How Core Values Deliver Uncommon Practice Growth

Announcer (00:06):
You are listening to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast presented by Nextech.

Tyer Terry (00:11):
Hey guys, welcome back to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast presented by Nextech. I'm your host, Tyler Terry, and we are in beautiful Austin, Texas at The Aesthetic MEET. Now for those of you that haven't heard of The Aesthetic MEET, this is also known as ASAPS or A-S-A-P-S, but they're actually calling it The Aesthetic MEET this year. Today I have a very special guest. Her name is Sara Camp. Sara, welcome to the podcast.

Sara Camp (00:42):
Thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure to be here.

Tyer Terry (00:44):
Of course, of course. It's already been fun getting to know you, hearing that you are from Fort Worth.

Sara Camp (00:50):
Yes.

Tyer Terry (00:50):
Not Dallas, not there's a difference.

Sara Camp (00:52):
Yes.

Tyer Terry (00:52):
There's a difference. So Sara, tell us a little bit about you.

Sara Camp (00:55):
Well, I am a nurse practitioner and I help to run our practice, Steven Camp Plastic Surgery in Fort Worth, Texas. And we have been doing that for almost 10 years. So we opened in 2016 and we have a great practice, two operating rooms and about 20 employees in Fort Worth.

Tyer Terry (01:13):
Tell us a little bit about the services that your practice offers.

Sara Camp (01:17):
Yeah, so we are a full service aesthetic only practice. We offer everything, breast augmentation, tummy tucks, liposuction, big Sciton practice. We have four Scitons, Botox fillers, everything that you would ever need to look your best in Fort Worth and beyond.

Tyer Terry (01:34):
I love it. I love it. So now what got you into aesthetics?

Sara Camp (01:39):
Well, I married into it. My background, so I'm an acute care nurse practitioner. I started in cardiac surgery. That was my love. I did not really want to ever work with my husband, but he was with a group practice and I actually do also have a business background. And I started to notice that he really needed to go out on his own. And so I took a year off of working and I started to build a business plan and I said, we can do this, Steven. We can do this on our own. And so over that year I built this 80 page business plan. I met with different banks, I met with attorneys, accountants, and I built our business plan and hired people, many of whom are still with us over the 10 years and built our plan, built our core values that we still live by, and it's been an amazing journey that we continue to live every single day. So that's how we got started. We actually started in our house. We saw our first patients in our house.

Tyer Terry (02:43):
So tell me a little bit about working with your husband. How is that? What's that dynamic?

Sara Camp (02:48):
I don't think everyone can do it, but we actually do it really well. We are best friends. We've been married for 17 years.

Tyer Terry (02:55):
Congratulations.

Sara Camp (02:56):
Thank you. Got two wonderful kids, 13 and 11. We live our journey every single day. We talk about work every day and people say, don't do that, but when you really love what you're doing, it's a joy. So yeah, we have our moments as everyone does, but it's easy to work together because we have a passion for our patients, we love our patients, we love our staff, and working together is actually really fun. We laugh a lot. We just love what we do.

Tyer Terry (03:28):
So prior to the podcast today, we talked a little bit about, and I overheard you talking about TouchMD. I started with TouchMD 13 years ago, and I loved hearing how you use it. So I'd love to ask you, what is your favorite aspect of the technology?

Sara Camp (03:47):
Well, for us, we were printing every single consent for every single person before we started using TouchMD. And we are a very consent heavy practice because compliance is cool. Little shout out to ByrdAdatto, our attorneys and AmSpa, but we now use TouchMD for all of our consents digitally. So everyone gets those, our patients, so they sign those and we love that. That is amazing. Which is, again, not super sexy, but yeah, you got to sign all your digital consents. So everybody gets that. And then we love that our laser providers, our injectors, they take pictures of everything and it loads right into our EMR. So if they're doing a laser, they take pictures of our Sciton platforms for all their settings for every single patient. And then

Tyer Terry (04:36):
So you're getting that documentation?

Sara Camp (04:38):
Yes, it gets documented right into the EMR. And then also our patients do take pictures at home the day after any injectable or laser treatment, and they send it back to us. And so we can communicate with the patients real time. We do want to see them right away. And we also do it for surgery patients too. So if they have a liposuction treatment, a breast lift, anything, a mastopexy, which is obviously a breast lift, but we want to see what everything looks like. It loads right into their chart. So it's great. And I know that I'm being compliant. Again, compliance is cool.

Tyer Terry (05:13):
Yeah.

Sara Camp (05:13):
Especially in the state of Texas, there's a lot of changes that are happening right now with what's allowed from a nurse practitioner perspective, PA, there's a lot going on here,

Tyer Terry (05:24):
Doctor being on site,

Sara Camp (05:25):
Doctor being on site. So which we have that because we have our two ORs. So Dr. Camp is with us all the time. I'm there, Angela is there, and we again, to make sure we're doing the right thing by the law, but

Tyer Terry (05:37):
Yes,

Sara Camp (05:38):
Yes, yes.

Tyer Terry (05:40):
Well, compliance is cool.

Sara Camp (05:40):
Compliance is cool.

Tyer Terry (05:41):
Talking a little bit about software, when you guys are about to implement a new feature or if you actually add on a new software, what are some things that you do to make sure that everybody is aligned? Do you have certain roles within the practice? Like, Hey, you're taking photos, you're a photo champion, you're the champion of this technology. What are some strategies that you can share in terms of how you guys maximize software at your practice?

Sara Camp (06:07):
So that's a great question. So when we were smaller, when we had a practice of six or seven, we used to always say, you're the person who's in charge of this technology. You're the person who's the expert on this. And as we've grown, we've actually gotten out of that habit. And we met a couple of weeks ago and we said, we've got to go back to that because we have gotten bad about that. And so we're going back to that.

Tyer Terry (06:30):
Oh, okay.

Sara Camp (06:30):
Because we've gotten just big and because we are going to be bringing on some new technology, AI is where it's at, and we are going to be bringing on some new AI stuff with our practice because that's what we need to do. And we're doing a little bit too much manually right now, and it's slowing us down. And so yeah, we've got to go back to Logan's going to be the expert for our tele studio, and Casey's going to be the expert for TouchMD, and Kristen needs to be the Allē expert. We've got to go back to what we've done before because it's too much. And

Tyer Terry (07:05):
That way they're always keeping up with it.

Sara Camp (07:07):
And

Tyer Terry (07:07):
Then they can kind of take back to the team on your weekly huddle.

Sara Camp (07:10):
Yes, yes. Because when we did that before, whenever something bad happened, we could say, Logan call TouchMD. You're the person who has the connection. You know it the best. Instead of it just being all of us going, oh my God,

Tyer Terry (07:23):
Who's going to call? Who's

Sara Camp (07:24):
Going to call? And so we need to go back to that model. It worked really well, and we've gotten so big now that we need to go back to what worked in the past. So yeah.

Tyer Terry (07:36):
So you brought up AI, and I know everybody's talking about AI. People are using it, we're figuring it out, trying to decide how often to use it. What are some ways that you can share, I'm sure you don't want to share all the things. Your competitor might be

Sara Camp (07:52):
Listening,

Tyer Terry (07:53):
But what are some areas that you'd like to use AI in your practice?

Sara Camp (07:57):
Well, I really want to use it for clinic notes because, so our daughter, Zoe had ankle surgery in November, and I love her surgeon. He's so wonderfully sweet and amazing. And he said to me, okay, I'm going to use AI to take notes while we're talking. And I'm like, oh my God, that's so amazing. Why aren't we doing this? Because right now Steven is taking handwritten notes, and then we're scanning them in because we're, again, 2016 and we have a lot of check boxes for him, but that is too time consuming. He'll see 60 patients in a day on clinic day, which is nuts. He'll see 12 new consults and he'll see a ton of follow-ups some days, and we're like, this is crazy.

Tyer Terry (08:43):
Wow.

Sara Camp (08:44):
And some days he'll see 20 and some days he'll see 30, but on a busy day it's nuts. And so that's not sustainable.

Tyer Terry (08:54):
No.

Sara Camp (08:55):
But if he could have like Zoe's surgeon just listen to him and take the notes with AI, that would be wonderful. Because he says so much stuff with the patient, there's no way we can hand write everything and checkbox. So I think that, I actually think it's a patient safety improvement to really capture everything that we're saying during the conversation. And as long as you say, just like Zoe's surgeon said, I'm going to be recording this. So we're giving consent that this is being recorded. I think that that is a really wonderful thing to really make sure we capture everything. So that's where I would like to go with AI for sure. So I'm very excited about that.

Tyer Terry (09:40):
Yeah, that's super exciting.

Sara Camp (09:42):
Yeah. And wack, you said competitors. I would love for all of us to all boats rise. How's that term? I want everyone to just get along. That's my, I love coming to asaps. We get to see all of our friends and

Tyer Terry (10:01):
Yeah, you get to share what's working, what's not working, what's exciting.

Sara Camp (10:04):
Yeah. I hate the competition. I'm like,

Tyer Terry (10:08):
Yeah, because enough to go around.

Sara Camp (10:09):
There's so much plastic surgery. Aesthetics is growing like crazy, and let's just all be friends.

Tyer Terry (10:15):
Yeah. Tell us a little bit. Oh, it

Sara Camp (10:17):
Was easier, but it's not Everyone competes.

Tyer Terry (10:20):
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about Sciton. Sounds like you're a top Sciton user in my opinion, just from talking to talking to you. They're actually right next to us here at our Nextech booth.

Sara Camp (10:30):
Yeah.

Tyer Terry (10:31):
How do you intertwine Sciton into your offerings?

Sara Camp (10:34):
Yeah. Well, we actually spoke at Sciton CEO last weekend.

Tyer Terry (10:38):
Okay.

Sara Camp (10:38):
We have four Sciton devices. We love Sciton.

Tyer Terry (10:41):
Talk about culture. Sounds like they have,

Sara Camp (10:43):
Oh my God, great company culture. Their culture is amazing. So they're all about gratitude. They're all about Sciton family. So if you have a Sciton, you are well taken care of. So I cannot say enough love for that company. They're founded by physicists. So the people that founded it are still there. And their CEO, Aaron Burton amazing. I love those people because they walk the walk. I mean, if you buy a device from them, they are there with you. You don't just buy a device and never see the salesperson again. They are there to educate you, to take care of you. If something breaks, they have something, they're there to fix it that day or the next day because, and I think they say 96% of Sciton devices are still working that have been bought ever. Wow. And that's amazing because they're expensive. I mean, you do pay for what you get, but also it's just the skin that is treated with the Sciton is absolutely beautiful. Now, it is a lot to learn. It's not an easy thing. We bought our first one in 2018, and we continue to learn every single day on how to take care of patients with the Sciton. But we say everything is covered in skin. And so the reason we got into it is because Steven was doing facelift surgery and he's like, you can do beautiful facelift surgery, but the skin does not look good. You really are undertaking care of the patient, undertreating them. And so he really wanted an elegant way to take care of his patients.

(12:19):
And it's the same thing for a Botox patient. You're doing Botox, but again, if their skin does not look good, you're really not taking great care of them. And so he wanted to really elevate the way that we were taking care of our

Tyer Terry (12:31):
Patients.

Sara Camp (12:33):
It also really helps with pre-cancerous cells, but we really wanted to elevate what we were doing.

Tyer Terry (12:42):
And

Sara Camp (12:43):
So we just love it from every perspective. So BBL, MOXI, HALO, and also we have hair removal through BARE HR. And then we take care of patients in the OR with Contour TRL and ProFrac.

Tyer Terry (12:55):
Wow.

Sara Camp (12:55):
So we got it all.

Tyer Terry (12:56):
We have

Sara Camp (12:57):
Multiple devices. I cannot say more. It's my favorite thing we do in the office for sure.

Tyer Terry (13:02):
Very cool. So just to kind of conclude, we're here at ASAPS or The Aesthetic MEET.

Sara Camp (13:07):
The Aesthetic MEET.

Tyer Terry (13:08):
You mentioned you love hanging out and catching up with your friends here. What are you most excited about this year?

Sara Camp (13:13):
This year? I think there's a lot of new technology that's happening in aesthetic surgery. There's new breast implants that've been around for a long time outside of the United States that are coming to the US. We have them in our practice, and that's kind of cool.

Tyer Terry (13:32):
That is very cool. We

Sara Camp (13:32):
Have not had new technology around breast implants in a long time, so I'm excited about that. And we actually now have patients coming and asking for them. And so that is exciting to me. I'm also just excited around what AI is bringing into aesthetic surgery. Just patients are finding it easier to get in touch with us. So we're doing a lot of cool stuff around that. And then just research, we have actually, I have my little TC student. I can see here behind you what we're doing with research in the community. So we're going to try to bring more research into our practice because we now have more people to help us. So yeah. Good stuff.

Tyer Terry (14:17):
Very good stuff. Go

Sara Camp (14:18):
Frogs.

Tyer Terry (14:19):
Yes. So just to end the episode, I just want to give you time for any final thoughts that you'd like to share with our,

Sara Camp (14:28):
Oh my goodness, that's a tough question. Thank you for the time getting to speak. I think I always say we like to normalize plastic surgery.

Tyer Terry (14:39):
I like that

Sara Camp (14:40):
Because it used to be back in the nineties, no one would admit to coloring their hair blonde. And now people are open to admitting they get Botox, and more people are open to saying that maybe they get a little plastic surgery here and there. And celebrities are kind of open to saying it. And I think it's okay to say that you get work done because

Tyer Terry (15:03):
You're taking care of yourself.

Sara Camp (15:03):
You're taking care of yourself. And I'm super open to saying I've had tons of stuff done, and I'm going to continue to do it. And it's okay to take care of yourself because yeah, it's fun. It's fun to take care of yourself.

Tyer Terry (15:16):
I agree. I agree. Sara, you've been phenomenal to interview and to have on the show today. And I've just appreciated getting to know you and meeting Dr. Camp. And I've heard great things about you over the years just from my colleagues who've known your practice. So congrats on all the success.

Sara Camp (15:34):
Thank you.

Tyer Terry (15:34):
Since opening in 2016?

Sara Camp (15:36):
Yep,

Tyer Terry (15:36):
2016. Wow. That's amazing. And yeah, look forward to hopefully having you back on the show again. I hope you enjoy the rest of the meeting here at The Aesthetic MEET. And for those of you that are listening, we'll be sure to include links to connect with Sara on social. We will wrap it up there. Sara, thank you again for your time. Thank you. And we'll see you next time.

Sara Camp (16:06):
Thank you so much, Tyler.

Announcer (16:07):
Thanks for listening to Aesthetically Speaking, the podcast where beauty meets business, presented by Nextech. Follow and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Links to the resources mentioned on this podcast or available in your show notes. For more information about Nextech, visit nextech.com. Or to learn more about TouchMD, go to touchmd.com. Aesthetically speaking is a production of the Axis, theaxis.io.