Voices in Health and Wellness
Voices in Health and Wellness is a podcast spotlighting the founders, practitioners, and innovators redefining what care looks like today. Hosted by Andrew Greenland, each episode features honest conversations with leaders building purpose-driven wellness brands — from sauna studios and supplements to holistic clinics and digital health. Designed for entrepreneurs, clinic owners, and health professionals, this series cuts through the noise to explore what’s working, what’s changing, and what’s next in the world of wellness.
Voices in Health and Wellness
Beyond the Biohacks: Building a Better Model for Longevity Primary Care | Dr. Russell Van Maele
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Healthcare often waits for the crash, then celebrates the rescue. We wanted to explore the opposite: a model that treats prevention as the main job, not a side note. Dr Andrew Greenland sits down with Dr Russell Van Maele, a functional medicine physician and founder of Black Sheep Health, to unpack what he calls “longevity primary care” a proactive, data-driven, relationship-led approach designed to improve healthspan and daily quality of life.
Russell explains why most conventional primary care struggles to deliver real lifestyle medicine: it is not a knowledge problem, it is a time problem. When appointments are rushed and incentives are reactive, patients feel unheard and clinicians feel boxed in. We dig into how a premium, high-touch virtual clinic creates space for shared decision making, personalised goals, and ongoing coaching. We also talk about the buzz and the substance in longevity medicine, including GLP-1s, cardiometabolic risk, insulin resistance, and why no single biohack replaces fundamentals.
The conversation goes behind the scenes of telemedicine and medical entrepreneurship: HIPAA compliant systems, patient portals, EMRs, labs, pharmacy logistics, and the complexity of being licensed across all 50 US states. Russell is candid about the hype machine too, from influencers without credentials to the challenge of staying evidence-led when social media is loud. If you care about preventive healthcare, functional medicine, and the future of primary care, this is a practical look at what it really takes to make it work.
If this raised questions about your own care, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find it. What would you want your doctor to track with you over the next 12 months?
Guest Biography
Dr. Russell Van Maele is a functional medicine physician and founder of Black Sheep Health, where he practises what he describes as “longevity primary care”- combining proactive prevention, health optimisation and personalised primary care through a virtual model.
After completing his medical training around the emergence of widespread telemedicine during COVID, Russell transitioned into full-time virtual care. His approach emphasises healthspan, strong doctor-patient relationships, shared decision-making and understanding the individual goals and circumstances behind a patient's health.
Russell has built a telemedicine infrastructure capable of serving patients across all 50 US states and has firsthand experience navigating the clinical, technological, regulatory and entrepreneurial challenges involved in independent medical practice.
His longer-term mission includes growing Black Sheep Health around his faith and values while helping other physicians develop the confidence, infrastructure and independence to create practices of their own.
Contact Details
- Website: https://blacksheephealth.com
- Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russell-van-maele-834511228/
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About the podcast
Voices in Health and Wellness features conversations at the intersection of medicine, lifestyle, and human potential, with clinicians, scientists, and thinkers shaping the future of care.
About Dr Andrew Greenland
UK-based medical doctor and founder of Greenland Medical, specialising in Integrative and Functional Medicine. Trained in both conventional and root-cause approaches, Andrew helps people optimise health, performance, and longevity, with a focus on cognitive resilience and healthy ageing.
Welcome And Guest Overview
Dr Andrew GreenlandSo welcome back to Voices in Health and Wellness, where I sit down with practitioners, founders, and innovators who are challenging the way we think about healthcare and have honest conversations about not only the clinical side of what they do, but also the realities of building and running a modern healthcare business. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Greenland, and today I'm joined by Russell Van Maele, a functional medicine physician and founder of Black Sheep Health. Russell has built what he describes as a longevity primary care model, a virtual practice combining proactive data-driven health optimization with the accessibility and continuity of primary care. What makes the model particularly interesting is that Black Sheep Health services service patients across all 50 US states. So behind the clinical work, there's also a fascinating story around telemedicine, compliance, technology, and what it takes to deliver highly personalized care at scale. So with that, Russell, I'd love to welcome you to the show and thank you very much indeed for joining me today.
Dr Russell Van MaeleDr. Andrew, thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
From Residency To Telemedicine Life
Dr Andrew GreenlandSo, Russell, for someone discovering you and black sheep um health for the first time, can you tell us a little bit about your background? What ultimately led you to build the practice that you've been building?
Dr Russell Van MaeleAbsolutely. Um so I'm a Christian, a follower of Jesus, I'm a husband and I'm a father of two, a third one on the way. So that is my hierarchy of my life right now. And um been blessed in this space to have the brain to go through medical school and do all the things it took to get to this point. Um my start in this was really I was finishing up my residency uh during COVID times. So that was when everything just was in chaos and nobody knew what healthcare was going to be because the hospitals are deserted. We started seeing people online, and that kind of kickstarted this whole telemedicine. I know it's been going on for years before that, but that was really the kickstart of it. And I took a I took my first job at um, it was kind of a a risky contract, it wasn't one of those safe ones that uh it was a direct primary care clinic that was evolving into telemedicine, and I was all about you know, I'm a DO, so I wanted to get my hands on people and be I'm very much an in-person doctor, and uh then I got all these licensing and I didn't really know what to do with it at that point, and that's why I just thank God for them because it's transitioned my career completely, and I've been full telehealth telemedicine for the past going on six years now, so it's uh it's an unbelievable blessing. I get to do the vast majority of things I would have done in the primary care clinic, but I've just kind of learned the different avenues I have to go through to be able to prescribe and use pharmacies, and I've got my own supplement line and you know, sending people to get diagnostics. But at the end of the day, being a good doctor, and I think I can still do that on telehealth, telehealth, telemedicine. Um, I still have a good handshake, a good hug from patients, but um it's just an unbelievable opportunity because I get to work from home, I get to be with my wife and kids a lot more than I would have if I would have been a doctor as a hot hospitalist or in a clinic. So it's an unbelievable blessing.
Longevity Primary Care Defined
Dr Andrew GreenlandThank you. Wonderful background and context. So you I think you describe what you do as longevity primary care, if I remember correctly. So, what does that actually mean? And how is it different from the way most people um experience primary care?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, so in my opinion, longevity is health span. It's living as many good years as possible. It's not about the quantity, it's about the quality. And I think that uh that's the big theme in medicine right now is is health span. And everybody wants that, but you gotta do the work to do to get there. And I think that you have to have a great relationship with your doctor to be able to achieve that because it takes a lot of one-on-one time, care, everybody's a little bit different in how they respond to certain treatments or what they're willing or not willing to do. That all takes time, and then comparing that to the primary care model is the opposite of time. If I was doing the regular primary care, in order for me to make an honest living as an internal medicine DO, I would have to see 20 plus patients a day. And if you're doing that on top of charting, on top of, you know, not everybody's perfectly on time to the appointments, you're just at the end of the day not able to really listen to your patients, and that's something I really have uh the luxury, which it really is a luxury of having the time to really sit down, be calm, and not feel like people are rushed, but they actually can trust me as their doctor, and we can get to their goals because that's the other thing. It's like for me, I want to be able to run 10 miles when I'm 80 and have the be able to do 10 pull-ups when I'm 80. Most people you know either don't want to do that or don't even think that's possible, but that's my goal. You know, if your goal is just to live and watch Detroit Lions games on Sunday afternoons, and that's all you want to do, your goals are gonna look a lot different, and your path to get there is gonna look a lot different. So that's why you got to have the discernment of like, all right, does this guy or woman need medications or supplements, or you know, do we need to get it more aggressive? Do you need to push them? Do you need a health coach with this person? Do you not need a health coach? So there's a lot of different things that you can do in this space, which is wonderful. There's so many different opportunities. And I just never would have had that in the primary care space because I'd have to check off the boxes for, you know, did I do all the insurance uh satisfying criteria to make sure this visit is legitimate, as opposed to the old school doctor ways of just sitting there and listening to your patient and being a healer? That's what I try to aspire to be.
Faith Purpose And Whole Person Health
Dr Andrew GreenlandThank you. So it's quite a shift from you know conventional thinking. Was there a particular experience in medicine that made you realize you wanted to do something a bit differently?
Dr Russell Van MaeleHmm, that's a good question. I think that I've always been a relationship guy. I always uh I always want to ask people like, what's your purpose? It's something that I've always like try to think of on my own, and like what really drives you to be a better person. So I'm always trying to like get deeper relationships with people, and that's something that I I wasn't able to do in the primary care setting. That's part of it. There's a lot of different reasons I can answer this question. Um, and the the other thing, too, that where I want to be different, and that's kind of where I came up with Black Sheep Health a little bit, but I want to be different in that the biggest thing, and I started with this. My my relationship with Jesus, like this is my little you know, camo Bible that I bring in my deer stand when I go hunting. Thank you to my lovely wife. But why are we not talking about that more often in our consults and in our rooms where you have somebody that's extremely vulnerable to the to just everything going on? That's that's the the route that I want to take. I want to get deep and really find out their their life, their trauma, what is holding them back from getting to their goals. And I think the most important thing in my life is my relationship with God. And if you don't, if you bypass that, I think you're missing one of the most foundational aspects of health that in conventional medicine they they really kind of push you away from a religion or spirituality. They're like, oh yeah, mind, body, spirit, and that's the whole deo holistic mentality, mind, body, spirit. But I don't think we're actually doing that. But then we go home and we talk to our families and pastors about these things, but we can't talk to our doctors about it who are in charge of our health, which for me, if my spiritual health isn't solid, my entrepreneur skills and and my drive just drops. I'm not as good to my kids, I'm not as good to my wife, and I'm just not a good friend or son. So that's where I just want to be different in that setting and bringing bringing that peace into health.
The Reality Of Owning The Practice
Dr Andrew GreenlandThank you. So when you first started Black Sheep and Health, what did you imagine your role was going to look like? And how is how different is the reality today?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, so when I first started Black Sheep Health, you know, from an entrepreneur lens, like this is totally new for me. I've been a part of these telehealth companies. I've been a part of several and help build them and all of the you know medical side of things. But then when you build your own practice, you go, wow, people don't just show up on your schedule. I gotta, you know, put them physically on my schedule and send them the links and the emails and you know, make sure there's retention, and there's just so many other things that go into a business when you're running it yourself. So I've I've hired on admins and compliance officers and you know, a little bit of operations management and health coaching. So it it's uh it's humbling when you run your own business, it's very humbling. I was very used to seeing my patients, good, check out, go hang out with my kids, and now I'm like, see my patients, make sure they're good to go for the next time I see them. And also I hope they stay, I hope they found value because you almost take it personally when uh you know, anything, a bad outcome, or they they leave, you're like asking yourself, like, why did why did they leave? What is something I did? So the whole entrepreneurship uh aspect of uh a doctor running their own practice is is extremely humbling but and challenging, but that's what I've I've always wanted to do. Another challenge. So I get I don't want to say I get bored really easily, but I I definitely get I definitely have some ADD component.
Dr Andrew GreenlandI think all entrepreneurs probably do somewhere along the line. Yeah.
Who Joins And What They Want
Dr Andrew GreenlandSo who is the typical person that comes to black sheep health and what are they looking for that they haven't been able to find elsewhere?
Dr Russell Van MaeleSure. Well, I think it's somebody that's um want wanting something different that from the healthcare industry than they're getting right now. Most people are pretty frustrated with the the current healthcare system, whether that be they're not getting the results they want or they're not feeling heard by their by their doctor. So I think it's the person generally falling between the ages of 35 and 65, is probably my client avatar that wants more out of their healthcare, wants access to me and direct access to me anytime, which is what I offer to my clients. And they want to know the latest and greatest of what is the best way to take care of yourself. And, you know, punchline, there is no best way to take care of yourself. That's not one thing that you can do, there's not one biohack that you could do, one supplement that you can take, one peptide you can take. It's a combination of everything, and I think it's a lot of shared decision making that needs to happen. And it's nice to bounce ideas off of your doctor that has that experience and you feel comfortable being vulnerable with.
Dr Andrew GreenlandThank you. So I guess there are some patients that come to you with more immediate concerns. Yeah. How do you how do you balance that against you know what you're trying to achieve for the bigger picture, you know, whether prevention or optimization longevity with those patients that just want something fixed?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, I think you know, I have I have calls with people before. I take them on as a client to just kind of see kind of where they're where they're at, what they're looking for. And if I'm not the right fit, I'm not the right fit, and I don't take it personally on be like, hey, this is a great option for you, or hey, you might just you just get on a few supplements and you're gonna be fine. I don't think there's much I can do for you. But I do have a combination, I would say, of it. My clients are mixed. You know, I've got some people that don't have any medical history, but they are maybe holding on to a little bit of belly fat, or they just feel like they're drained, fatigued, they don't feel themselves. But every doctor that they've gone to has said they're fine, labs are normal, and they just want something better, they know that there's something better out there. That's I would call put that into the optimization category, right? And then you have the other side. For example, I have a client that had cancer a year ago, and now he's dealing with a lot of the side effects from the chemotherapy that he received, and we're trying to come up with a plan to get him back to his normal. That's step one, and then optimize. But you can't optimize once the if the foundation is still shaky or if there's a lot of issues you're dealing with. So that's the type of person that I'm much more hands-on early, and then we can kind of space out our calls a little bit better as things get better. But um most of the time for clients like that that are coming in for a specific concern, it's a lot more front-end work to get them squared away, and then you optimize.
Dr Andrew GreenlandThank you.
Proactive Care Versus Reactive Medicine
Dr Andrew GreenlandSo, I mean, you're really doing proactive healthcare as as I see it. And I'm just wondering what that actually looks like to patients that are not familiar with the model on the ground. What does it look like to them to have a you know a truly proactive approach?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, well, I think a proactive approach, you'll know what the other side looks like. What are the biggest things that say if I wasn't doing proactive medicine, I'm doing reactive medicine as a primary care physician? Here's the things that I'm seeing hypertension, pre-diabetes or diabetes, uh, sleep apnea, high cholesterol. Let's just start there. That's the vast majority, right? When you're doing prevention, you're trying to reverse all those things because a lot of times those are lifestyle diseases. For my client that got cancer a year ago that was a CrossFit athlete, he that he got dealt a bad card. Okay, but the vast majority of us are doing this to ourselves, and we need to reverse that, and we need not we do not need to wait until it hits the fan to do something about it because that is Western medicine into a T. It's reactive, it's like, well, I can't really do anything for you right now, but if you had a heart attack, I could throw a stent in there, and I'm picking on the interventional cardiologist, but that's just the you know classic case, you you know, plaque buildup and insulin resistance, these have been happening for years and years and years and years, and now you're just seeing the final endpoint. So let's go back to the beginning and fix you and reverse this so that you don't end up that way. And I think it it's it's once again, it's sheer decision making, it's not this black and white approach. Every everybody wants to think it's so black and white. Oh, take a statin, don't take a statin. It's like the most obvious decision ever. It's like you're talking to a real person that has to like literally take a pill every day for the rest of their life. You better be confident that that is the right call for that person. You know, we can look at all the data, but at the end of the day, what is somebody willing to do? And if they're not willing to do it, you gotta come up with a better option that you're still taking care of that person the best that you can.
GLP-1s And What Longevity Means
Dr Andrew GreenlandThank you. So I want to talk about the word longevity because it's become a bit of a buzzword now. It's gone from something being relatively niche to something we hear about almost all the time. Right. What are the shifts you're seeing in longevity medicine, functional medicine, and primary care right now from your perspective?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, I think you know, longevity medicine really comes down to biochemistry and physiology and optimizing those key foundational aspects. Um so having a firm knowledge of those two topics is key and in pathophysiology, right? What happens when things go bad? I think the biggest thing that the most uh the most people realize right now is the GLP ones in the uh longevity space. Longevity, you're right. It is a total buzzword, and I almost feel like I got to put that on that because that's a key word that people are gonna be searching anyway, right? But it's really about living your best life and and removing the things that are gonna be anti- longevity. And you know, heart disease is one of the top things up there, and I think one of the best things that we can do from a heart disease standpoint when it comes to plaque, when it comes to insulin resistance, when it comes to obesity, when it comes to sleep apnea, these GOPs, it's hard to argue with the biochemical effects, the biomarker effects, and quality of life improvement that we're seeing with these. And now they are not a perfect drug or peptide, whatever you want to call them, right? It is not perfect because most people are abusing them, they're hitting their plateaus, they're not changing anything in their life. So I try to coach people through the best way to take those, but by far, that's the the biggest um thing that I'm seeing that's moving the needle towards healthier outcomes and what truly is longevity.
AI Patients And Better Conversations
Dr Andrew GreenlandAnd the patients themselves becoming more sophisticated about longevity and prevention, or is there still a massive education gap from the patients that you're seeing?
Dr Russell Van MaeleI I like to think that I see a pretty highly affluent uh patient, a very smart, um, knowledgeable patient. But that being said, you know, we always we joked about this in medical school, you know, which for me was back in 2017, I graduated uh medical school. We joked about it like Dr. Google, oh my patient asked Dr. Google, right? And the technology of AI coming up with medical answers and and differential diagnoses is incredible. Every doctor is using it, every PA, every NPA. We're all using these AI platforms to help with our clinical decision making. It shouldn't be the only thing that we do, otherwise robots could could do our job. But these patients are extremely informed. And the same things you had to do when Dr. Google was a problem 10 years ago are the same things we got to do now. It's like most of the time it's a lot of fear. Oh, I got this, you know, I had the chest pain, which is from uh I had a somebody had anxiety and it lists off I could be having a heart attack, I should be having a stroke, I could be having this, this, this, this, this. And you still need to go through that same process. But um it's uh the the diagnostics are getting better, the AI is getting better. So people are they're much more uh armed, if you will, when they come to my desk of the info that they have from, like I said, from diagnostics to previous biomarkers from function or wherever else they were at, and now to the markers that I'm uh ordering myself. But it honestly, I I love it because it makes for a healthier conversation and you can almost talk shop with somebody, you know. Before, and I I hate to pick on truck drivers, but it was it's always it's they're stereotyped as you're are you're talking to a doctor when you're if you have a if you're I'm a doctor, I'm talking to a patient and I'm talking to another doctor, it's a much different conversation than if I'm a doctor talking to somebody that knows nothing in this space. But now that person, that stereotypical person that knew nothing in this space knows a lot more, and you gotta be you gotta be on your A game, really, at the end of the day.
Sorting Useful Advice From Hype
Dr Andrew GreenlandAnd how do you personally sift through the hype in this space? You the genuinely useful medicine from the hype?
Dr Russell Van MaeleIt's a current struggle that I have, I'll be honest. Because there's so much hype and You know, there's so many, you know, I'm a 36-year-old guy, right? There's a lot of gym bros out there that say they're a doctor on Instagram, and you look actually at their credentials, it's like, dude, I almost it's a total pride thing, right? It's it's a it's a it's man, I I went through years and years and years of school and debt and living at my parents' house and studying every weekend for my test that I had to take on a Monday morning, like I had to shut my life down for years, and I'm still in debt at this point. And now this person just jumped on and claimed they're a doctor, and you should do this. Your doctor tells you to do this, and I'm like, U S O B, like you're not in the right, like you you can't you can't say that, but I I can't we can't stop it. So at the end of the day, we just need to be better. We need to take on the the cases that aren't for the masses, you know, the normal complicated ones. We need to we just need to do better as a as a whole, and really I think at the end of the day, you know, why I became a do in the first place is like truly to have great relationships with my clients, and there is so much information and noise, especially if you get on social media and everybody and their mother will have the protocol or the thing, and it's it's quite honestly, it's just most of the time it's noise, and you gotta really tell people it's like hey, that that's legit. The the the Jim Bro telling you to exercise, that yeah, you should probably do that, okay. But the the Jim Bro that's telling you to hang upside down and do a coffee enema five days a week, and that's the only way you can get healthy, it's like that one might not might not be it. So yeah, it's it's something that I you know I I have to deal with on a daily basis from uh from a professional side and then from my own from my own um knowledge base, right? I'm on social. If I see something, I need to say, like, is that legitimate or not? Should I be implementing this into my practice too, or not? So it's a lot of um it's it's difficult. It's difficult. It takes a lot of brain power for sure.
Dr Andrew GreenlandReally interesting on that point. I recently did a blog and I looked at um I got some interesting data. 77% of health influencers online have no credentials. And these people are commanding huge audiences, and you know they are influencing with no credentials. And uh I think that's a really worrying statistic.
Dr Russell Van MaeleIt's wild. And some of it, like you can't argue with some of it. It's like, hey, this is a great kettlebell complex, and this is gonna help you put on muscle. It's like, well, yeah, if you lift a 50-pound weight and you lift it over your head a hundred times a day, you're probably gonna get bigger shoulders, right? So a lot of it is real, but man, it just seems like everybody is impersonating doctors. You know, there's even some like everybody's like a PhD. I don't want to go on a soapbox of like, woe is me, I have a wonderful life and I'm very blessed. But even like like the PhDs and everybody's everybody's a doctor. Everybody's a doctor. I mean, and it gets it gets more likes, it gets more follows when you have legitimate medical advice from a doctor and you look into them, and they're a PhD of like nothing, or something completely opposite of medicine, or even like a mid-level that got a PhD and now they call themselves a doctor. I just it's frustrating. It's just it, but at the end of the day, it's there. I'm not gonna change it. I'm not gonna get on the boards of you know, the DO boards and you know, scream from the rooftops that this shouldn't be happening. I just have to separate myself and be better, and that's kind of the black sheep health mentality. Like just be a little different and don't be ashamed of it.
Premium Care And The Discipline Gap
Dr Andrew GreenlandTotally agree. So I think one of the interesting things about your model is it's deliberately premium and high touch. So, what do you have to deliver consistently for your patients to continue seeing real value in that relationship?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, I really, you know, we want to say results, right? That's like the answer that you want to say. Like every single one of my clients that comes in is, you know, did they didn't have a six pack and now they do, right? Or their their serious protein was two when they got in here and now it's at the 0.5, right? Those are great achievable objective goals. And don't get me wrong, that's exactly what I'm trying to do with most of my clients lower their visceral fat, lower their body fat, improve prove their insulin resistance, get them off of medications. That's one of my biggest wins ever. If it, you know, I have one of my clients and she was on so many different antipsychotics, antidepressants, uh, anxiolytics. And I asked her why. I was like, Oh, there was a point in my life where I was you know depressed. I'm like, Well, are you now? She's like, No. Well, let's see if we can come off of these in a med, like a medically assisted way that's just not gonna make you go through withdrawals, but we're actually gonna get you off of these as safely, and now she's on not on any medication. So, like, that's that's a that's a win. And uh to me, that's a very objective win. But the real answer is why does anybody stay with their doctor for five, 10, 20, 30 years? It's because they have a great relationship with that doctor, they trust their opinions and they truly believe that they are getting healthier, both subjective and objective, while they're under that doctor's care.
Dr Andrew GreenlandAnd what are some of the less obvious challenges in involved in kind of delivering that level of service that patients probably never see?
Dr Russell Van MaeleLess obvious challenges. I think the I think the the thing that I think about mostly is I'm asking somebody to do a lot on their own. When my worth is determined by your discipline, that makes for um it I can look bad really easily if I ask you to do, if I give you all the protocols and give you a coach that works with you once a week, and and then I show up to your house unannounced, and I'm like, hey, you're not, you haven't done anything I asked you to do. You're not working with the coach I signed you up with, and they're they're coming back to me on a quarterly basis or monthly basis, like, hey, I'm not achieving my goals. Well, you're not doing what I asked you to do. So there's a huge component of this that is very much you have to have a self-motivated patient, and that's honestly something that when I'm when I'm talking to people on my discovery calls, when I first meet them, I'm like, hey, are you motivated to make a change? And who are you doing this for? Are you doing it for yourself? Are you doing it for somebody else? Because that you gotta we gotta really assess kind of where you're at because I think that's the biggest pain point in primary care is hey, uh, you have uh hyper hypertension, we gotta treat it. Well, you can diet and exercise, or I'm gonna give you this pill. And I know you're not gonna die in exercise, so I'm just gonna give you the pill. Okay, I don't want to take that approach, but I will if I if I have to, but I don't want to. So, as opposed to a surgeon, you know, I've got a lot of friends and family that are surgeons, people show up, clip snip, or whatever that you know, it's obviously much more than that, but they're in and out, and yeah, they have to deal with follow-up, but for the major majority of the part, they they are not, they are in control. That person is under anesthesia and they're doing what they have to do, and the person goes on their way. For me, I have to work with that person, then I have to let them go out into the wild and do the things that I we talked about. So I think that's the most underrated aspect of this whole longevity space is man, you gotta do your own homework and you gotta do what your doctor says before you're trying to get the results that you know you're promised, or don't make those promises.
Admin Burden And Scaling Sensibly
Dr Andrew GreenlandAnd with this model, is there anything behind the scenes that takes significantly more time energy time or energy than you think it should do in kind of maintaining this level of service delivery?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, I think the whole admin aspect, right? There's so many things that you know, you're talking to basically I'm like a mom and pop, you know, clinic here. I'm a one-man band, and people want to see me and they trust me, but I gotta do a lot of hiring of you know, tech, of marketing, of advertising. I gotta run a it's a business as well, and that takes just so much more time and thought process than um I ever would have imagined. And uh I'm trying to hire out those people, and I've done a pretty good job so far, but there's always the next step in in growing your business. You know, when you have 10 patient problems are different than a hundred patient problems, which are different than a thousand patient problems. I don't think I'm ever gonna get to a hundred, a thousand, I don't want to. Um, but uh scaling and growing is uh it's underestimated how how difficult it is. And and everybody expects this word of mouth, like, oh, you're just such a good doctor, everybody's talking about you. Reality check, uh, you gotta do, you gotta get on social, you gotta do all these things to grow your clients.
Building A 50 State Telehealth Model
Dr Andrew GreenlandAnd then there's another layer to this, which I think is really fascinating. So you haven't restricted this to a particular geographical location. You're licensed across all 50 states, if I remember correctly.
Dr Russell Van MaeleYes.
Dr Andrew GreenlandWhat made you decide to build nationally rather than focus on one geographical target?
Dr Russell Van MaeleWell, just simply uh if you're gonna you know fish in in a pond, it's you know, you're gonna catch bigger fish when you're fishing in the ocean as opposed to a little puddle, right? If I have I've been blessed with the you know ability to have all these licensing uh licenses and maintain maintain them over the years, that my outreach is just gonna be significantly more. And I never have to turn anybody down. I could see somebody in Hawaii, I could see somebody in Maine. It doesn't, it doesn't matter, and I don't I never want to push anybody away if I don't have to.
Dr Andrew GreenlandYou clearly sussed out the tech for making this um telemedicine approach work. Yeah. But are there any kind of big operational lessons that you've learned along the way for delivering this level of um personalized medicine through a completely virtual model?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, I think you know, you just gotta have your your bases set up of all the things that it takes from from you to have a client as a cold, like cold lead come in to results. And that's a huge timetable of you know, let's call it a year. When that person comes in, you got to have a a marketing platform, you got to have a backbone of what you do. Um, I'm using Go High Level right now as my backbone, and then I'm involved in another venture uh called HealthAid, which is gonna be an EMR plus a um white label telehealth uh marketplace for for other clinics to join. So I'm gonna be able to use that, but you got to have you know where are you gonna put in your patient data, you got to make sure it's HIPAA compliant. You know, what are you gonna use for Zoom or Google Meets? How are you gonna actually physically or uh you know digitally communicate with these people? Then once you write the note, are you gonna use AI to write your notes? Are you gonna manually type them all out? You know, I work with a lot of cool companies like Life Force is a company that I work for. Incredible user experience. You I get on this patient portal and it's beautiful. I've got all the information I would ever need, and in a beautifully set up labs that are tracking from you know 2021, 22 when I started there, to now we got all this data and it's color-coded and it's coming up with a scoring system to their health, which I think is kind of a little uh gamification overblown. But people love that and they love the experience that they're getting, not just with chatting with me and having a relationship with me, but also seeing their numbers and seeing their improvement objectively in a nice way. So you got to think about all those other things that go into it, and then just make sure you're like a good human, reaching out to the clients, you know, texting them, emailing them, um, checking in on their birthdays or a loss in the in the family or a loved one. So um it's it's it's there's a lot more things. And then you talk about pharmacies. I mean, I could go on and on. I've got my own, you know, supplement line that I white-labeled my own supplements with, which has been awesome. But what pharmacies are you gonna partner with? What happens when estradiol patches you know go out of stock? You gotta you gotta pivot, you know, and you gotta do all these things, which is which is amazing. And you just gotta have, um, at the end of the day, like with my marriage, you gotta have great communication with your people and never leave them hanging. Let them always know that you're there and you will come up with a solution.
Automation Dreams And Doctor Burnout
Dr Andrew GreenlandAnd you clearly developed a very comprehensive infrastructure for running this show. Um, but is there anything that's kind of um you still lack at and think, well, there must be a better way of doing this, even despite all of that infrastructure? Is there something that's still too complex that you would love to be able to solve?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, I would love for the automation or making like a cloud agent or something like that, where I could literally have this conversation, like we're having this podcast right now and call it a medical interview. And it took everything that we said, made a note for the patient, sent them to their email or portal or whatever, made a medical note, like a soap note for me, made a supplement schedule that the that automatically sent to the patient, set them up for their next call, ordered the blood work for you know 90 days from now. If I could just leave the call, man, that's burnout is gone. I think that's the the biggest thing of burnout is all the other things. I love talking with people. That's my favorite part. I could talk with a wall and make friends with the wall, right? And I love talking, it's something I truly enjoy. I love getting to know somebody and take care of them as a as a as a doctor. What I don't like, I don't like writing notes, I don't like admin, I don't like all these other things that it takes to run a run a business, so therefore you hire them out. But man, if we could automate that to where everything just happened, uh, I think there would be a lot more doctors that would be willing, especially in my standpoint, family medicine, uh pediatrics, or internal medicine, a lot more primary care doctors would be willing to go off on their own. And that's kind of in the back of my mind, and when I when I'm partnering with other companies and when I'm you know taking care of my own clients, is how do I go through all the hoops and and figure this out to where I can take that next person that just finished up their residency that is like, what am I supposed to do? I just signed up with this giant healthcare system that they're just HR is just down my throat every single day. And I'm not, I this is not what I signed up for. That's the doctor that I want to take, and I'm very biased at doctors. I am one I want to take care of other doctors. I want to take that doctor and be like, hey, come with me, be who you whoever you are, and find your niche of people, and you can make it work, and this is how I think that's like my end goal on a completely different uh aspect of health, of like giving it to the next generation. And I'm still very much in the I'm very early in my career, so but that's but that's what I want to do.
Dr Andrew GreenlandThank you. Um so you have a 50-state model, yes, and that gives you a really um big total addressable market for what you're doing. But is the complexity that has to be there to make that work offset the advantage of having that reach?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, when the complexity comes in with making sure you can maintain your licensure. So I use a company called medlicense.com. I've used them for the last six years, they're wonderful. I know the owners, um they're they're wonderful. I can't say enough about them, but I highly recommend them. And anybody that is wanting to get more licensing, which I would highly advocate for if you're in a single state, you need to get more state licensures. Just it's just increasing your marketability. But um, they have kind of taken that weight off my shoulders. So, you know, hey Russ, it's time to complete your CME. Hey, Russ, you need to sign up for this, or you know, please sign that email coming in from West Virginia Medical Medical Board. That that's a huge burden that I think people are uh scared of because there's a definitely an upfront cost to that, and then there's a cost to maintenance of those licensing and renewals. But when you have the freedom of being your own doctor, that's and you're running your own business. Now that's just you know a write-off, it it's it's a it's a great spot to be in. So that's that's something that uh trying to remember what the initial question was. Oh, uh 50 state license. So that that's that's definitely an aspect of it. Um, you know, where do where do you market to? I think running like meta ads or um you know getting your name out there. There, there's this complexity to that. So I have my own uh podcast that I'm starting up that I'm gonna have um a local one here in Arkansas that's gonna help me with with those ads and and doing my socials and and whatnot, because that's a thing that some doctors love doing it and some doctors hate it. I'm in the hate category. I do not I do not like getting in front of a camera and being like, oh, I love creatine. This is why. I just think that's just not my style. Um but there's so many different aspects of how how to grow this business, and and the 50 state licensure is just it it expands your options. And if I were to grow significantly, like how I am with like uh working with some of these other companies, you have to develop an MSO PC model, which I have a lawyer that I've been using for several years that um has created that model to make sure we are compliant from a uh legal practice of medicine standpoint.
Marketing A Premium Relationship
Dr Andrew GreenlandI think when we spoke previously, which is a little while ago now, you mentioned that attracting new clients was one of the bigger challenges at that time. Have you learned anything about marketing a premium product like what you offer um from your experiences?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYes, you have to be you have to be very confident in what you who you are and kind of how you present yourself. That's number one. Number two, I've I you turn away the people that uh are just not gonna be a good fit. So when people come in as a lead through the website or or hit you up on social and you're you're talking with them, you got to really find out like who's who's gonna be willing to be able to pay the membership and wanting to actually work with you. And um I think the biggest thing for me is like sales. You I have to be become a salesperson, which I've never felt comfortable with. I think they kind of they definitely uh push that away in in medical school and residency. Like you don't need to sell anything because that's a conflict of interest, but you are very much selling. Yourself, you're selling the relationship that you're gonna have with somebody that's gonna be on the deepest level possible. So becoming a salesperson and also not like if I charge a thousand dollars a month, I gotta be able to confidently say that and not be wishy-washy and make sure that I'm getting the right client that is willing to pay that. So I think sales has been a something that I've personally had to, you know, read books on and talk to my wife who who is in medical sales uh before she became a stay-at-home mom. So we we have a lot of conversations about this, but very underestimated is the sales aspect because people think you just like you know hang a shingle and put a sign out in front, and then people just show up, and man, is that ever so far from the truth.
The Mission Ahead And Closing
Dr Andrew GreenlandAnd in closing, where where's the future for you? What do you like to do with back black sheep health? And do you have any particular plans for the future?
Dr Russell Van MaeleYeah, so I want to continue growing this brand. I think I really want to get into the niche of faith-based men and women that are also fathers and mothers that want to take care of their children and raise the next generation of Jesus Christ followers. And I think that's my biggest mission from a black sheep standpoint. Um, that's my life right now. I think there's a big gap in that, and that we kind of want these things, we don't know how to get there. And if you don't have your health, you everything kind of goes out the door. If you're sick, if you're in pain, you're not gonna be able to achieve what you what you want in life. So I definitely want to grow black sheep to take great care of people, eventually, probably hire another like-minded doctor that uh I can trust and that I trust is gonna take great care of my patients, and then going back to the empowerment of taking on other physicians, developing a platform that's like, hey, this is the roadmap to getting your own black sheep, and I'm gonna help you in that because there's so many doctors out there that are probably gonna hear this or you know, are talking to the looking at that influence of being like, hey, how did they how do they do it, or how are they seeing all these people? And because at the end of the day, you get some of these celebrity doctors that got one good referral that just kind of you know rippled effect to all these people, and they're the they're the best doctor, there's the celebrity doctor, but they're not doing anything different than than I am, or different than that new doctor. They're doing the same stuff, but they were able to get their name out there, and that's you just need one good break. So there's a lot of things that go into it, but um, I definitely want to give that confidence to to young physicians.
Dr Andrew GreenlandWell, with that, I'd love to thank you so much for joining me, and I wish you all the best with that mission. Um, really enjoyed the conversation today. And I think what's really interesting about what you're building is it brings together two things that healthcare often separates the ability to deal with something that needs to happen today, whilst also thinking much further ahead about prevention and optimization longevity. And I really appreciate you being so honest and open about the realities of building the business and the model that you have, because I think that side of healthcare gets talked about far less than it should. So I'm very grateful, Ross. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much.
Dr Russell Van MaeleThank you, Dr. Greenland. Great meeting you.