurricanes that has like, oh man, that's pretty rough. But then yeah, it was weird because it showed all the way to 2024 and it said 2025 none. I'm like, that's bizarre because you know, we just heard about the one in Jamaica not long ago, but you just assume it made it to Florida, but never did. It turned off. it turned off. Yeah, it cut away.

⁓ That's wild though. But honestly speaking, I think that's that's part of the reason you're not seeing the uptick in normal volume is because we're in a hurricane season. Yeah, without hurricanes. Yeah, which you know, you can't help but know or understand that weather systems play a part in our health. They just do right? Absolutely. Pressure systems play a part in our health changing of seasons play a part in our health. It's safe to say that if we're not seeing those changes in the weather,

probably not going to see those changes in our health either. No. And then you have, you know, I wonder too, because our weather right now in Alabama, it's always weird at this time of year, but it's super weird right now. Two weeks ago, it record lows. Today we have record highs, like it's 80 degrees outside and it's November 20th, 2025. Like we're a week from Thanksgiving and it's, I'm in shorts right now. Sure wish it would be. ⁓

like in the the high 40s, low 50s or something for Thanksgiving. Yes. ⁓ That's kind of my Thanksgiving jam. Yep. ⁓ I don't mind the 20s and all that as long as we're in January or February. There you go. You know what mean? Exactly. But anyway, yeah, I think you had brought it up. I wanted to bring it to a podcast episode and just talk about it because so fascinating. ⁓ And I'm trying to like nothing else kind of nothing else makes sense to me at this point, right? Where

Because you saw me like ⁓ three or four weeks ago looking at Google search trends like, God, this crap is down. Why is it down? Why do people not aren't getting sick? I should tell you why we're looking at it is because our clients are going, where are our patients? And I'm going, man, I can't make people sick. Yeah, I can't do that. ⁓ I can't. When they're sick, we can make sure that you're the person they go to. But if they're not sick, I can't do anything about that. And so here's a test of the audience. ⁓

According to Google search trends, the two states that have the most searches right now for flu-like symptoms, so probably the two sickest states right now, randomly is Mississippi and Alaska. Man, we were just in Mississippi, too. That kind of makes me nervous. So Mississippi, and we were last week, Mississippi and Alaska. So if you're listening in Mississippi and if you're listening in Alaska, write us. Hang in there. Tell us and say, hey, yeah, we saw some uptick in patient volume.

the week before Thanksgiving. Selfish Ask 2. have a urgent care clinic that we work with in Hawaii, but we do not have one in Alaska and that would be cool. We gotta check off every step. If you're listening in Anchorage. We can help you. It seems to me like that would be a good place for an urgent care. Especially right now apparently. Well, there you go. Alright guys, well that was a fun episode. It was actually nice to have a non interview episode. Yeah, just breathe a minute. Just take and talk.

Hopefully in the next few months, we'll have some updated podcast room at some point working on that ⁓ equipment's expensive, but you know, comes it goes. If you increase your YouTube views, we'll move the quicker on the podcast equipment as well because it's very video based and what we want to upgrade. That's right. And then our goal is actually to so we have, ⁓ we do have a mastermind that we're looking at right now. Am I okay to talk about? Go for it. Okay. So this is

I'm gonna put this out here. This is for the true fans who have listened all the way through the episode because we know who you are. right. So March 24. That's a great question late into March. Yeah, there is a mastermind that we're working on for just urgent cares. No vendors, except for us because we're running it. Technically, we're not going to be a vendor or a host. Yeah, we're hosting it. And it's a urgent care owner invite only.

type of thing where you get put on a waiting list and so forth. So it's very specific. We only have a handful of slots we're going to do, but it's a true mastermind round table. We're going to have some people come in to talk about certain things, but majority of it will be focused on you sitting down with an urgent care owner across the table with you and a couple other urgent care owners. You're going to talk about your problems, what solutions they've done and

basic help fix your business and grow your business. We do this a lot in 7FA, which is the thing we're part of for the agency world, where I'm sitting at a table, Nick sitting at a table with nine other agencies that some could be a competitor, direct competitor to us, but we're here to help each other because we have that abundant mindset and we want this the same thing for our urgent care space. So I hope you'll register the link will be down in the show notes. We love to see you there. And I promise you this, nobody's going to sell you anything and you're going to walk away with incredible insights on how to grow your

Yeah, because you can bring all your problems to the event and you're going to have multiple people trying to help you fix your problem. That's right. Love it, man. We'll see you there. I hope if you're going into Thanksgiving or you're coming out of Thanksgiving, either way, I hope it's amazing for you. And I'm thankful for the review you're going to leave. See ya.