https://youtu.be/0ql8T89C_Co

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey, welcome back innovators to the simplified integration podcast. Episode number 10 Google has banned STEM cell ads. What do we do now?

Speaker 2: (00:12)
Leonardo da Vinci once said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication and I agree. You see the problem with the way that most consulting groups approach medical integration is anything but simple. In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's expensive, it's complicated and quite frankly it's exhausting. Enough is enough. There are far too many amazing integrated clinics that are struggling. Well, I'm on a mission to change that. What I've come to find from over five years working with integrative practices is that simplicity really is the secret. The old saying of less is more is true. Through a streamlined approach, I was able to create multiple successful seven figure integrated clinics and now I'm going to show you how you can do the same. Join me as I share with you the secrets to successful medical integration and practice growth. Join me on a journey to greater sophistication through innovation. I'm Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to the simplified integration podcast. [inaudible]

Speaker 1: (01:09)
Hey doc, welcome back. It's great to have you here. So in late 2019 I've got a bunch of emails and calls from clients and other doctors about the fact that Google has banned the use of STEM cell therapy in advertising. And I had already seen the articles and when I first saw the headline and read a little about the article, I was a, my knee jerk reaction was, Oh crap, this is not good. Google is getting rid of STEM cell therapy. And the more that I read about it and understood what Google's position was on the subject, I actually felt really good about it. Now there's, I'm kind of pissed about this and I'm kind of thinking this is a great opportunity as well for two different reasons. So number one, the reason this makes me angry is that I view Google kind of like a utility.

Speaker 1: (01:55)
They're, they're a publicly traded company, however everybody uses them. It's kinda like, you know, like a phone company or a water company or electric company. Like it's like we depend on this company to function every day. Yes, there are other search platforms with Google as the biggest one. And so what Google is doing now is they're becoming sort of like a regulator on controlling what content goes on their platform and what doesn't. And the other, they're the ones who decide. Now, if you look at Google, there is some awful, awful crap that they promote and have on their platform, right? Like you can find some bizarre stuff is stuff that he'd probably never want to see on your computer screen. However, they're taking this really aggressive stance towards alternative medicine. For example, if you look at a dr Mercola, I love dr Mercola has some great content, great articles, uh, they've almost completely eliminated his traffic to his site because they don't, for whatever reason, but I think it's because they don't agree with his alternative stance on medicine, right?

Speaker 1: (02:55)
So it's just a big companies attacking alternative medicine. This isn't new news. So I have a huge problem with that and that pisses me off that Google is saying, well, you're not going to, we're not going to promote your STEM cell therapy to the public. So I don't think that's a good idea. However, I understand why they're doing that. Because when you have a therapy like STEM cell therapy, you're always going to have bad actors. And there are lots of doctors who are making incredible false claims and taking advantage of desperate patients. And they cited in this article that doctors were claiming that it's going to help STEM cell therapy will help their macular degeneration. So people who are blind can now see it's going to cure their ALS, their cancer. Um, it's going to reverse their, their chronic lung disease and all these kinds of claims that aren't substantiated.

Speaker 1: (03:40)
And the FDA doesn't want you to say, now, can STEM cell therapy help with those things? Yeah, probably. But as a doctor and advertising this to your community, you can't say those things. And there are a lot of bad doctors who will take some somebody's money and a lot of money and uh, and will make, you know, bold face lies to the patients saying that they're going to cure some kind of chronic disease. And that I have a problem with. Those guys should definitely be shut down. But the problem is it hurt. The good thing is it hurts the bad actors. But the bad thing is it also hurts the good actors. And there are so many doctors that are providing great therapy and regenerative medicine and helping patients with chronic illnesses, and they're doing good work and they're helping people and they're doing it honestly and ethically, and those people are being hurt.

Speaker 1: (04:25)
So when I, when I thought about this, I'm like, well, what? What does Google not want you to do? Well, they're, they're batting the word STEM cell therapy. They're bending the word gene therapy and they're banning the word cell therapy. Okay? So I looked back at our, at our like years and years of doing regenerative medicine, and I'm like, Holy cow, you know what? We actually haven't even spent a dollar marketing on Google's platform. Like, seriously, we've never run a Google ad. We've never done paid traffic through Google. All of our advertising has actually been done outside of Google. So I'm like, yeah, this is actually isn't a big deal. We never used Google to begin with. So, so that's good news, right? There are so many different ways to advertise for regenerative medicine. You can do it for the newspaper, Facebook, you can do it through Bing, Yahoo, uh, radio, TV, postcards, word of mouth.

Speaker 1: (05:12)
Referrals are so many different ways that you can advertise. Google is not just the only way to do that. In fact, we've never used Google, so it wasn't really a big deal. So here's some recommendations. And I am not a an attorney healthcare attorney. I don't work for the FDA. I'm not a compliance officer. So do your own research. But here are some suggestions that I think are pretty common sense. Number one, if you're a chiropractor and you're doing regenerative medicine, stop calling it STEM cell therapy. Uh, you're not doing STEM cell therapy by the way. And I get doctors who are like, yeah, so I am doing stuff. No you're not. So if you're using PRP exosomes, Wharton's jelly, umbilical cord cells, um, placental cells, those things are not STEM cell therapy and the FDA doesn't want you to call them that cause they're not alive.

Speaker 1: (05:57)
STEM cell product. Are there markers for mesenchymal STEM cells? Yes. But are there any live STEM cells in these products? If there are, you still can't Mark it that way. Okay. So, uh, and some doctors get pretty, like they get pretty um, defensive about that. And I used to call regenerative medicine STEM cell therapy just because I got bad advice from a bad consultant and bad management groups. And there are still so many consulting and management groups that still call it STEM cell therapy. And I'm like, geez, like if, so if you're listening to this and you're like thinking about doing regenerative medicine and your consultant is calling it STEM cell therapy, stop the conversation and go work with somebody else. Cause that's not there. They're walking you down a bad path. So don't call it STEM cell therapy when it's not. Um, here's the other deal is that don't over exaggerate the benefits of regenerative medicine.

Speaker 1: (06:49)
So what I mean by that is don't tell a patient if you have a worn out bone on bone knee, we can regenerate the cartilage in your knee. Probably it's probably not a good idea, right? However, can you help with pain? Can you help with inflammation? Can you help with, um, mobility? Can you help them avoid using medications and avoid or delay having to have a joint replacement surgery or some kind of invasive procedure? Yeah, you know, you can do that. And those are some of the expected benefits of regenerative medicine. So regenerative medicine, by the way, has been around for decades. It's done in almost every hospital in the U S it's not illegal to do regenerative medicine, but just don't make inflated claims. Don't, don't tell a patient is going to do something that it's not. Um, now if you still like are hard set about advertising on Google, you can still do that.

Speaker 1: (07:40)
Google is not going to stop you from putting up an ad that says we have a nonsurgical solution to joint pain. Click here. So the patient clicks on your ad. That doesn't say anything about STEM cell therapy, but it brings them to maybe your email list or maybe you have a funnel which educates the patient on what regenerative medicine is. All that stuff you can still do. So this is not like a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you can't advertise online anymore. You can still do it. But sometimes you have to think outside the box. Now the benefit of this is twofold. Number one, it gets rid of a lot of people, a bad actors. And if you're in a major metropolitan area like Chicago, New York, Dallas, Houston, LA, San Francisco, like these cities could maybe use a few less regenerative medicine doctors. The market is getting saturated.

Speaker 1: (08:26)
So a few lost doctors is not going to hurt anybody. But also it requires that you become a better marketer. So you have to not only be a been a marketer, but you have to be more honest in your ads, which is a good thing. It's going to help your credibility, but it also requires you to study different ways of marketing and different avenues that you can use, different modalities and platforms you can use to promote your program. So there's never going to be a complete ban on regenerative medicine. But again, if you're doing things the right way, trying to help patients following the rules of the FDA has set out, you won't have a problem. And even, you know, this is a, these articles came out like six months ago. I'm recording this right now in, in, uh, January of 2020. And even after the Google ban, there are still doctors all across the country that are absolutely killing it with their regenerative medicine programs.

Speaker 1: (09:15)
They're helping patients, they're doing things the right way, and I don't see that changing anytime in the near future. So remember, regulation is a good thing. It protects you as a doctor. It protects your patients, it gets rid of all the numbskulls doing things the wrong way. So if you, if you had this concern or you, I don't know if you've read these articles, um, I just wanted to give my opinion on it and uh, help you understand a little bit more about why this is happening. So I hope you found this episode helpful. A doc Colby. Have a great day and we'll talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 2: (09:44)
Hey innovators. Thanks for listening to the simplified integration podcast. Fact that you're listening tells me that you're like me, someone who loves simplicity. And the truth is, those who embrace simplicity are some of the greatest innovators. So hope you got a ton of value from what we covered on today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share with other docs that you feel could benefit from greater sophistication through simplification and innovation. If you've got specific questions that you'd like answered on this podcast or you've got specific topics that you'd like me to discuss, just shoot me an email at info@simplifiedintegration.com

Speaker 1: (10:20)
that's info@simplifiedintegration.com.