What Happens When Someone Tries to Un-transform a Transformed PCP Practice? With Scott Conard, MD—Summer Shorts 2

Why a Transformed Primary Care Practice Never Went Back, With Scott Conard, MD (Summer Shorts 2)

What Happened When Staff Tried to Undo a PCP Practice's Transformation. Summer Shorts 2.

When a new practice manager tried to reintroduce a transformed primary care clinic's old, overflowing-waiting-room way of doing things, the entire staff said no. In this summer short, Stacey Richter revisits a clip from her original conversation with Scott Conard, MD, DABFP, FAAFM, co-founder of Converging Health and a family medicine physician with more than 35 years of practice experience, about why a Queens, New York PCP practice's staff refused to go back to the old model once they'd transformed it.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ Why the "before" state of an untransformed PCP practice — an overflowing waiting room mixing genuinely sick patients with everyone else — pushed patients toward suboptimal ER and urgent care use

✅ Why purely transactional care, with no systemic attention to the "in between spaces" outside of office visits, leads directly to uncontrolled chronic conditions and preventable acute crises

✅ What happened when a new practice manager tried to reinstate the old model — and why the entire clinical team, not just the physicians, refused to go back within days

✅ Why practice transformation has to change work life for the whole team, not just improve metrics, to actually stick once a new manager or leader arrives

WHY THIS MATTERS

Practice transformation efforts often get evaluated purely on clinical or financial outcomes, but this clip shows a different kind of proof point: when the change makes work better for the entire staff, not just leadership, the team itself defends it against reversal. That kind of buy-in — from receptionists and MAs as much as physicians — is what makes transformation durable rather than dependent on whoever happens to be in charge.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

EP391 with Scott Conard, MD: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP405 with Eric Gallagher: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP402 with Amy Scanlan, MD: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP409 with Larry Bauer, MSW, MEd: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP407 with Vivek Garg, MD, MBA: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

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00:00 Introduction

02:15 Why a transformed PCP practice didn't want to go back to the old way of doing things.

04:02 Can fee for service in the short term still benefit primary practice?

05:24 Scott Conard's new book, Which Door?