Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Evans DC, LMT, CLT-LANA.
Thanks for sharing your story with us, Heather. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I’ve worked in healthcare all of my career, from high school starting as a receptionist in an outpatient surgery center to providing physical therapy with a large national healthcare company after college.
In 2002, I left the traditional physical therapy clinic and became a massage therapist. I bought a massage table for the trunk of my car and started a company called Bodywork RX. I branched out on my own to see patients privately in their home who were being discharged from outpatient therapy clinics but seeking continued hands-on work for their Injury, scar tissue, subacute swelling, or chronic lymphedema.
After ten years, I was tired of being in my car all day driving from house to house, and my schedule was too tight with drive time to see any more people, so I rented a small office near SMU. When I did this, my business doubled. There, I worked next door to a Chiropractor who educated me about the wonderful tool of chiropractic adjusting for musculoskeletal dysfunction and inspired me to go to chiropractic school. With physical therapy, massage therapy, and chiropractic skills to help people address their physical issues, I had a broad approach to help people heal better and feel better. Yet, the complicated cases I worked with often required a bigger team.
They were seeking care outside of the traditional health insurance payment system. Health insurance really excels when there’s a crisis, when you have a broken bone, when you need surgery, when you have had a traumatic event, or when you’re going through a major health crisis such as cancer treatment. Health insurance will get you on your feet, but that’s right where it ends. If you want to be a lot closer to normal again, you’re on your own. These kinds of patients are resourceful and they want to be better, and at a faster rate and they are willing to spend their time and money to get there. This is where The Health Collective was born.
The idea first came to me as a website that would help people coordinate their existing team of private providers. I noticed that when I finished with a patient session, and we came to book our next appointment we often had to go through several attempts to find an appointment that worked around the person’s personal training session, acupuncturist appointment, Yoga class, or any number of other healthcare appointments. I saw how they struggled with this and wanted to help fix it to make their life, and recovery, easier.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being self-employed is not easy or glamorous. You have to really enjoy what you do because it requires your work to be your life. You constantly think about your business, just like a parent does a new baby. Everything you do is centered around that. There are no vacation days, there is no paid sick time, and if you do not nurture it and help it grow well, It will not thrive. At the same time, it’s extremely rewarding. I think some people are more naturally suited for it than others. Some people know all their life that they want to be a parent or a business owner and others just find themselves there.
Please tell us about The Heath Collective.
The health collective is a shared workspace for independent health providers. We are much like the farmers market where you have several vendors under one roof, yet they are all separate entities. You pay each vendor separately.
We are a group of self-employed acupuncturists, Chiropractors, Counselors, Massage Therapists, and Yoga Therapists; we also have a sound healing and vibration practitioner, a health coach, and an Esthetician. We have a small retail space for artisans to offer their wares and we have wall space where local artists display their art for sale. We also have a multipurpose classroom and a furnished massage room that are both for rent by the hour so that any number of other providers and instructors can come in and offer a service on a temporary or part-time basis while they grow their new business to be able to afford their own full-time workspace.
Instead of building that website I mentioned previously, to help people coordinate all of their care, I created a space where all of those providers could be under one roof. The part I’m most proud of is that while I was trying to fill a need to help patients, I also filled the need for small business owners. We don’t have to go work for somebody else or take our established business and try to fit it into another business. We have a space where we can be independent, yet get all of the benefits of having other healthcare professionals around to collaborate with and learn from. It truly is the best of both worlds, you get to work alongside other business owners independently, and still have the professional camaraderie of being employed in a larger company.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Yes, I do. This is a fun question! I grew up in Alabama and spent lots of time with my grandmother in Mississippi. I have a twin sister, so I had an instant playmate always. My parents were self-employed; they owned a retail golf shop and small par-three golf course and driving range.
Everything about her life was structured so that we had a lot of time outdoors in nature. The school bus dropped us off at my parent’s golf shop every day and we spent hours outside playing in the trees, in creeks, and wandering around in the green grass. Being in nature with my sister on a very regular basis is by far the best part of my childhood.
Pricing:
- Classroom rental $16 per hour
- Classroom: rented with tables and chairs is $56 for the first hour then $16 per hour
- Private treatment room rental $8 per hour
Contact Info:
- Address: The Health Collective
10830 N. Central Expressway, Suite 400
Dallas, TX 75231 - Website: www.hlthco.com
- Phone: 4696826320
- Email: office@hlthco.com
- Instagram: thehealthcollective.dallas
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/hlthco/
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