1,300 egg retrievals in 2022. That’s not one practice. That’s Dr. Roohi Jeelani.
Dr. Jeelani joins the discussion this week to share how her unending work ethic and incredible social media presence has changed her practice, improved patient relations, and why she believes this paradigm shift is here to stay.
How did this REI end up doing more retrievals than any other doctor in the country? Tune in to this week’s episode to find out.
Listen to hear:
How changes surrounding patient contact evolved during the COVID lockdown era, and why they may be here to stay.
How social media has opened the door to a new world of direct contact from patient to provider, and what that paradigm shift means for both patients and their providers.
Griffin question whether this change is a good AND a bad thing at the same time, whether or not it has the potential to thwart the chain of command throughout the treatment process.
How Dr. Jeelani uses her social media presence to increase productivity through patient education, and how she believes that empowering patients with information is the key to success.
Dr. Jeelani’s info:
Instagram: @roohijeelanimd
Transcript
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 00:04
I recently did a series of reels where it spoke about like age and how many embryos it takes for one baby based off of your age group. So not necessarily 38 to 37, but 30 to 35. What should you expect? How many IVF cycles leads to one baby 35 to 40? What should you expect? And I think knowing that it's not, it's not saying okay, we're we're gonna do our workup and then we're going to do IUI is for three months, and then we're gonna get you pregnant with one Oh, crap, you're gonna come back for number two. Now, you're 40? What am I gonna do? It's more of what is your family look like? And how do I complete your family, not just treat your infertility.
Griffin Jones 00:43
My guest today did her fellowship at Wayne State. And that's as far back into her bio as I'm gonna go because it just don't care about that in the same way that nobody cares that Tom Brady went in the sixth round, or that this professional athlete was a D3 prospect. And now they're a Hall of Famer. I'm blown away by what Dr. Jeelani has done. And you could tell that I'm not winning this Walter Cronkite Award yet, as an interviewer. I ended up having to bring her back on because the whole time I'm poking around the show and figuring out okay, why are you scaling this if you're not scaling? The operational system is much like why do you have this super powerhouse? audience to be able to reach that many people as Oh, it's because you have this system for self pay patients. And it's almost like I did the same thing in this episode, where I'm talking to Dr. Jeelani, and I'm, you know, you're like, like Jeff Bezos say, You are so intrinsically motivated to do this. You're using it to generate more new patients and you the idea of getting you busy vanished really quickly, because you got so busy, but I never like actually hit the nail on the head of asking how busy Dr. Jeelani is going to do more IVF retrievals than anyone else in the country. By the time this episode airs, as far as I know, unless somebody else can prove otherwise, I don't think most people are in the neighborhood of 1300 IVF retrievals. And it's because she really fits into this paradigm of changing Patient Relations in a way that's about as native as you can get. And I say in the episode, I don't think that most of you can replicate it. But there are some things that you can do. And we break that out. We talk about the changing paradigm shift, we talk about different business opportunities for physicians, we talk about beyond patient acquisition, using the change in communication to set expectations with patients so that they're more loyal, more adherent to your expertise as to last to make persuasive arguments in cases in education for patients so that they follow the treatment process more easily. And don't have that undermine just because the paradigm is changing, taking advantage of it. So enjoy this episode with Dr. Roohi Jeelani, Dr. Jeelani Roohi. Welcome back to Inside reproductive health.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Again, I want to talk to you today about Patient Relations. Last time, we talked about access to care more specifically, more specifically advocacy from Doc's. And we touched on Patient Relations a bit, but I think you are qualified to speak on the changing landscape of Patient Relations as a phenomena as much or better as anybody, because I've seen how crazy you have grown in a short amount of time, when did you leave fellowship? Was it 16, 17? Okay, so we're five and a half years out now. And I remember that, you know, the first sign with your group, and you know, for the first slide, it's like, Okay, how are we going to get Dr. Jeelani busy. And then after a couple months, it's like, we on to the next thing, don't have to worry about that anymore. And so I want to talk to you about what you see as the biggest changes, but let's just start for from how long you've been in the field, we could go back further and talk about generational changes, and maybe we will end up zooming back a little bit more. But in the five and a half years, since you have been a practicing Rei outside of fellowship, what changes are you seeing, I think, access to your patients and then for patients access to your physician has really changed specially. Now don't even take it back from 2017 Take it back from pre cold
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 05:00
The to COVID to now. And I think that's that transition has has is something that stayed. And I think it excuse my analogy, but it's like almost like an Amazon, right? Like what happened when COVID hit, everything shut down, everything became behind the screen and everything like that six feet distance, but everything's at your fingertips. I almost feel like patient care has followed that trend. And it's very much like that, like having the ability to talk to your provider, having the ability to do that rapid turnaround is something that transpired during COVID, but has stood and it's an expectation as a patient of patients. How much of it do you think was COVID? versus how much of it was happening before that? And has some of it gone back to pre COVID? Are you think this is fully permanent? In my clinical practice, I think this is here to stay. I think a great example of it is social media, right? Like even pre COVID. A lot of people were skeptical about why should they be on there, this is ridiculous, I don't want to go on social media. But then you see COVID Everything is technology, that's the interface, that's where our patients lives. And then we would have patients doing second opinions and stopping at that, because a lot of people follow you. And then it that principle of going to your doctor, no matter where they are, because you resonate, or you, you know, have a relationship built with that doctor was almost foreign, it was just, I'm gonna touch base with you to talk to you to see what your thoughts are, and I'm gonna go back to my doctor. But now with post COVID, all those boundaries have kind of gone down, it's almost become a, you're gonna take care of me from there. And then at come retrieval come transfer Come what may have you I'm gonna come see you. And that's, I think it's become like, Oh, this is feasible, this is easy. And that mindset has really shifted, and they don't think it's gonna go back. So you talk about access to patient and access to provide our I want to ask you more about the access to provider that patients now have, but what access to patients? Do you feel like, providers now have more of, I think expectation that, like I call my patients all the time I communicate via text with them. And I think that they respond to me, right? It's not like, Oh, this is so foreign, it's so different. And yes, of course, they get a little bit of that. But it's almost like, Oh, this is expected, I'm going to touch base with you because I want to know, my next steps, even before I get my period, I want to set that expectation. And know instead of do treatment, wait for an outcome, wait for a consult, and then start again. So that delay in treatment and patient care, that gap is closing, but also expectations that it's okay that your doctor will reach out to you and it doesn't necessarily have to be this scheduled official follow up X number of weeks or months out. I was thinking this as I was emailing you because you know, figuring out this damn technology of texting each other it's like I'm in I'm in we were words, for some reason, we're not in the same link. And so when I go to email you, you know, I'm just doing it from this platform. So I'm not looking at my contacts. But I think in many practices for a long time, the doctor didn't even give out their email in many cases, or they'll have like a different naming structure for their email, I'm in sales, I figure out people's emails for a living. And you know, they'll have the, they'll have something like different but yours it's like, you know, because you're in this structure. It's like, you know, if you know, the first name, last name and email structures, uh, you know who you're getting. That's the expectation now, like, it isn't like Dr. J 147. And so that only a few people can have that doctor's email, or the doctor doesn't even have an email to the practice URL when the rest of the staff does. That type of structures is changing. Yeah, I really, Dan, I think it's present better, right? Like, ultimately, we want good outcomes, my patient retention from a doctor from a practice standpoint. And I think what patients really want is to know that they're cared for and someone's watching them that as a patient, that delaying treatment, or that wait for your next steps appointment was truly the point where I would leave the practice because I didn't want to wait even though like common senses. Well, by the time you take your record, you set up another console, you do that, right, you're delaying your treatment even further than you would have by just waiting. But at least as a patient. I knew I'm taking proactive measures to get to my end goal as opposed to waiting for someone on their time, which yes, it doesn't make sense as a as a practice provider as a doctor saying, what's going to take you longer to see someone else as opposed to waiting for me but also, I think it's unfair, it's unfair to sit around and wait, I didn't want to wait
Griffin Jones 10:05
is a lot of patient volume to be able to respond to that many people, and nobody wants to wait, everybody wants answers now. And we're used to to your points, having the conveniences that technology has brought us the last decade, especially expedited by COVID, Instacart. And my groceries are here in two hours, Airbnb, and I have all of the world's potential vacation, lodging, booked in a second with the easiest user experience that there is, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And to have that in healthcare, where we have a bottleneck of limited clinicians, workflow that is often cumbersome and demanding. How realistic is it to actually be able to meet these experts, you seem to be able to do it. But how
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 11:02
I really believe in counseling and setting expectations on the front end, right? A lot of these calls lollies upset emails, is because you haven't put a plan in place for the next step. All patients want is telling me what to do. And I will do it right. You want a baby, I wanted a baby yesterday. And I don't want to wait around for you to tell me after I failed because now I'm angry. Now I'm thinking of the what ifs. So what I really believe is educating your patient, right? That's the whole premise behind my social media. And then setting expectations from the front end, knowing Hey, this is your age, what are your long term goals? What are your short term goals? What is having a family look like for you. And then my follow up appointment after we do our testing is okay, these are your long term goals. These were your short term goals. This is what you want for your family size. These are what your numbers look like. This means doing X, Y and Z, right? Like taking our textbook, our papers, everything that we study day in and day out, and laying it out for them in a treatment plan. So that way, when they have the No boss Development at 40, it's not a 42. It's not a shocker, or when they don't get to euploid. And they're 39. It's not a shocker. They knew it was coming. And they prepared for it because they're already in another treatment cycle. That really helps transform my practice. So them having access to me, no longer becomes an emergency. I don't know what I'm doing. But it becomes like, hey, you know, like, Thank you for warning me. We're glad we're in another cycle. Because it's all these expectations are set. So that access, then I'm not overburdened? Because no one's really texted me because I've already said, this is what we're doing from the get go. Right? And of course, there's outliers. There's people who don't want to follow that plan. And then hopefully, things work out. And if not, they've already touched base with me that this is what I recommend. And this is why I recommend it.
Griffin Jones 12:58
Is that really the case, though? You use the analogy of textbook and papers, most people suck at instructions. I think of just going to the grocery store, my wife tells me as I'm out the door what to get, and I get them calling. What did you want me to pick up? And so Aren't you getting some of that from Eve in perhaps even more of it? If you when you're giving people a plan? And they're like, Yes, I got it. I'm here, they get home? What was I supposed to do? Does it really alleviate communication? How does it not just make more of it?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 13:30
I'm in the logistics part, right? I don't do that the nursing team does. They? Yeah, they may forget what they they be assigned. They may forget what medications I said they may forget that but they will never forget how many embryos it takes for a baby. They will never forget how many babies they wanted. Because I'm not teaching them anything new. I'm just giving them a path forward. So if you and your wife said, Look, we want to kids were X number of years old, she's busy, I'm busy. What does that landscape look like? For me? It would be okay. She's 30 something she's this it may require each cycle yields us X number of embryos, somebody in their mid 30s needs three to four cycles for one life birth, this may mean four to five cycles for you, you're going to bank and you're going to transfer my take home message. It's not the first time they've heard it. It's me kind of stating it again. And then the good thing is my Instagram states it over and over and over again. So a lot of this doesn't come as a shock to them. It comes as that sucks. He really didn't want to but this is what we're gonna do to get to our family.
Griffin Jones 14:35
I wanted to ask you about that chain of command when you said in the nurses are the ones that are providing that logistical guidance at that point. But when they have that level of access to you, they being the patience and they're used to that and they have some familiarity with you prior to social media and then you're a responsive communicator. Do they tend to break Because the chain of command from in the beginning for us, I would have clients texting me, I mean email and texting me, what? What's this thing on our website? Or when are we doing this video? She'll be like, I don't know, you have a project manager, email her. And eventually once they build the relationship with the project manager, yeah, they, they know that it's way quicker to go to them. And they're going to get a much more complete answer. But I would still get those texts. And every once in a while I still do. And I'm like, I don't? I don't know. And so I like, but when you have that level of rapport with the patient, are they more tempted to break the chain of command? Or go outside of scope to you because they view you as being at the top?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 15:48
Sometimes? Not all? Not a lot, I think. I think people really respect and appreciate that they have that direct line of communication to me. And most of them try not to abuse it. Of course, there's outliers and yes, randomly they'll have can you help me make an appointment? And if it's like, a Saturday, and if it's something I instructed them to do, because I want to see them immediately? Yes. Most of the times, they know I don't really know how to do that. And I truly don't say like, you know, I don't really know, I can try. But no, I don't think anyone really abuses I think I get really like the you know, have a negative pregnancy, I'm sad or get new embryos, I'm sad, but I expected it, it's more of those points that I really want to be informed of. And when you're doing high volume, it's harder to hone in on those. So I think they really know when to reach out to me and when I will reach out to them. You talk
Griffin Jones 16:41
about sometimes when they're going through something really hard, they reach out to you. And you mentioned earlier, that there aren't as many boundaries as there used to be at least there's not the technological boundaries that there used to be. And so what does that do for boundaries for providers right now? And is that healthy?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 17:04
You're asking the wrong person?
Griffin Jones 17:07
What does what does that mean? You don't have you don't have any, any? You answer any text anytime?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 17:12
I do, I actually do. But I think that's what social media does, right? Like, I have patients in different countries, their time zones are different, their days are different. I'm up all the time, I I also have a baby that is four months old. So I am up and I do check my phone a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean that everyone should be like me, this is just how I function, right? Everyone can make their boundaries, what's right or wrong for them. I have partners that say, this is where you contact me, this is my email, but I communicate from 95. The biggest thing is setting expectations. Because when you set expectations, then you prevent disappointments. I think that's the main thing that I always try to tell people that how, how can I keep going like this? How do you keep this patient retention and patient satisfaction? It's because you set that expectation from the beginning.
Griffin Jones 18:08
I think there's also something to be said for somebody's natural ability to be able to be that responsive, that frequently that I think many people simply cannot do I think of a lot of the areas that I know. And they couldn't do that even if they wanted to just to be able to, like respond to that many people that frequency. I always say a joke that if there if somebody had a gun to my head and said you have to text someone right now and get a response back from them. In 30 seconds or less, I'm gonna blow your brains out that person for me is Serena Chen. If I had to text one person, it's like boom, and but she's not just doing that for me. She's doing that with her patients. She's doing that with her staff. She's doing that. Like she's like that that's a capacity that she seems to have that you seem to have. And do you do you think like, do you attribute most of it to your personality? Did you develop some of it over time? No, I've
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 19:08
always been like this. I am very much like Serena that's where we are like this. We get along really well. Because we share similar interests. We like to be our hands on multiple parts and doing multiple things all at once. I joke and I say it's like playing chess for me, right like making very strategic fast moves and not stopping so and that includes texting my staff talking to my partners talking to my patients charting doing stuff like this my social media, it's a game of chess, meet moving pieces when they need to be moved at the right time.
Griffin Jones 19:43
You don't get burnt out. You if
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 19:45
you love what you're doing. I mean, I feel like it's such an honor to be doing this like the types of messages right like the gratitude is like a drug it keeps you going. I mean, I literally and I will never forget this. And I always tell this patient that she had gone to multiple people had really bad outcomes, and finally came to me was monitoring somewhere else was told that she's going to have a really crappy outcome not to trust what I'm doing, has now three beautiful babies. And she sent me a card and said, Every time I talk to my kids, and I tell them about superheroes, it's not you know, I'm not talking about anyone else. But you You are our superhero, but like to get that honor is, I mean, I don't know how anyone can get sick of it. At least I can't.
Griffin Jones 20:35
What you're describing is the highest honor that you could possibly hear from someone and it's validation of your values. It's validation of the connection that you've had with people. It's validation of the expertise that you've built. As a physician, I would still get burnt out. I'm somebody that loves validation. I love I love Yeah, I just had a great consulting call today. And it's like, man, it feels so good when I can just add that value and, and the clients so grateful, and you feel so even I couldn't do it all that it amazes me that you can and on an episode about work life balance that I did probably two years ago, it may have been before COVID that I did with Dr. Stephanie Gustin, we talked about work life balance boundaries, and I said, I think there's a class of people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sara Blakely, those type of people that are just there all the time. They're intrinsically motivated to be doing what they're doing for the rest of us. I think it's like there's there's almost no time in our lives where we can just be present in the moment have the phone out of the way only think about the people in front of us and what we're doing at that time being totally unplugged. And so if if you don't get burnt out from it, because you are of that Blakely Bezos type of DNA, do you still does just being unplugged then make you feel like Oh, I'm not not doing what I'm meant to be doing?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 22:13
I go crazy. I literally go crazy. I just had a baby in July. And Angie was like, you cannot come back to work in a week as like, if I don't come back to work in a week, I will go crazy at home. My husband and I will be divorced. Please let me come back. I love doing this. It's truly I can't describe it. Like I love growth. I love change. I love being able to make a difference. And yes, I don't know if you follow Grant Cardone. But he says something like how whitespace on your calendar is the devil. And I truly do not want any whitespace on my calendar, I want to breathe, eat, fertility and change. And I love it.
Griffin Jones 22:56
Because he's also like that he lives breathes, eats business development sales. And what I try not to be prescriptive, because I've come to realize that some people really are fulfilled by that. I don't think that that's the majority of people. So when I see Grant Cardone, Gary Vaynerchuk, it's hustle, hustle is I get it. Like I think for the vast majority of us, there has to be more balanced, more preservation from unplug. But I've, I've, I've come to appreciate that there are some people that that's not the way that they're going to be fulfilled that they are machines that are go go go and you appear to be one of them. Yeah, I do. So I am very I want the people listening to this episode to email, if they if they're on the newsletter, just reply to the newsletter, or just text me or email, whatever I'm really interested to know how people feel like they break out, I'm dubious that most people can do what you do, I think it's a natural, if not a natural talent, then just a natural personality disposition. I'm dubious that most of us can do that most of the time, but our guys are pretty type A in general, they're not a they're not a normal cross section of the population. And so I'm very curious as to how many of your colleagues are in that type of mode where it really is more fulfilling to just be doing this all the time. And versus those that are like, eff that I want to I want to totally go off the grid sometimes I'm curious about who that might be. But so Alright, so you you're using this as a strength because your patients adore you. You have I'm just looking at Instagram right now. 324,000 followers, so I want to talk about that a bit because you referenced that as as part of how you set xspec Patients early and often in in this changing landscape of Patient Relations, but just walk us through the timeline.
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 25:07
Yeah, it started actually, thanks to Hannah Johnson. I have a huge family in Chicago, I actually converted my fellowship in 2016 2015. To ofour. Her it's a woman's yeah falls 2015. It's a woman's reproductive health research grant of K 12. That focused on Uncle fertility chemotherapy impacts on all of this, and I was on track to get an MD PhD. And then like three years, then it hit me that this is not the path I want to live, I want to do research to make an impact. I don't want to do research just for the sake of doing research. I want to be able to then implement that in patient care. And I didn't have access to a robust patient volume. So then I met very Angie, very coincidentally, Shin started bioscan. And we went out for coffee. And I decided this with it. So I was going to finish off a year of my or her and then move to Chicago, moved to Chicago, where I have a huge family, and then realized, while I still don't have a robust patient volume, I'm very new here at a very new practice. How do we build it? And then in 2017, Instagram was the new and it thing. And when I was like, Well, you have a big following you have big family, just change it into a public platform and talk about fertility. Talk about your journey. I sucked at it. Let me tell you, I was horrendous because a typical doctor goes to PubMed and then takes that information and puts it on Instagram. And patients don't relate at all to what you're saying. And they don't know how to translate that into lay language, or what does that mean clinically, or how that's relevant to them. So eventually, over time, I found my kind of like, what made me unique is an area and it built over time. And I think it really grew during COVID. And then I kind of highlighted my fertility journey over the past two years on it as well. And it kept growing and amplifying.
Griffin Jones 27:11
So it started off as a new patient generator. A lot of people say that social media doesn't bring in new patients. And I think for a lot of people it doesn't, is a What does hockey puck do for somebody that isn't Wayne Gretzky, while certainly not as much as it did for Wayne Gretzky, and some people get more return on investment from social media than others. But when you have a following is massive and as loyal as yours, I think you would have to, you would have to try not to get patients from it at that point, was it? Was it? Did it start pretty early on the patients that you started getting? Or did you find like, Well, only some of them are in Chicago, there's a lot of people in Boston in Florida, and and it wasn't that effective in the beginning.
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 28:04
They come from everywhere. No, because when I first started, it was the same year as Natalie started, you started a couple months before me. So it's just Natalie and I both started in 2017. And I think she would say the same that she got patients from all over, I think, I don't know how she practices but my patients would do their monitoring there and fly in to do treatment. I remember my very first out of state patient said that she was looking at shoes, and my picture came up. I love shoes. And she said that it was a sign from God that I love shoes, and I popped up that she had to come see me. So she flew across state lines to do her IVF care with me. That was my very first out of state page because I was so curious as to why she picked me and across the country.
Griffin Jones 28:52
It's funny that you say that because as you mentioned that I know someone from my life that went to see you as a patient from a different state because of following you on social media. And this is a paradigm shift, isn't it not just on the Patient Relations side, but on who has the biggest share of voice to patients. And it's a paradigm shift in a lot of ways. When you say Natalie, you're referring to Dr. Natalie Crawford in Austin, Texas. When I first came into the field, I didn't know anything about fertility. I didn't I barely knew what IVF was, I thought Rei was a camping store. I didn't know any RBIs. And my first clients were the ones that said, this person is big. He's big. He's big. He's big. And you'll notice that I'm saying he they were all they were all men at that time. And some of it has to do with we're just we have a transition in generations. There's way more female physicians than there was 20 years ago. And so some of it is that but some of it is also now the people that have the biggest platforms are mostly younger female El RAS. You have a couple 100,000 followers. Dr. Crawford, I don't I don't even know how many. She's up to now. And then there's a few others like Dr. Shaheen and some others that have really big followers. And then I'm thinking like, who's the? Who's the male Rei with the most followers? Do you even know?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 30:24
They don't, they don't actually.
Griffin Jones 30:26
Like maybe it's Eduardo. Maybe it's my good friend, Dr. Harrison. He doesn't even have he doesn't even have 5000. And he might be in the lead, you know? Like Dr. Eric foreman, he has, he has a really loyal following really great physician that offers a lot of value on social media. He's like, you know, they're all fractions of yours. The the physicians that have the largest followings on social media, are the female physician, the younger female physicians are orders of magnitude more than the fellas. So is it even worth it? For people that don't feel like? Well, I'm not I'm not a younger woman. I didn't grow up with this. I don't maybe I don't fit the that. Maybe it's because I don't match the demographic. And that's why they're successful on social media. Is it? Is it worth it for your peers? To do that, if they're a 60 year old physician, or if they're, especially if they're a 60 year old? Male physician?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 31:30
I think so. So if you look, I think you, I think Eric foreman, we don't know how many he has, but he has super loyal following, right? It's all about quality, not necessarily quantity. I think the ones that you named Laura Natalie reduction. And Dr. Crawford, me, we were one of the few of the first to join social media, and it was easier to grow. There was no other competing network or channel, it was just Instagram, everyone was Instagram. That's where you grew. But now there's tick tock, and some people are really big on tick tock, and some people are really big on Instagram. I think there's more variations of platforms, there's variations of how we present data. So I don't think there's no value, your patients will follow you. So even if it doesn't bring in new people in the door, that's an opportunity for you did touch base with your patient to tell them, teach them, right? Because if you're not out there teaching them someone else's, and it does may not necessarily be an RA. So why not get that information out there? And it doesn't matter how old you are, I just think that it was easier for younger female physicians, because initially, it started off as pictures, right? Who likes pictures? For younger females, males always shy away from taking pictures or posting a picture of themselves. Now it's a whole different, it's transformed into videos and all sorts of stuff. It's not just a still picture with a whole bunch of captions
Griffin Jones 33:01
will probably be weird if the things that normally work on Instagram for males were used by male Rei is like if we had a male Rei with Jack mussels and a Lamborghini. And like, probably probably wouldn't be the one they would want to tap into anyway. But you mentioned what you were talking about is arbitrage like the land grab of social media, because you got in at a time. And I think it's been it's, it really is amazing that if we asked people who are the household names of fertility specialists, in most cases, we're still a small field. I don't know, we could say that there's household names, but in the but in the infertility community, there absolutely is. And it when we ask people that, I don't think we're we're hearing necessarily the same people that are giving poster talks or maybe leading this debate and, and, and sometimes they are, but we are having a different class of RBIs that people see as the authority. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 34:17
I think it's a good thing. It's giving us a platform, not to say like I mean, I'm equally vested in research and equally invested in giving talks, but I think they're different audiences right, I don't think it goes hand in hand and I don't think they're mutually I think they can coexist. I think you can be this amazing Instagram influencer doctor, and you can get up there and give a serious talk on or debate on like to resect a fibroid not to receptor fibroid PGT not to PGT I think you can mutually have those interests. But while we were talking, Bob Celts actually has a really big social media Yeah, following, not for fertility for other stuff, but he does have a big social. I was trying to think of like an older male. But yeah, I've killed
Griffin Jones 35:08
there you go I so I'll shout out to rob because he does and, and and that that's a good point. But you deserve credit and you and the other doctors that we talked about and others that I'm forgetting and shouldn't be forgetting deserve credit for taking advantage of that arbitrage and deciding, you know, this isn't something that just has to be in an NPRM. ASRM talk. It's not just a plenary topic. It's not just a poster, there's a way for me to reach the masses. Now, with this. I wrote, there's an article that I wrote in 2015. People can look it up that was Instagram, you guys have to get on Instagram. This is this is this is life changing. The infertility community is there, there's so few doctors or there's a huge land grab possible for you. And everybody just kept asking me like, what's the next thing like, what's the next thing come and say, this is the thing right now you're not doing it, go do it. And the people that did it like yourself and the other Doc's we talked about, you all didn't do it, because of May you were doing it because you were doing it. I don't think I don't think I moved anybody on the other side that much like maybe I got him to start an account. But I think there was a lot of people that took the past on that massive chance to get to the eyeballs while the eyeballs are flooding in before the advertisers saturate the place before the fake influencers saturate the place. I think Dr. Shaheen did that with Tiktok better than anybody. And now we have now we have a bit of a paradigm shift. But I've done enough episodes on on that topic. I don't want to go too far down the social media rabbit hole other than how you've used it to really move Patient Relations forward. And you said something earlier in our discussion, where you talked about how patients have seen a certain expectation from you on social media. So can you talk about how you're using it to set expectations, either about the process or what they can expect on your approach? Yeah,
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 37:19
I usually talk a lot about me in Chicago, most of my patients are older. So what it means to be an older parent that not all embryos make a baby. And I think a lot of times what I'm trying to really do is shift the mindset, which was episode was all about that IVF is no longer the last resort. Right? If you're older, I use it as a first resort, like you're meeting your partner at 38. You're getting married at 40. And you want to have three kids like how am I going to make this happen for you? Right? How do I counsel you so you understand that? So I recently did a series of reels where it spoke about like age and how many embryos it takes for one baby based off of your age group. So not necessarily 38 to 37, but 30 to 35. What should you expect? How many IVF cycles leads to one baby 35 to 40, what should you expect? And I think knowing that, it's not it's not saying okay, we're we're going to do our workup and then we're gonna do IUs for three months, and then we're gonna get you pregnant with one. Oh, crap, you're gonna come back for number two. Now, you're 40? What am I gonna do? It's more of what is your family look like? And how do I complete your family, not just treat your infertility?
Griffin Jones 38:32
Does it ever backfire at all? So you're establishing a ton of credibility, you're establishing a ton of authority as an expert. But does it ever undermine authority in the sense of, Well, now, I feel so familiar with this doctor that I, you know, I just treat them like a charm. Like, do people come in and in your office and be a Roohi instead of instead of Dr. Jeelani? Like, does it ever backfire?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 39:05
Very rarely, I mean, there's of course there's, you know, Stan, there's outliers from the standard, but it doesn't really. I guess I earned my doctor title. I'm Yes. I'm Dr. Jeelani, but people don't define me. You can call me whatever you want. Like because you call me rude. He doesn't change the fact that I'm your doctor. Right? I don't. That would piss
Griffin Jones 39:24
me off. Yeah,
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 39:26
I mean, I define me like, you can. I guess it also I have said no one ever knew, like no one you had to say my name before I got married. My last name was like 15 letters. One. Everyone called me a variation of everything. And I responded to everything. So I don't I don't know. I don't. I guess people not defining is a good and bad thing. Also. It truly just doesn't bother me.
Griffin Jones 39:51
But for the most part, you are establishing your authority, not authority of like, This is who I am, but rather just like I I'm the expert. And you can tell that I'm the expert because I've shared all of this content with you. I've shared my school of thought with you and, and so people are coming in, can you tell the difference between somebody who has, who has really almost no experience with you on social media versus someone who is geeked out on every last post, you've done 100%,
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 40:21
you can 100% You can tell because they will come with notes and information. And with a plan. It's so crazy, they have a plan that we like, when you said this, this is what I want to do. Because you said this, this is what I want to do. I know this will take X, Y and Z. I mean, it's insane. It cuts my consult time what talking business from like an hour long new pet patient thing, take a 30 minute, like, okay, like you know what you're gonna do, I'm glad you listened.
Griffin Jones 40:48
I never really got this across to people when, especially when clinics and Doc's got so busy the last two or two and a half years and that we don't need we don't need more new patients. We got 10 week waitlist is like Yeah, but it's not just about new patient acquisition. It's about getting people in the door for I don't, I don't need new clients. But this podcast format, the other media that we do, just helps me get into business deals more when when I am it's not about necessarily getting more deals. But when people come to me, it's like they want to get my thoughts and process. They don't just want to pick out a marketing guy and it makes helping them easier. It makes the relationship so much better. And is that something that's replicable in other places, then then social media, like you said, you feel like this trend will go on for a long time? Do you see us doing a lot more of this where almost everybody knows so much about their physician before they end up coming to see one?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 41:57
I would hope so because they think you're trusting like you're, I appreciate that. Like my patients are trusting me with such an intimate part of them right? They're essentially letting me into a really a spot that they don't they're not comfortable with. Most people don't want to see a fertility doctor, shoot, I don't want to see a fertility doctor and I do this for a living. So I think it builds this trust and relationship that's just everlasting. I have patients who have graduated now, that's still follow me that send me pictures of their babies that always say like, I sent my friends to you, I redirected your post to teachers. I mean, what have you everyone, I have parents who follow me on social media of their kids going through their fertility journey and texting me thanking me like, I have a grandkid because of you. And it is just that touch that you can have that impact that you can have. And once again, it's not a social media talk, but it really does. It translates to patient retention, new acquisitions, and a lifelong like impression. I don't think it's going anywhere.
Griffin Jones 43:02
It's not just about it's not just about patient acquisition, I think about this in so many ways where I'm making purchase decisions. Now. People are doing it with my firm. We're we're doing it as we look for financial planners and stuff like that. It's like, I want to know so much about how they think and how they work, before I decide that, that's who I'm going to go with. And then when we do have those initial sales conversations often like the decisions already been made, this is like that, that sales conversation is just or in this case, initial console, there's just kind of like, confirmation of that or, or even the beginning of the process. But yeah, there's so much that used to be set up after the, the the initial information. If the public facing information, there was so much that was set up after that that just happened in the one on one consults that happened in the office, there was a huge information asymmetry. And now that information asymmetry doesn't exist anymore, because the patient can learn a lot about you about other fertility doctors and the process as a whole. And they can and you instead of letting that hurt, you are taking full advantage of it and you have a massive following. And I went on that rant is decide what where do I want to pull this thread next? Do I continue on to talk about Patient Relations? I do. But I also want to talk about how this can be a career opportunity in many other ways for our eyes because when you have 300 something 1000 followers, you're getting put in front of all kinds of people, venture capitalists, tech people, scientists, peers, colleagues, what other opportunities is it open for you?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 45:00
So many right? Because everyone who's interested in Rei is from every aspect, Farmar. Alarm techniques. Gosh, everything everything industry that you see at ASRM is now interested in you, right, for whatever reason. And it helps build new relationships, it helps you get in front of new technology, you start developing ideas, because you see how can I take this and apply it to fertility, I just think it just opens up the landscape for you to do so much more than just be a doctor. I love being a doctor. But I think I can do a better job of learning these different technologies and having access to the stuff and serve my patients better. But at the end of the day, all of this makes me a better doctor.
Griffin Jones 45:51
So how do you vet those opportunities, then? Because you're getting them because you have a huge following of people who really hang on to what you have to say. And because of that, that's, that's a big responsibility. And so how do you vet the opportunities that come your way?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 46:11
I try to step away from social media and really think like, Would I utilize this? Do I think it's resourceful for my patients, and then present it? I? This is not like social media is a amazing platform. But that pre pre meme pre my life, I used to model right? And it's very similar to that. So when you're modeling, you start thinking is this campaign is this brand in alignment with my morals, my ideals, because now you're going to be plastered as this brand's face? So social media is very similar to that. When you get vetted to do something for a company, do you think well? Do my morals and ideals aligned with this brand? And if they aligned do they do? Do they help my patients as much as they helped me? And if the answer is yes, then I say yes. If like, doesn't really sit well with me demand answer's no.
Griffin Jones 47:04
Talk to us a little bit about how you figure that out. Because I'm thinking in a parallel industry. And in the financial field. We talked about Grant Cardone one of the people that I follow, though, is Graham Stefan, because I think he's just a trustworthy, empirical kind of guy doesn't really Hawk his financial prescriptions. He presents what he sees his the evidence and talks about what he's doing and, and he's, he's just a guy that has a natural credibility to him. He was one of these folks that got into this trouble with the the crypto Ponzi scheme, that guy and his company's name is escaping me right now. But the BT X or whatever it is, and they had a ton of sponsors, really credible people, because they came in says, Hey, we're changing the world in this positive way. And we have a ton of money and all these other people are on board. Don't you want to be a part of it? And a lot of people got caught with egg on their face, because it's like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have locked up with them so soon. And i i peddled this Ponzi scheme to my people. I don't I don't see anybody doing Ponzi schemes right now where we are but but the principle is there nonetheless. So talk about how you dig into it.
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 48:22
Usually the type of people that approach you when you are on or when you have a larger platform is that that's been around great. As young as our field is it still as big in young as it is, we pretty much know everybody so everyone who approaches me, I already know what they're about what they're doing. I very rarely get stuff outside of fertility. My other love is for fashion. So I do get a lot of fashion stuff. And I don't necessarily the thing that I use with my social media. And if you look at everyone's social media that's on there, they they have a thing that they hold on very near and dear to them, right like for Dr. Crawford, it's about like the pride and joy of being a woman being a mom, that's very important to her. So throughout her fertility, it's intermixed. Her pride and joy. Dr. Shaheen, she's an author, right. She's amazing at being an author. So intermixed with her fertility is her book and recurrent pregnancy loss and what it means to her Dr. Chen, intermixed with fertility, advocacy, she has really really good about access to care advocacy, you know, being paired up with resolve. For me, it's, you know, my history like what makes me me, it's my family, my fertility journey, my fashion, like, I love it. So it's every, whoever approaches me is kind of aligned or parallel with that and a lot of that stuff is not new. It's people that I already know. I don't think I've ever been approached for something outside of my interest or outside of my page. So
Griffin Jones 49:50
I think to be us that we know everybody or that you know, so many people have been in the field for a long time. So I agree with you, we all kind of know each other, I always say that fertility is like one big high school, and, but you also know who you are. So you know who the new kid is when there is a new kid. But there's lots of new kids, I was one short time ago, there's plenty of others. And if you look at a lot of the VC backed companies, a lot of the PE backed companies, look at those board of directors or the, rather than the Board of Directors really like people that are VP level, often in the C suite to, there's a lot of people at those levels that have never worked in fertility before. And many of them are coming with good ideas and things that do need to be brought in and shake this thing up a bit. But some people have no idea what they're doing or complete charlatans are in it for the money, all of those things will and do happen when entrepreneurial change is at hand. So is it just enough to know your stuff? Or do you also have to get to know the people?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 51:09
I would say know your stuff more? Because people you don't think you truly ever know anybody? Right? Like I've been with my husband for 19 years, they learn new stuff about him all the time. Yeah, now you're going deep, deep, right? You people evolve, they don't really think you have to really know that people, I think you really have to know, the idea. I still consider myself I feel like I'm very new to this, I learn new people, new things, new ideas daily. And people will always, always approach you with something that they think is brilliant. And I really think that we're at a really pivotal point in our field where, like you mentioned, there's a lot of people who want and they're all very new, and you have to vet the idea. And if you really believe in the mission, then you align yourself with them. And if you don't, then that's okay. I, I think with the limited fertility doctors that we have, you will get approached whether or not you're on social media, you're gonna get approached, and I think the one tip that I've learned is, does that idea line with you? And if it does, then do it.
Griffin Jones 52:19
Right. I suspect that it's harder for you, because there are a lot more opportunities. And people do want to see change in the field, and you want to help bring that in. In my case, I'm not qualified to give an endorsement for the vast majority of people that want to reach my audience. So we build an advertising structure where it's not an endorsement for me simply them advertising in inside reproductive health, the same way an advertiser would advertise on any media company, the endorsements, when you become the face of something is different. The only one I ever did was with engaged MD. And I did that only because it is close enough to what we do that I could see how much it helps people. So many people that I talked to over the years, vetted it, including people that I've worked for, for years. I knew Jeff and Taylor really well for years before we did that, that if there ever was a complete 180 Like you're talking about, like you've known your husband for years and years, it's like how well do you still know some that if ever was a 180, we found out Jeff VISTA is a straight up axe murderer that I could say, hey, it may be an Axe Murderer. But I did my homework. And I talked to the guy and I'm as surprised as anybody I loved him and knew how great he was. And I'm totally floored. And I don't think that happened in the case of the Bitcoin, not the Bitcoin, the other crypto scandal, and you'd seem to have a system for for doing that I do. I do probably issue the word of caution to other Doc's that may be don't let FOMO dictate what you end up doing. That. There's a lot of things where it's like, Oh, I gotta get in on this now. It's like, if it's not right, you might just wait a while and it's not meant to be it's not meant to be Yeah,
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 54:16
I think really just aligning yourself with if you if you hold true and stand with what why you do this why you do what you do, then I don't think you'll ever stray wrong. Right? I think Michael goal is to get as much information out there and my goal is for everyone to have a family and my mission or whoever I aligned myself with kind of believes in the same thing like how do we how do we get there? How do we make this happen?
Griffin Jones 54:46
I want to let you conclude how you want to conclude, but I do want to go back to Patient Relations for something because I wonder if the position that we used to be in has toe totally changed. Or if it's just morphed into something else where the doctor was the authority. I'm the doctor, you're the patient, I talk you listen, I prescribe you do. And it seemed that that was going away for a long time. And then during COVID, not I'm not talking about the fertility field, I'm just kind of talking about general, that kind of came back in a different way where it's like you, you take the damn vaccine, you do this, because I'm the doctor. And I was like, I don't think that's the right message. It's even if when you're giving the right advice, if you're giving the right advice about something, it's not because I'm the financial planner, therefore, this plan makes sense. I'm the mechanic. Therefore, what I'm doing to your car makes sense. I think we reverted back to that a bit of instead of making the persuasive argument, in many cases, it was, listen, dummy, this is what it is. And I'm the person to tell you what it is to have, have we overcome that? And if it is something that we should even overcome?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 56:08
That's so interesting that you look at it like that, I look at it, as we use the persuasive argument, like all those stickers that we put up, I'm vaccinated, are you looking at what I'm doing? Look at what my kids are doing. But I'm also looking at it from the lens of social media. Those are my colleagues, right? Not just fertility colleagues, those are just my colleagues. And I don't, I don't think I can't remember a single person saying you have to do it, because I said, so it was more. So this is the data behind it. This is why I'm doing it. This is why my kids are doing it. And this is why you should do it. And that's how I present my fertility. That's how I present my data to my patients, right. And I always tell them, like, ultimately the choice is yours. But this is your age, this is the age of the sperm, this is your end goal. If we do this, your chance of success is XYZ. If we do this, your chance of success is XYZ. Here are the pros. Here are the cons for both, which one would you like to pick? And I think that autonomy is really important. And I feel like the vaccine was presented like that. I don't think it ever I think we even tried right like not to bring completely Goten John Doe but bring like surrogacy and third party. It never went away never became. If you're not vaccinated, you can't be a GC if you're not vaccinated, you can't be a donor I always became, we prefer this but ultimately the call is yours. I really think that mode or that treatment modality is here to stay. I think patients really want autonomy. They're seeking that autonomy.
Griffin Jones 57:46
I think that is the proper course to take. And I'm glad you took it. I think there was a ton of the One Way finger wagging on social media and some of the most persuasive doctors that I think out there I want to give a shout out to Dr. Zubin de Manya Z Dawg MD for any of you physicians that are familiar with Him, follow Him Dr. Vinay Prasad, Dr. Monica Gandhi, Dr. Marty mCherry, who were extremely persuasive. And when I looked at their YouTube comments, versus a lot of the comments of people that were doing finger wagging, I could see them changing hearts and minds, because they were doing it in a way where they approached it with the same healthy skepticism and made persuasive arguments that you just described. So we you've you've laid the groundwork for us and the change in Patient Relations, as you just described, to where it's educational, and inviting for patients. You talked about. We talked about the paradigm shift that this means for new opportunities for doctor, we talked about those opportunities in the form of business, we talked about the change not just in patient acquisition, but also how patients move through the treatment process by having a two way access to information and multi channel. How do you want to conclude right?
Dr. Roohi Jeelani 59:10
It's I think it's key that you are very proactive and educate in whatever format. They're thirsty for education, you educate them and they'll make well informed decisions with your guidance.
Griffin Jones 59:25
You are leading the charge in my view, as far as I can tell, and people are wise to follow you. We will include your handles in the show notes and of course, we will tag you and they should follow you because they should see the changes happening in Patient Relations through your eyes and through your patient's eyes. Dr. Jeelani, thank you very much for coming back on inside reproductive health.
Thank you for having me.
59:54
You've been listening to the inside reproductive health podcast with Griffin Jones. If you're ready to take out mission to make sure that your practice thrives beyond the revolutionary changes that are happening in our field and in society. Visit fertility bridge.com To begin the first piece of the fertility marketing system, the goal and competitive diagnostic. Thank you for listening to inside reproductive health