Looking for marketing ideas to grow your business? That was the focus of our conversation with Matt Dinsmore, CEO of Direct Primary Care LLC, a Spokane, Washington (USA) based healthcare company. Direct Primary Care is an emerging mode of healthcare delivery in the US.
When Matt wants to share useful information with interested clients, he makes videos. Videos are the best way to get across information in an easily digestible way. Matt uses Outklip to make screen recordings of slide presentations on healthcare topics.
Watch the interview
Read the transcript
Transcript has been edited for clarity.
SUNIL KOWLGI: Hi everyone, I’m Sunil Kowlgi, the CEO of Outklip. Today I’m joined by Matt Dinsmore, the CEO of Direct Primary Care, a Spokane, Washington based healthcare company. Matt uses Outklip to make videos with informational content for interested clients. I’m interviewing Matt to find out more about how he uses videos to grow his business. Matt, thank you for joining us. First off, could you give us an overview of your business and a bit of background about yourself?
Similar to a gym membership, where somebody would pay 50 bucks per month to have access to all gym equipment, treadmill and some exercises and weight….We have a monthly membership type approach to our primary care services.
MATT DINSMORE: Sure. A bit confusingly, our clinic is called Direct Primary Care. We named ourselves after a US national model called Direct Primary Care. There are about 1400 clinics nationwide doing this model. Basically, what it is, it’s a membership based family practice clinic. Similar to a gym membership, where somebody would pay 50 bucks per month to have access to all gym equipment, treadmill and some exercises and weight. And that individual can use just the treadmill or they can use all of it. They can go in everyday or they can never go in. It gives them that access. We have a monthly membership type approach to our primary care services. So, for a monthly membership fee, the individual gets unlimited office visits, no copayments, 24/7 access to a practitioner, either through our HIPAA compliant app or through the phone. And then your membership also gives you great discounts. So, 85% off labs, any labs done in-house are included in the monthly membership fee, but if we have to do them outside, we have about 85-90% off. We dispense medications in house at cost, so they’re 80-90% cheaper. We do procedures in house, like EKG, sutures, pulmonary function tests, all of that is included in the monthly membership fee, there’s no extra charge for it. The only time you’re charged is for the monthly membership fee or if there are at cost things like if we get billed for 9 bucks you get 9 bucks for three months of it. And we don’t bill insurance, that’s kind of the unique flair, people have to change how they think about healthcare when they consider that. But, really through this model, we’re re-centering what healthcare should be, and that is a relationship between a provider and their patient, what we call members. And, it’s out of that relationship that we can provide the highest quality of care and it’s a throwback to the old model, maybe 60-70 years ago, maybe a little bit longer, when you really knew your physician or doctor and you may have paid them in chickens or eggs. And they may have come over on the weekends. We’ve got Norman Rockwell, who represents old time physician care. It’s kind of that new age version of that form of care, where we use telemedicine services to provide high quality care but a very personal and relational way. That’s direct primary care. Personally, I’m a nurse practitioner as well as CEO. I spent 6 years doing different things but 4.5 of it as a nurse practitioner, working with a federally qualified health center, trying to provide care in the insurance world. We were doing our best and the organization they were doing their best, but under their model of billing insurance it’s very very difficult to provide high quality care. I began to see providers burning out and really good providers just turn into jerks, just real mean people cause they’re stressed out. The whole reason they went into medicine was to care for people and they can’t do that. And when you take someone’s purpose away they become a nasty individual. When you put them in a purpose filled environment where they can live their purpose, like you do, being able to build Outklip, and being able to help people, it begins to fulfill something within them and you become a better provider. So, I saw that and said there’s got to be a different way. To provide higher quality care and really empower providers. So, that’s how we launched here in Spokane, last November 2018. Launched Direct Primary Care and working to build up since then.
KOWLGI: So, you mentioned this is a new model of healthcare, which is more intimate and personal. How long has this system been in place, is it a fairly new system?
DINSMORE: It started in the late 1990s. Actually started in Washington from my understanding. And then has spread since then. For the past 5 or 6 years it has really grown like wildfire. Really people are beginning to embrace it, they’re beginning to see the value of the model and there’s probably a direct correlation with increase in premiums. People are paying a lot of money for their own healthcare now. Companies are not being able to afford health insurance for their employees and families. And so, people are willing to look for alternatives and are willing to entertain alternatives like Direct Primary Care plus some other major medical plans. And, can be a very reasonable solution. So, especially in the last 5 or 6 years it has exploded and some form of it, concierge medicine form, since the late 1990s.
KOWLGI: Is yours primarily a telemedicine based healthcare company?
DINSMORE: That’s a hard question. I’d say no, we are brick and mortar. Most of the people who sign up are in Spokane. We don’t provide services outside Spokane or telemedicine services. Every member however does get that HIPAA compliant, confidential 24/7 communication app, where we can do a majority of our care. So, we do a lot of telemedicine services through that, but we don’t have anybody from Seattle just using our telemedicine services.
KOWLGI: In some of our conversations before you mentioned you are using video to create information pieces for interested clients. And you mentioned that video is a much better way to get across things compared to a long email. Can you tell me what sparked that idea and something about content you create for your clients?
Example educational video by Matt Dinsmore, made with Outklip
I think we communicate trust and care non verbally a lot. So, it’s really important for us to use a platform where people could vet us, see if we’re legitimate, see if we’re a slimy salesman, and hoping they can see my heart on my face, and that would communicate how we care for people.
DINSMORE: What I found is that when I say Direct Primary Care, most people don’t have an idea what that is. It’s this entirely different concept, you’re trying to describe something entirely different in a very succinct manner in a way that makes sense, I began to find was the greatest challenge for me in trying to get members in. Education is the biggest piece. People are coming in to figure out your product, it’s not top of mind, you need to spend time in the trenches with people describing what we do, to see if it can really be valuable to them. So, I started thinking, what platforms can we use to really deliver this message in a way that people can understand. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not the best writer in the world, or because I’m a millenial, I use like emoticons and things, I’m personal. There’s got to be a better way, so I started to look at video services that can deliver messages. The way that I think about it, Sunil, is that when we’re having a conversation, I can see you, non verbal cues are huge. Majority of the way we communicate is through non verbal cues. When it comes to our care, especially from a provider, trust, is huge. I think we communicate trust and care non verbally a lot. So, it’s really important for us to use a platform where people could vet us, see if we’re legitimate, see if we’re a slimy salesman, and hoping they can see my heart on my face, and that would communicate how we care for people. As I was thinking about this, pictures are worth a thousand words, and I don’t know the rate at which Outklip records, 30 frames per second, I don’t know how many million words can you fit it using Outklip or something to communicate a message much better than any ad or email or something along those lines. Even a phone conversation, when I’m trying to deliver what Direct Primary Care’s benefits are, it’s really important, in no egotistical way, but for people to see my face and hear my voice. Because I’m passionate about it and I want people to hear that. This is not just a job for me, this is a mission and a purpose and I want people to know that. I can’t think of another way outside of meeting face to face that I can deliver that message to multiple people, thousands of people, except through a software like Outklip.
KOWLGI: You mentioned your audience is primarily in Spokane, in your local area. So, who specifically is your audience in terms of demographics?
Because Outklip is so easy to post to YouTube, you just hit a button and it goes here’s a link to copy it, now I can put that video on our website very easily
DINSMORE: Tough question, but I would say majority of our target market is typically women. Women tend to be the chief financial officers of a family, and they also are the ones generally making the medical decisions for the family. I had a lady just yesterday schedule an appointment for her husband, this is kind of common. So, the husband shows up dutifully, and he’s like I’m not even sure why I’m here, she told me come here, and that’s is kind of a very common story. So that’s kind of our target market, so those are the kind of people making the decision point when it comes to healthcare for the family, and also feeling the pinch. Guys tend to be really miserable sick people, they tend to whine a lot and that’s a stereotypical thing, but they don’t seek health services as much. They need an advocate, which tends to be their wife or spouse or significant other. So, that’s kind of our market. We use Outklip specifically, in two main ways. One is I will record something like this: talking about direct primary care that I can then post on our website. Because Outklip is so easy to post to YouTube, you just hit a button and it goes here’s a link to copy it, now I can put that video on our website very easily, so people can access our website and get the educational piece from our website. The second main way is I’ll create shorter clips, sometimes we do a Teaching Tuesday series, where I’ll talk about something medical or how direct primary care can help, and I’ll put that on our Facebook post and sometimes we’ll make Facebook ads out of that. We’ll boost our post and try to always communicate our messages through video because what I hear from marketing professionals is that video is king. So, we try to use that to deliver our message.
KOWLGI: You mentioned you started using videos more. Is video replacing anything else specifically? Were you doing something else before you switched to videos? Curious about what it replaced.
[ video ] communicates so much clearly. It’s been a timesaver because of that. So. I’m not like if they see this what are they going to see, when I can just show them. I’ve replaced spending all that time formulating an email to answer a question
DINSMORE: One thing it has replaced is me trying to effectively communicate through written email how to accomplish a task. So, I’ve used it for training, or if somebody is like caught up in something, sometimes it’s way easier for me to do a screenshot and record let me show you, like IT purposes, let me show you how to sign up. Click this, here’s my mouse, if you have issues here, do this. That is worth like a thousand words. We use a software, and they do that with me they share gif files with me and it’s just worth a thousand words. It communicates so much clearly. It’s been a timesaver because of that. So. I’m not like if they see this what are they going to see, when I can just show them. I’ve replaced spending all that time formulating an email to answer a question, a technical question or something like that.
KOWLGI: I had a question about the direct primary care model. Are your clients getting direct primary care in addition to their insurance? Or are they getting this solely as their form of healthcare?
DINSMORE: There are three kinds of people who access direct primary healthcare nationally: one is those who have insurance. Admittedly, someone who has a great insurance and isn’t paying a dime for it and has a low deductible, the only reason they would go for direct primary care is for the type of relationship, the extended office visits, the same day guarantee, that type of thing. They’re paying the extra fee for concierge medicine. There is a group of people that have insurance that have a high deductible plan, so they’re trying to get their premium as low as possible and they’ll pair that with a direct primary care membership. And what studies are finding out is that people who have a high deductible plan and have direct primary care, they save about 30% on medical costs and another 20-30% on prescriptions and altogether save nearly 50% on medical costs. Because, we’re kind of like gobbling and eating all that up and the primary care providers are doing what we should be doing, which is like treating people and consulting with specialists and providing urgent care access. What we find is that model when you emphasize primary care, people are actually saving cost. People are spending less, even with the direct primary care membership even if they were dipping into their deductible every time, which is so high nowadays, that people are now having to have their leg chopped off before they meet their deductible and are utilizing their insurance. People can use insurance, if they see a specialist and we place a referral, then great. Then insurance they can bill for specialty care: if they needed surgery, they have that, like major medical coverage. So, it’s like to be honest, high deductible plans are more or less major medical. We can’t call them that but $6500 before insurance kicks in, tell me that’s not major medical plan. That’s major medical plan in my opinion. The other people are those who do cost sharing networks, which I won’t get into detail because it’ll take me 15 minutes to do that, but basically it’s major medical plan but it’s not considered insurance. And then, people who are uninsured, they can’t afford anything but they need something, they need 80-90% of their care from a direct primary care membership, which ranges between $29 and $109 depending on age, which is significantly cheaper than if you went through our state here and didn’t qualify for any subsidies. We don’t really recommend that because people are so vulnerable to a major medical bill, but people have utilized our service in that way, so we just treat as much as we can to keep them out of the emergency department. Is there a way we can avoid the surgery, we’re trying to advocate financially for them because they’re more vulnerable population in that way.
KOWLGI: So, it seems like you’re trying to evangelize to three different categories of people, and you have to teach them about this new system of direct primary care. I wasn’t aware of it until I came across your company. You mentioned, you do primarily two kinds of content — you do the more promotional content as well as the Teaching Tuesdays. Can you get into what do you specifically in these videos? How long are these videos and what do you do in them?
I’ve searched multiple Chrome screen recording software but I don’t know why they don’t offer like the screen share and the face, and your platform makes it so much easier to do both at the same time
DINSMORE: You bet. What I was told by some marketing people is that you have to provide value content either to your website whether that’s for SEO or website development, or value content to your facebook, instagram or whatever, because people will get fatigued if all they see is sign up for direct primary care, sign up for direct primary care. you want to provide value and as people begin to see value with your information they’ll be more apt to continue to look at your stuff and maybe sign up for direct primary care in the future. So, as a professional, and I don’t mean this in any pride way, but I’m an expert in my field, in family medicine, and there’s some skill involved and some knowledge involved that can be valuable to others. So, I used that to try to add information about — last month it was colon cancer screening month, and so I had a little piece about colon cancer screening and who could benefit from it and I try to keep it less than 5 or 6 minutes cause that’s how long our attention span is. Probably more like 2.5 honestly. So, I try to make this short, succinct information and it helps to add value to our members and our website, and it’s so nice to have. I keep promoting our product but I’ve searched multiple Chrome screen recording software but I don’t know why they don’t offer like the screen share and the face, and your platform makes it so much easier to do both at the same time. It becomes real easy, I can open up the Google Slides thing or one image right behind, screenshare that of prescription pill bottles. So, people know that this about meds and how can I save on meds. Now they’re going to hear a presentation and see my face, or for the colon cancer screening thing we don’t show pictures of colons, that’d be gross. Just say colon cancer screening, so people are like there’s a picture, there’s a video behind here. So we use that to add value to our product.
KOWLGI: You’re just walking through a Google Slides or Powerpoint presentation while you’re speaking?
DINSMORE: Exactly.
KOWLGI: What’s your recording setup – what computer, camera, that sort of thing?
DINSMORE: Man, I have a really crappy setup and I would like something better. I would show you some of the audio stuff we have, which we got to do a podcast. Beginning to grab supplies for that. Right now I use probably the cheapest Samsung that you can buy from Walmart. No special audio or anything like that. I’ve felt the audio or video quality that has been recorded has been good enough for what we’re doing. Right, now we’re not broadcasting across the TV screen or something. Most people are watching from a digital device on their phone who access our content. So, it’s been good enough I would say to deliver that. Now, would a Macbook Pro be better and some finer audio, I think that’s in the future and maybe something we would like to do.
KOWLGI: You mentioned Facebook promoted posts to publicize these videos. Can you tell me about your general marketing strategy for getting people to watch these videos?
I’m not a marketing professional so I’m just using my basic knowledge to see was that valuable to people, was that valuable to our members and then kind of going from there.
DINSMORE: I think headlines are important and trying to find topics that are top of mind and that are what’s going on today that people have a lot of questions about. So, you know, in Washington medical marijuana became legal several years ago. So, that would have been an interesting topic to talk about — CBDs and is there any medical benefit to this? And, if you do go to a marijuana shop, what do you buy? What are the risks associated with that? Increased risk of psychosis and who needs to be aware of some of the risks associated with it, from a medical standpoint. I have to be a little bit careful to give medical advice because I can be liable for that. I try to touch on things that everything isn’t directly giving medical advice, like everyone needs to do this, or something like that. Like the keto diet is very popular, so talking about that and where it originated from, for seizure control and what we’re seeing metabolically and work with weight loss and who can benefit from it, like diabetics. I try to pick subjects where it’s something that people are interested in — for colon cancer screening it was colon cancer month. We’ll probably do a breast cancer thing sometime October November or something along those lines. And, I don’t know, I’m still feeling out. What’s the value? Are they finding that interesting? I’m constantly looking at analytics, did this get comments. I’m not a marketing professional so I’m just using my basic knowledge to see was that valuable to people, was that valuable to our members and then kind of going from there.
KOWLGI: What feedback have you got from your clients on these videos?
DINSMORE: Probably not much. I’ve had some shares. What I’ve found, I guess the conclusion of that would be – I read this book called Contagious: Why Things Catch On, and part of the book talked about people like to add value to a conversation. We don’t want to be a dull nail. What I found is that, the most feedback I get is that, if I provide something valuable, people will share that with their friends. Because they want to provide some valuable information. And so that kind of continues to help me deliver content that is like, is this valuable enough that somebody will share this with someboy they know.
KOWLGI: So, what are some of the things you’ve learnt in making videos that you could share? Potentially, best practices, how have you improved in making videos over time?
I try to record something well enough that it can be delivered. Those are the things I’m always trying to tweak: delivering a message clearly, succinctly, keeping it short, but being very personable and active.
DINSMORE: Well, short and sweet is big. I think being personal. I try not do to so many takes or have a script that it sounds like I have a script or did a ton of takes. So, if I mess up sometimes that’s ok. I think it’s important for at least my product to be personable. Background has been important for me. It’s annoying if I have this line in the back of my head, and for a photographer, I use the rule of thirds, I try to like at least a certain extent, there’s probably somebody who’s really bothered by that symmetry. I try to see if there’s something distracting going on. Try to add hand gestures and try to just be very conversational. I did a little bit of video editing, and audio is important. I kick myself for not having a better setup but audio, background, lighting, all of that makes a difference. My brother who does video editing says, if you record crap you cannot polish a turd is the saying. So, I try to record something well enough that it can be delivered. Those are the things I’m always trying to tweak: delivering a message clearly, succinctly, keeping it short, but being very personable and active.
KOWLGI: For your videos do you have a script or do you just have things on mind? How do you prepare before you record a video?
DINSMORE: I find that if I write out a script, I sound scripted. So, I have bullet points and I know when I’m going to talk about. And then kind of ad lib from there. I probably will do 10-12 takes, cause I’ll say something that’ll sound stupid or the automatic lights will turn off in the background or somebody will walk in the door, something like that. I do a ton of takes till it feels like I’m meeting all that quality. Because it is representative of our business, our clinic. So, you want it to represent well in that way. For our content nothing official because I want it to be like a conversation.
KOWLGI: Just to rephrase, these videos you’re making are primarily in a pre-sales context, right? You’re making these videos to get people interested in your company and build awareness about your company? Is that primarily the way it’s used?
DINSMORE: Yeah, 90-95% of the videos we use are that way. Another 5% makes up educational for other employees or educational for potential clients too.
KOWLGI: Today you record yourself while giving a presentation. Are you thinking about other kinds of video content, apart from just youself or the Google Slides one?
DINSMORE: I’ve thought about doing interviewing, where you bring in a professional. We’ve thought about bringing in a GI specialist, he talks about colon cancer screening and the difference between cologuard and fecal colo blood tests and colonoscopies and things like that. It’s a little bit hard to do an interview like that, like I’m Johnny so and so, literally our knees would be touching if we were doing that. So, I think about what if I step out of the way or there’s some limitations with that. That’s the way I continue to expand the idea of how do I use video to communicate messages and add value, is one way I’ve considered it.
KOWLGI: Can you think of any features you’ll need in Outklip to make your life easier and add value that you can translate to interesting content for your clients?
DINSMORE: I’m glad you asked. A very simple post-editing possibilities. When I hit record and I’m looking up, I can just snip that off or snip off the end, maybe add text or something like that. I don’t know the details on what that takes to do, but that would be awesome. Just clean up some of the files a little bit. I think it’s unreasonable to ask for a ton of work, like a picture in a picture, in a picture, to add text and all these type of things. Snip off the ends, maybe levelize the audio, that would be awesome.
KOWLGI: So, Matt, we in fact have that feature in our Pro tier. Soon after the interview I’m going to enable it for you.
DINSMORE: Oh man, that’s awesome.
KOWLGI: That wraps up everything I had. Do you want to tell our audience anything about creating interesting informational content for their clients?
DINSMORE: I just want to say that I really appreciate your feedback and if anybody is looking for software, and you in particular, you were the one who responded to me, within 48 hours. I was shocked that you had my problem fixed. I had another problem a month later and you fixed it within 48 hours. To me, what that emphasizes is that you are listening to your users and I mean actively solve it, and looking to continually improve your product. It’s not like here’s a product, let it go. You’re listening to a small guy like me. I’m just a user and you are willing to create a solution for it. That’s the last thing I would say. I think the potential is right now, it’s a high quality product and I’m excited for what you think of and what this continues to develop in the future.
KOWLGI: Thank you so much, Matt. Thanks for sharing, giving an overview of your business and talking about how you make videos for your clients.
DINSMORE: Absolutely.
