The Root Cause - Business of Medicine Podcast

Dr. Erik and Dr. Davin Lundquist

The U.S. healthcare system is at a breaking point—soaring costs, worsening outcomes, and widespread physician burnout. The Root Cause – Business of Medicine podcast, hosted by brothers Dr. Erik Lundquist and Dr. Davin Lundquist, charts a different path: one where healing, fulfillment, and business thrive together. Each episode shares powerful stories of medical professionals who stepped away from the traditional grind to embrace integrative, functional, and alternative approaches to care. Through candid conversations with practitioners who have redefined success, listeners gain insight into navigating their own transitions, reclaiming a sense of purpose, and reshaping the way they practice medicine.

  1. Episode 20: Guardrails for the AI Frontier — Innovating Without Betting Your License with Travis Garland

    May 29

    Episode 20: Guardrails for the AI Frontier — Innovating Without Betting Your License with Travis Garland

    In the most tech-forward episode yet, brother doctors Erik and Davin Lundquist sit down with Travis Garland — co-founder and COO of My Compliance Citadel and a two-decade healthcare-operations veteran (United Healthcare, UF Health, and earlier work that earned an award for redesigning Florida's foster-care system) — to map the collision of AI, innovation, and compliance in medicine. Travis breaks down a distinction most clinicians miss: a GPT prompt simply answers, while an AI agent makes decisions and acts autonomously — sometimes spawning other agents. He explains why prompts are only ~50–60% reliable ("a pinky swear with a robot"), how one rogue agent erased a company's entire production database, and why the deploying practice, not the developer, is who regulators hold accountable. My Compliance Citadel acts as a fortress around that risk: a runtime layer that intercepts agent actions and renders one of three verdicts — pass, pause, or prevent — logging everything to a tamper-proof audit chain. Erik stress-tests it against two real scenarios: pasting patient labs into open ChatGPT, and using AI to comb an EMR for high-risk patients. For clinicians, students, and small-practice owners excited about AI but wary of HIPAA and PHI exposure, it's a grounded primer on innovating boldly without betting the license.

    1h 9m
  2. Episode 19: Direct Pay, Demoralized Doctors, and the Future of Healthcare - with Jessica Craig

    May 15

    Episode 19: Direct Pay, Demoralized Doctors, and the Future of Healthcare - with Jessica Craig

    Brothers, and Doctors Erik and Davin Ludnquist sit down with health reporter Jess Craig to unpack what "cash-based care" actually means — and why it's quietly tripled over the past several years. Drawing on her reporting at Straight Arrow News and her decade in infectious disease epidemiology, Jess maps the landscape: direct primary care (now 11% of family physicians, up from 3% in four years), cash-based specialty and surgical centers like the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, longevity-focused practices, and the rapidly growing world of direct-to-employer contracting (40% of large companies and 20% of small ones now negotiate directly with health providers). The conversation moves through the structural forces driving the shift — flat insurance reimbursement against rising overhead, the stakeholder problem of insurers and PBMs sitting between patient and physician, and what Jess in her recent reporting calls the demoralization of America's doctors. They wrestle with the inherent scaling tension in cash-based care, how AI is more likely to be deployed to maximize insurance margins before it relieves physician burden, and what international models (Kenya, Canada, global health insurance) can teach Americans about price transparency and personal responsibility. Jess closes with a journalist's challenge: keep questioning, follow the evidence, and resist letting health policy collapse into political tribalism. For physicians evaluating a model change, employers reconsidering benefits, and anyone trying to understand why so many doctors are walking away from the insurance-based system.

    1h 5m
  3. Episode 18: The Trusted Authority Triangle — JJ Virgin on Building a Brand in Functional Medicine

    May 1

    Episode 18: The Trusted Authority Triangle — JJ Virgin on Building a Brand in Functional Medicine

    Dr. Erik Lundquist and Dr. Davin Lundquist sit down with JJ Virgin for a candid playbook on what it actually takes to build a brand, marketing engine, and scalable practice in integrative and functional medicine. JJ walks through her Trusted Authority Triangle — Trust (built through vulnerability and showing humanity), Authority (built through absolutes and contrarian beliefs you'll defend, not credentials alone), and Proof (the patient transformation stories no one can copy) — with YOU at the center, because the best part of building a business is who you become in the process. She reframes imposter syndrome as evidence you're stepping into a bigger game, makes the case that "people seek experts, not generalists," and offers concrete tactics: a signature talk that doubles as lead-magnet content for YouTube, podcast, and social; capturing email lists everywhere you speak (since 50% of prospects buy within 18 months — but only 3% buy now); collaborating with 5–10 aligned partners who share your patient avatar; and optimizing for both SEO and AEO (AI-engine optimization) so AI assistants surface you to the patients you're meant to serve. The conversation closes on the bigger shift — moving from transactional fee-for-service to transformational programs, why AI is actually creating more demand for trusted human authorities, and JJ's mantra: "You shouldn't have to sacrifice your life to save others." For practitioners ready to stop trading time for money and build a sustainable, mission-aligned practice.

    1h 1m
  4. Episode 17: From Pebble Beach to Astrid — Samir Qamar on 25 Years of Reinventing Primary Care

    Apr 17

    Episode 17: From Pebble Beach to Astrid — Samir Qamar on 25 Years of Reinventing Primary Care

    Dr. Samir Qamar — one of the original founders of the Direct Primary Care movement and creator of MedLion, MedWand, and AstroDoc, joins Brothers, Dr. Erik Lundquist and Dr. Davin Lundquist, for a wide-ranging conversation shaped by a childhood spent across four continents with a UN-diplomat father. Samir traces his arc from Ross   University to England's socialized NHS to Penn Medicine-Lancaster General, where as an intern he cold-called MDVIP from his scrubs after  discovering concierge medicine. His first post-residency role was House Physician for Pebble Beach Resorts; that seeded MedLion, the nation's  largest DPC network across 27 states, which in turn led to the MedWand — a handheld telemedicine device that lets remote clinicians capture real  physical-exam data. His current obsession is AstroDoc and its AI health agent Astrid ("A System To Reinforce Infinite Doctors"), designed to be for billions of patients what Samir became for his own parents when they were sick. The conversation digs into healthcare versus sick care, why AI will change the physician's role without replacing it, the ethics of non-clinicians building medical AI, and Samir's view that the next generation of doctors will function as coaches and cheerleaders — not gatekeepers of knowledge.For physicians weighing DPC, founders building health AI, or anyone thinking about how the doctor-patient relationship evolves in an era of voice-enabled, multilingual, clinician-led tooling.

    1h 21m
  5. Episode 16: Healing the Healers with Erik Goldman - 25 Years Covering the Business of Integrative Medicine

    Apr 3

    Episode 16: Healing the Healers with Erik Goldman - 25 Years Covering the Business of Integrative Medicine

    In this episode, Doctors and Brothers Erik and Davin Lundquist sit down with Erik Goldman, the co-founder and editor of Holistic Primary Care, a publication that has spent 25 years bridging conventional and integrative medicine for over 60,000 physicians. Goldman shares his journey from covering dermatology news to becoming New York bureau chief at International Medical News Group, where he realized mainstream medicine was almost entirely focused on end-stage disease with little attention to prevention or whole-person health. That realization led him and Publisher Meg Sinclair to launch HPC in 2000. The conversation dives deep into the structural forces shaping healthcare — the rise of managed care and HMOs in the 90s, how the "gatekeeper" model distracted primary care from its healing mission, and why insurance-based reimbursement remains the biggest barrier to integrative medicine adoption. Goldman draws on his experience  producing the Heal Thy Practice conferences (2009-2016) to share what made practitioners successful: confronting their psychology around money, breaking out of professional silos, and being willing to take risks even when the path isn't clear. Looking forward, Goldman argues the tipping point won't come from government but from Fortune 500 employers demanding better care models from insurers. He calls for the field's "different tribes" — naturopaths, MDs, nurses, chiropractors — to present a unified front and position integrative medicine as the core of healthcare, not a side dish. Essential listening for any clinician navigating the business side of integrative practice.

    1h 11m
  6. Episode 15: Dr. Mehrdad Soleimani - The ER Doc Who Built a Wellness Empire by Putting People First

    Mar 20

    Episode 15: Dr. Mehrdad Soleimani - The ER Doc Who Built a Wellness Empire by Putting People First

    Dr. Mehrdad Soleimani — Emergency medicine physician in Temecula, CA, and founder of a med spa and wellness practice. Former ICU nurse turned surgeon turned ER doc, with a deep focus on physician wellness and community engagement. Chair of his hospital's department of wellness and organizer of the "Wellness in the Vines" physician retreat in Temecula wine country. Dr. Mehrdad Soleimani joins Dr. Erik Lundquist and brother Dr. Davin Lundquist to share the journey from ICU nurse to emergency medicine physician to med spa entrepreneur — and the common thread through all of it: taking care of people. Mehrdad discusses how his nursing background gave him a fundamentally different perspective on physician behavior and burnout, ultimately leading him to switch from surgery to emergency medicine when he didn't like the person the lifestyle was making him become.   On the business side, Mehrdad offers candid lessons from building a med spa in Temecula: the importance of hiring the right people over the cheapest option, partnering with an experienced practice manager, starting lean without a large space, and the costly trial-and-error process of finding a marketing firm that actually delivers. His advice: hold vendors accountable, set deadlines, and fire fast when it's not working. Instagram and organic community engagement — including Chamber of Commerce involvement and supporting small businesses during COVID — proved more effective than expensive agencies.   The conversation closes with Mehrdad's passion for physician wellness, his root cause analysis approach to physician behavioral issues, and the simple power of asking a colleague "how are you doing?" — a question many physicians say no one has ever asked them.   For practitioners exploring med spa models, navigating marketing vendors, or thinking about physician burnout from a systems level.

    1h 2m
  7. Episode 14 - "The Father of Functional Medicine" — Dr. Jeff Bland's Eight-Decade Journey

    Mar 6

    Episode 14 - "The Father of Functional Medicine" — Dr. Jeff Bland's Eight-Decade Journey

    Dr. Erik Lundquist and Dr. Davin Lundquist sit down with Dr. Jeff Bland for a sweeping conversation that traces the entire arc of functional medicine — from its pre-history to its future. Bland shares his origin story: an insatiably curious kid who worked with Nobel laureate Sherwood Rowland at UC Irvine, pivoted from medical school toa PhD, then exposed deadly arsenic pollution at Tacoma's ASARCO smelter in a saga that reached 60 Minutes. A sabbatical next door to Linus Pauling's office led to the pivotal question — "Is your classroom big enough?" — that pushed Bland to abandon tenure and build a nutrition-education business with his family. He recounts co-founding IFM with Dr. David Jones, coining the term "functional medicine" in 1990 (over considerable pushback), and personally investing millions to institutionalize the movement. The conversation turns to today's convergence of wearable tech, AI, and portable health records, which Bland sees as empowering patients while elevating the clinician's role to teacher and guide. He warns that ultra-processed food is an existential threat — citing declining fertility — and describes his Big Bold Health ventures in regenerative agriculture and minimally processed fish oil. His parting advice: find your peer group, start with high passion, and the world will protect you. For practitioners exploring functional medicine, students seeking inspiration, or anyone curious about the movement's origin story Here is the link to the publication in the IMCJ (Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal)*** Note from the Editor. There was a mistake in what link I posted. Here is the link to the actual article mentioned" The Paradigm-Shifting Future of Health Care: Rise of Predictive, Personalized Lifestyle Medicine - PMCThe Paradigm-Shifting Future of Health Care: Rise of Predictive, Personalized Lifestyle Medicine (2025) takes that foundation and projects where it's heading — a tech-enabled, predictive, continuously monitored health system. Functional Medicine Past, Present, and Future - PMCFunctional Medicine: Past, Present, and Future (2022) makes the case for why functional medicine works based on history and evidence.

    1h 7m
  8. Episode 13 - "Healing Is Relational, Not Transactional" — Dr. Tieraona Low Dog on Presence, Purpose, and the Business of Integrative Medicine

    Feb 20

    Episode 13 - "Healing Is Relational, Not Transactional" — Dr. Tieraona Low Dog on Presence, Purpose, and the Business of Integrative Medicine

    In this episode of the Root Cause Business of Medicine podcast, Brothers and hosts, Dr. Erik and Dr. Davin Lundquist interview Dr. Tieraona Low Dog, a pioneer in integrative medicine. Dr. Low Dog shares her unconventional path — leaving high school early, training in martial arts, becoming a midwife, herbalist, and massage therapist before going to medical school — and how those experiences shaped her philosophy that healing is fundamentally relational, not transactional. She emphasizes the power of presence and stillness in clinical care, arguing that being fully attentive with patients sharpens diagnosis more than extended appointment times alone. A deeply personal story about a dying AIDS patient who hadn't been touched in months crystallized her belief in the healing power of human connection. On the business side, she reflects candidly on the challenges of running one of Albuquerque's first integrative clinics — overloading on Medicaid/Medicare patients, lacking a common clinical language across disciplines, and learning to charge appropriately for her time. She advocates for micro-practices, sliding-scale cash models, and an entrepreneurial mindset — being flexible, iterating on your model, and not waiting for perfection before starting. She closes with a hopeful vision for the future: integrating functional and lifestyle medicine into all medical training, nurturing clinician wellbeing to combat burnout, and empowering patients and communities to demand better care.

    1h 1m
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

The U.S. healthcare system is at a breaking point—soaring costs, worsening outcomes, and widespread physician burnout. The Root Cause – Business of Medicine podcast, hosted by brothers Dr. Erik Lundquist and Dr. Davin Lundquist, charts a different path: one where healing, fulfillment, and business thrive together. Each episode shares powerful stories of medical professionals who stepped away from the traditional grind to embrace integrative, functional, and alternative approaches to care. Through candid conversations with practitioners who have redefined success, listeners gain insight into navigating their own transitions, reclaiming a sense of purpose, and reshaping the way they practice medicine.

Information

  • Creator
    Dr. Erik and Dr. Davin Lundquist
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    ©2025 The Root Cause - Business of Medicine Podcast

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