How a Rural Doctor Turned Burnout Into Three Businesses

And I worked so hard to get to that point. I had a one-year-old at home. I was crying between patients.

You know, I mean, it was just not a good situation because I wanted to care for people. So badly. But also I had to do all the paperwork and everything to get paid. That's when I said, "Okay, I have to figure out something different." And we figured out a way to have scribes, take care of our documentation. So then I was like, "Okay, this is life-changing for me. I was enjoying practicing medicine. I wasn't having to sit there and type in front of my patients.

And I could just do what I loved. And then, as I told my colleagues, whether locally or across the country what I was doing,

they were like, "How can I do that, too?" So Jennifer McKenney is an award-winning, nationally recognized,

and dedicated family physician, rural health care leader, and founder of the remote scribe company. She is also the associate dean for rural medical education at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. One of the things that we feel to do sometimes is we don't say yes when we could have said yes. Say yes to that position that you weren't sure you were qualified for. Say yes because if you don't say yes, then somebody else is going to say yes and maybe you are passion,

your vision, your values aren't going to be represented. I've said yes to a lot of things

“that I wasn't quite sure about doing. But say yes and just see what happens and I think”

really great things can happen from that. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Oh, that is sensational. Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the living your legacy podcast. I'm your host for today, Jason Tyler, and today I am joined by Ms. Jennifer Baccani McKenney. I wanted to make sure I got all the

names in there. All of them, yeah. Got it. Jennifer, welcome to the show. First of all, have in me. Thank you for being here. Now we're about to go into filming your episode of Women in Power. First of all, you excited? I am super excited. It's really it's fun to be here. Even be outside of Kansas. So Miami's great. And you know welcome to sunny South Florida. The weather's you picked a great time of year where it's not boiling hot outside. It's still pretty hot. But

you know, for the viewers, for the audience out there, what would you say is like the number one

“thing that you want them to be able to take away from your story? You know, I think that one of the”

most important messages that I would like to share, I guess with the world out there is I'm a small

town doctor. I'm born and raised in rural Kansas. And I just want to make sure that people know the value of the people that live in small towns in the middle of the country, in the Midwest, that people call the fly over zone. You know, we're doing big things. We're helping people across the the country in various ways. And I just want to share those things with people listening that that they're, you know, they're great things happening in small packages. I mean, you guys got a

couple of super rolls over there. So I mean, I think there's a lot more eyes on Kansas City nowadays and there might have been maybe 10 years ago. But um, talk to me a little bit about you, you're in a unique position that I don't find a lot of our clients to be in, which is you're in owner of multiple businesses, right? And you got a couple of brick and mortars and then you have this one national business. Talk to me about what it's like owning and operating more than one business at a time.

Because I'm sure like you start one, they're like, well, I've kind of hired my way out of being the owner operator. And now let me start another one. But what's your day-to-day like? It's complicated. I guess, right? That's like your social media status. It's complicated. Yeah. No, it's, it's exciting because I, I surround myself with people that I trust to, to help

“do the work day-to-day. And, and that's, that I think is one of the key parts of having multiple”

businesses is just knowing that you have teams in each area that are, that are doing the work and you don't have to micromanage and oversee all the time. But, um, but yeah, you know, I started as a family physician and historically, we doctors are not great at like finances and business and things like that. I hate to say that, but it's kind of like, we have these sciencey brains and, and then it pushes out all the other, the other stuff. My dad falls victim to that.

He's a psychologist and like, he handles the, the doctor part of the business and my mom handles

people, most people actually, these days, are employed physicians because, I mean, it is hard to figure

out the finances and the hiring and firing and, and all the, all the things that go along with the practice. But, um, I decided to join my dad who is a general surgeon and, um, in our hometown of Fredo, New Kansas and he had a private practice for, for 30 years before I started there and then I joined and he just said, okay, Jen's taking over, you, you figured out and I'm like, all right, thanks. And it over the case of the family business. Exactly. But you had to figure it out all of a

“sudden. So it was just out of necessity. Like, what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong?”

And in that whole process, I was like, hey, you know, this business stuff is, is not so bad and and being able to manage people and kind of set the vision for the clinic and, and what we want to represent and what our values were and how we were going to care for people. That was really important to me and it was really exciting. So then, um, in the process, you know, I'm trying to see patients and just be the best doctor I can be. But, um, as, as the healthcare, healthcare world has

developed, we doctors have just so much more documentation burden, so many more faxes and messages and, and prior authorizations and things like that that that that come at us every single day.

So I, you know, in the first couple of years was already getting burned out and I worked so hard

to get to that point and I had a one year old at home. I was crying between patients, you know, I mean, it was just not a good situation because I wanted to care for people so badly. But also, I had to do all the, the paperwork and everything to get paid to keep the doors open to do everything they needed me to do. That's when I said, okay, I have to figure out something different and we figured out a way to have, um, scribes, uh, take care of our documentation without them

having to sit in our exam room with us because it's a personal thing, you know, to be with your patient and, and to have somebody else in there sometimes can be awkward. So we figured out a way to have scribes in another room, um, that that we're listening and taking care of all the, the typing and sending prescriptions and orders and things like that. So then I was like, okay, this is, this is life changing for me. I was enjoying practicing medicine. I wasn't having to sit there and type in

front of my patients and, and I could just do what I loved and, and then, as I told my colleagues,

“um, whether locally or across the country, what I was doing, they were like, how can I do that, too?”

So that's when I decided I was going to start the remote scribe company because, um, if I could replicate that for other people and make it life changing for them, also, then, um, I figured it would be a, a good decision. And I had already, you know, been working on my one business, the clinic, and I thought, okay, well, how bad could it be to start another business? Mm-hmm. And then somewhere along the way, um, I ended up renovating my dad's, um, my dad's building that was in downtown

for Donia was an older building, you know, from the early 1900s and, and I just said, well, what if we did, what if we made a medical spot in our little town because we deserved nice things here, too? And I had heard that people were driving an hour and a half, too, to do things like Botox or laser hair removal, and, and I thought, like, you know, we, we, we can have this, too, in Southeast Kansas, and, and people don't have to drive that far just to feel good about themselves.

So, so we did it. We started, I started another business, and, and here we are, so three, three businesses. Here we are with all three of them. Now, you, you mentioned something that I think is really, really important. Like, our audiences, they're very entrepreneurial, they're very business-minded.

“You mentioned something about setting the vision, and I think that's so important for business owners,”

because if you, as a business owner, if you're managing people and you're hiring on new stuff, and you're not able to communicate your vision for where you're going, it becomes very hard to, your turnover rate's going to be high because people don't see where they're going. They just see the drudgery of the day-to-day, and if you're not able to communicate that vision, nobody's going to buy into it, nobody wants to go to the same destination. We don't even know if there

is a destination, you know what I mean? So, as an owner of multiple businesses, how do you separate and be able to set a vision for each one of them? You know, I think they do all intertwine a little bit, because I, the work that I do in my clinic, I, I use that to make sure that the decisions we're making in the remote scribe company are the right ones, because if I'm selling a product or a service to other physicians across the country and other providers across the country,

it has to work in my clinic first, and so it has to be something that makes sense,

it has to be relevant, it has to be viable. So, and in the same light, if I'm taking care of somebody and, again, in my clinic and taking care of their high blood pressure and diabetes, but they also need, you know, self-care, then it kind of overlaps into the medical space where it's like, let's do some of these things that maybe aren't necessary for your

and so they definitely intertwine, but at the same time, you know, I have different staff at each

location, each team knows their role really well, communication is such a big part of that transparency, such a big part of it. People know, you know, what they're expected to do, but at the same time, they're given the ability to kind of branch out and help the company grow

“in the ways that they can use their talents and make the companies grow. I think it's just having”

the teams, like assembling the teams, and then talking about what each team members role is, and then, in my role, also, you know, kind of bigger picture with each of the companies, and then, you know, giving them, giving them that independence and that that, like empowering them to be able to own the company, them. Not being a microman. Exactly. Yes. You hear that, guys, make sure that when you start your business, don't be a micromanager. If higher people that

you can trust to do the job that you hired them for, if you can't trust them, then why did you

hire them? It sounds like common sense, but it's not always. Common sense is never common anymore,

but we'll get off talk. But I want to take a second here to just, you know, in your remote scribe business, and as you were describing it, I'm kind of like, oh, wow, this is like a concept that I haven't even really thought of, because you never really, like, when you're at the doctor's

“office, you don't really think about what the goings on behind the scenes are, right? You're just like,”

alright, put the needle in, let's get this show on the road. Right. How are you utilizing technology, and, you know, as we're seeing like the advent of AI and things like that, like, what are like your utilization for that in your remote scribe company? The tech piece of it is huge, you know, and so when I started the company, that was about 2018, 2019, but when I started using a virtual scribe, and it was more like 2011 or 2012, nobody was talking about AI at that point. So it was kind of,

you know, creating this, creating this work flow and using technology in a way that people weren't using it at the time. It's a big combination right now. It's a combination of the technology to get people connected across the country, you know, pairing a scribe that we have trained really well with a provider doctor, nurse practitioner, PA, people that are needing to help, because they're just overloaded with day-to-day work, or they're just like, maybe not even overloaded. We just have a

“lot of like day-to-day stuff. I mentioned the background stuff, you're right. We don't talk about”

that stuff because it's really like, demoralizing sometimes. Yeah, because us on the consumer side, like, we don't understand that stuff at all. We're just like, I'm here for a physical. I don't know what's going on back there. When the doctor walks out of the room, you're just sitting there and limbo kind of like, what are they doing? Yeah, going on back there. Exactly. And probably, there, you know, your back at your desk, you're scrambling to put in orders, you're yelling at your

nurse over there to please, you know, get this stuff assembled for the patient. I mean, it's just all of those things. And then, at the end of the day, what you're doing is, you have this, you know, kind of like list of people or back in the day. It was like a stack of charts, you know, a physical stack of charts that was just staring at you and you think, okay, well, let's do this. And so, for me, that meant going home, eating dinner with my family, getting everybody to bed and then staying

up till 2 in the morning. You know, doing that whole stack. Yeah. And then waking up in the morning early to get ready for the next day so that I don't have so much at the end of the day and then doing it all over again, over and over. But yeah, we don't want patients to see that because we want to be kind of those, those people that are like, you know, I'm taking care of myself. So I can take

care of you. But the reality is that's not probably through a lot of time. What's actually going on,

which brings me to my next question is, how do you implement self, a lot of business owners do not implement self care in a way like that that makes sense for being able to provide good service to another person, right? They burn the candle at both ends. How do you handle self care as it pertains to being a business owner of multiple businesses, but you also have a med spa, so I'm like, I'm kind of promoting that, right? I know. So talking about how you handle self care.

Full disclosure, I don't always do a good job. And I don't think that we, you mentioned like burning the candle at both ends. Like some days, it takes that. But I'm really good at taking vacation. I'll start with that. Sometimes you just have to get yourself out of the space, right? And just go away. And that's my dad taught me that. He's like, just leave. That's sometimes because in a small town, people actually know where you live. Sometimes they show up at your house or you go at the

grocery store and people are, you know, they want you to refill their medications or look at their rash and the produce actions. So you just, you don't escape it unless you physically escape it,

thing. Day to day is to give myself some grace to say, I'm not going to succeed at everything today.

I'm not going to be the best boss in every one of my companies or be the best, you know, best whatever. Sometimes I feel like I feel it being a mom or I feel it being a doctor or I feel it being, you know, a business owner or even a team player, you know, whatever it is. But when I realize that, you know, I'm not going to succeed and be really, really great at everything every day. But I'm going to probably be really good at something every day. You know, that for me helps me

help me give myself a little bit of, you know, yeah, grace, I guess, to say tomorrow we're going to we're going to kick ass at something else. You know what, that brings up a great like mindfulness. Because I, since my dad is a psychologist, I do a mindfulness journey at the end or a mindfulness

journal at the end of every day. But that's a good addition that I'm going to add to my journal.

What was I really good at today? Yeah, yeah. I usually do, you know, what am I grateful for for the day? What is, you know, who was I happy to see? Who was I, you know, who did I interact with, left the last impression on me? Those are like little things that I try to write down. But what was I really good at today? I feel like going back at the end of the day and making that

“observation is really key. I think so. Because we, we probably are doing really good things every”

single day. That's something. Yeah. You know what? I was a great driver today in traffic. I didn't honk it anybody. I didn't encourage anybody. I didn't merge improperly, which is a typical thing in my, but yeah, but then at the end of the day, a lot of times we're sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, I didn't get this done or I didn't do really well at this and you give yourself such a hard time for the things you didn't get done. But yeah, I mean, if we just focus on what

we did get done and then tell ourselves, we're doing, we're doing this really well tomorrow. Because I didn't quite touch on this today. Let's do it really well tomorrow. That'll do it. Now guys, if you're still tuned in at this point in the episode, I want to make sure that you check out Jennifer's episode of Women in Power. Because that's going to be coming out shortly after this podcast air. So make sure you guys stay tuned for that. Jennifer, do you have any,

here we're here at Inside Success. And my final question for the podcast is always the same,

“but what would be your number one key for success? You know, I think one of the things that we”

fail to do sometimes is we don't say yes when we could have said yes. And, you know, there's a lot of talk. I mean, I even have a company that is about burnout and about like helping people self care and all of those things. Like the remote subscribe company is about like, you know, physicians avoiding burnout and avoiding all those stresses and letting somebody take over, take over that kind of work for you. So, um, so in theory, a lot of people talk about, well,

it's okay to say no. It's okay to say no to things. But I think saying yes isn't exactly the opposite. It's saying yes to the things that matter to the most. Say yes to letting somebody do this work for you. Say yes to taking care of yourself. Say yes to that position that you for sure you were qualified for, but you're going to try really hard because there's a lot of people out there that are not qualified for the positions they're in and they said yes. Uh, micro commentary, yeah,

but, but, but right, but we should say yes and especially women, especially women historically, we think we're not qualified for things. And so we say no, but we should say yes and you know what, if we were wrong and you, it's not something we're passionate about or something that we feel like, you know, fulfills us, then get out of it. You know, but, but try it. Be willing to be there. Say yes to sitting at the table. We belong at every table. You know, say yes every time there's

an opportunity to represent other women, to represent anybody who, who you feel, um, any, any community, any population you feel passionate about, you feel that needs empowered. Say yes because if you don't say yes, then somebody else is going to say yes and maybe you're passionate, your vision, your values aren't going to be represented. So, um, I think, I think if, if I were to look back, I've said yes to a lot of things that I wasn't quite sure about doing, starting businesses and,

and, you know, being able to, to make a company that was, that was, um, nationwide, you know, and just, um, I mean, creating a medical spot in a tiny town, right? Like, but say yes and just see what happens and I think really great things can happen from that. I love it. I love it. The power of yes, which I, I get so many people that talk about the power of no, like being able to say no to the wrong thing. Yeah. But being able to say yes to the thing that you're kind of afraid of,

“but being able to make that step anyway, I think is super, super important. So I just want to say,”

thank you so much for being on the show today and are you ready to go and film your episode? I am ready. I'm pumped. I believe, I believe we're ready. So guys, this has been another episode

much for being on with us today and it's going to knock out your episode. Let's do it. Let's do it. Catch you guys in the next one.