Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeny Conrad-Rendon.
Jeny, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
When I was a little girl, I wanted to become a Veterinarian. Until I accidentally cut my hamster while trimming its hair. Our veterinarian told my mom and me that it would be cheaper to buy another hamster. It was then I decided that I would not become a veterinarian because I could never tell someone that. Needless to say, my mom paid to get my hamster stitches.
I then decided that I would become a teacher. But when I had my first child, I found out that I didn’t want to care for children all day and then come home to care for my own. About that time the market for teachers was flooded. I found out how much they made and realized that they deserved way more than that.
Part of me always wanted to be a nurse like my cousin but never thought I was smart enough. But I decided to give it a try. I was blessed with my parents who paid for my college. My first year of college was completed at the University of LaVerne in CA. I then got married to a Marine and he got transferred to NC. I lost all but one credit in my first year of college. So I decided to pursue my Associate of Arts in case we had to move again. I graduated with that in 1997 and immediately started nursing school.
At first, I didn’t get accepted into nursing school at East Carolina University but then someone didn’t take their spot so it was offered to me. I commuted 90 minutes one way five days a week with two of my classmates who I met in our CPR class. One of them became my best friend who is still to this day. Nursing school was one of the hardest things I conquered in my life. Lots of hoops were to be jumped thru.
I knew during my hospital clinical that I would not stay working in the hospital. I never felt I could give my patients what they deserved. I struggled at first and had to learn how I learned which was pretty much rewriting my textbooks. But I became determined and graduated with Cum Laude my BSN. My ten years as an RN consisted of taking care of people from birth to death (Labor & Delivery, Oncology, Cardiology, Behavioral Health, Primary Care).
But something was still missing so I saved up money and then I applied for Family Nurse Practitioner school at UTHSC. It was another tough part of my life as I had four sons who kept me busy with their extracurricular activities. I had to quit my part-time job so I could focus on those 18 months. Most of the education was online which to me was harder as you had to pretty much teach yourself.
We did meet on campus a few times each semester for things like suturing. I was blessed with some amazing clinical rotations which are where I really learned. I had one with a Family Nurse Practitioner who owned her own primary clinic. It was then that I realized I was an entrepreneur at heart. I had an RN friend who wanted a group of 4 of us to go in together and open a clinic. But I quickly realized that many didn’t realize how much work and money it was really going to take.
I met my collaborating physician through one of my preceptors. I started working at her clinic when I finished my classes. I passed my AANP certification and became a Family Nurse Practitioner.
I then completed all of my own credentialing. I started to build up my patient load within her clinic. Her clinic is geared towards the Hispanic population so I brought in the English-speaking population. This was a struggle as I was making a % of billing reimbursement which ended up being less per hour than I used to make as an RN.
Within six months, I had approximately 50 patients. I started looking at clinic locations. My mom called me one day about a location right next to our church. I actually had been a patient at that clinic so knew the physicians. I called the phone number and was shocked that those physicians were no longer there.
The owner of the building stated that the physicians had pretty much just got up and walked out one day. So besides the hard drives on the laptops, everything was left there… even someone’s drink cups on what I guess was the break room table. My parents helped me by purchasing everything directly from the bank.
In July 2010, Absolute Family Health was born when I signed a 5-year lease. I used my home equity for the $65,000 start-up costs. This included replacing the forest green carpets with vinyl flooring, painting all the walls, supplies, and payroll for my one staff member for the first six months. That is when the income was able to start helping to pay the overhead. My mom is a marriage and family therapist and rented a room to help me with the cash flow. She even bought new blinds for all the windows to help out.
I met my first employee thru a mutual friend when her son went thru a tragedy. One day my wallet disappeared and this employee blamed it on my son with special needs. She took him out for ice cream and then took him to her friend who was a police officer to see if he would confess. The police officer who helped our mutual friend’s son did a lie detector test on this employee due to she was the only one present when my wallet disappeared. She returned to my clinic afterward and handed me the clinic keys and walked out.
For the next several month parts of my wallet resurfaced outside my clinic. One day, it was my voter’s registration card under a bush. Another day it was my social security card inside our lab box. Then my actual wallet was on top of a bush where I always parked. My mom had bought things for our flower beds outside the clinic and they even disappeared and then weeks later reappeared. I installed cameras to try to catch her. The police would make a report every single time and finally suggested that I file a restraining order against her.
She threatened to sue me for unlawful termination even though I never terminated her. Then she contacted HIPAA which I am sure was because I had educated her about the fines for breaking HIPAA laws. Her lawyer contacted my lawyer and asked me to drop the restraining order charges and she promised to never contact me or come near my clinic again. Needless to say, our mutual friends quit having anything to do with me. My guess is they only believed “her side” of the story. But I realized that the Lord removes people out of your lives for a reason.
I used to train guide dogs for the blind and believe strongly in therapy animals. One of my employees gave me a 2 lbs. chihuahua puppy, Twinkie, who became the Absolute Family Health mascot. Our patients loved her and often would ask where she was when she was asleep in my office. They loved that she follow me into each room. I even had one patient who was able to get over her fear of dogs.
I believe strongly in always giving back so at one time we sold t-shirts for a fundraiser for a local teenager who was a St. Jude patient. One day, the envelope with the money disappeared. The same employee who gave me Twinkie told me her teenage daughter stole it. Then the truth surfaced that the employee was struggling financially and stole it. This crushed me deep down as I would do just about anything for anyone. Perhaps if she would have come to me instead of stealing from a charity then maybe I could have helped her in some way.
I utilized medical assistants and billing students which I would hire if they showed they would be an asset to the clinic. At one time, I had only two employees who both admitted to doing marijuana during lunchtime. Needless to say, that day I went to no employees. I even had an employee turn me into OSHA because of having Twinkie at the clinic which OSHA told me that it was not a violation.
I now know that all of this was to prepare me for my divorce in 2013 from my husband of almost 19 years. He had threatened divorce since year one. But we were both raised Catholic and divorce was never an option for me. He had started questioning his faith and became an Atheist. One day, I got an email from our mutual fund company stating that he added his personal side business bank account. I asked him and he got defensive.
Two days later he took me to my parent’s house which was just three doors down from our house. It was there that he told me that he had already informed my parents that he had gone to a divorce attorney. My parents never told me because they thought it was just like all the previous times. In that timeframe, he had emptied our mutual bank accounts. We discussed with my parents how we would split up everything. He agreed to give me half of what he had removed from our mutual bank accounts.
I later found out that he had gone to all of the top attorneys in our area on purpose so I could not use them. He told me that he had a list of everything that I had done wrong and would take our kids, my clinic, and my license away. He even threatened to contact my first employee who had stolen my wallet. He told me that he would not pay for my credit card bill even though he had said he was supportive of my clinic. In fact, he even kept reassuring me to just focus on paying off the start-up costs instead of paying myself.
Then he told me that he still wanted to work it out. He became upset that after two weeks I still was not able to return to acting like he had not done and said what he had. I had always been the one to take our four sons shopping for clothes. I told him that they needed some clothes since he had refused to pay my credit card bill. He told me that he would take them and I was not allowed to go.
That moment was when I realized that I couldn’t live like that. I had even noticed that our sons were starting to treat me the same way their dad was. Both of my grandmothers were domestic violence survivors from my grandfathers but they stayed married until death. It was that day that I decided that the Lord would not want me treated this way and I would break the cycle. I surely didn’t want my sons growing up and treating their future spouses the same way that they had seen their dad treats me.
He told me that we could use the same attorney to save costs. But I would have to file for divorce as he didn’t want our sons to blame it on him. I met with an attorney and filed for divorce. He changed his mind and decided to get a separate attorney. He told me that he would fight me for our house. He told me that I could still bring our sons over to use the pool whenever. Then a few seconds later told me that if I ever stepped foot on the property after I moved out that he would call the police. I had been the one responsible for our finances up to that point but then he demanded to take them over. He then demanded I call all our accounts and get everything switched to only his name.
Our sheltie became sick and the vet informed me that she had cancer and wouldn’t make it much longer. We were all home so I informed our sons. It was then that he decided it would be a good time to tell our sons about us getting a divorce. Nothing like hitting them when they were already down. One day he asked me if I still felt comfortable sleeping in our same bed. I told him that I didn’t.
So he told me to go sleep on the couch. I got our air mattress and moved into our extra bedroom. Over the three months since I filed for divorce he would agree to our Parenting Plan and Marital Dissolution Agreement and then change his mind. My attorney informed me to not move out until he signed the Parenting Plan.
This entire time he would tell my parents he was trying to make it work but then be emotionally abusive behind closed doors. They would encourage me to keep trying. It even got to the point where one day he chased me towards our extra bedroom. I was able to shut the door and he beat on the door and yelled at me while three of our sons were home. My worst fear was that he would become physically abusive. Little did I know then that emotional abuse is worse than physical abuse.
Our oldest son who was a Senior in high school texted me while he was at work to tell me where he kept his pocket knives in case I needed to protect myself from his dad. My dad finally told me that he didn’t care what my attorney said and that he wanted me to move out before he did become physically abusive. Thankfully, my ex finally signed our parenting plan. The same day, my oldest and my dad helped me move all my stuff to the upstairs empty storage room at my clinic. My ex stood there supervising what we took and yelled at me to close the door behind me despite carrying things.
I still was not paying myself from my clinic so my four boys, our four dogs, and two birds moved into my parent’s house. One month before our court date, my ex called me to inform me that I could start dating if I wanted to. I figured that meant that he already was.
One day, I was reading an article on Facebook about narcissist personality disorder. Even though I went to college for seven years… I had never heard of this diagnosis. My ex seemed to fit the criteria. It was then that I realized that I had been emotionally abused by him even before we were married. I also would shake whenever I had to be around him and later was diagnosed with PTSD. Thankfully, our divorce was finalized on 3/26/2013.
Things seemed to calm down until I started dating. Once I found a man and introduced him to my boys then the legal nonsense began and continued for five years. That boyfriend even invited my ex out to dinner so he could try to calm things down for my boy’s sake. I told him that my ex probably only accepted so he could tell him how horrible I was with hopes that he would break up with me.
Sure enough, that was exactly what he did. He even later filed a restraining order against my boyfriend which cost him $9,000 in legal expenses. My ex took me back to court over child support and the judge credited me with what she thought I could make and not what my tax return stated from my clinic. It was then that I lost $900 a month in child support. My savings had been spent on my first lawyer so I was now without an attorney.
The following year he filed contempt on me and I went to court without an attorney. The judge told me I would have to hire an attorney. So I had to withdraw the retainer fees for my second attorney out of half of my ex’s retirement account. This attorney was who told me that I was a domestic violence victim and recommended I attend a support group at a local church. We underwent mediation where my ex demanded to rewrite our entire parenting plan. My dad went with me to mediation and all my court dates.
I agreed to almost everything he wanted until he demanded that my boyfriend could not attend cub scouts with one of our sons. Needless to say, my ex never even attended boy scouts and my dad and boyfriend were who attended the events with my son. That is when I stood up and walked out.
Shortly after is when my ex filed a restraining order against my boyfriend. My second attorney put us in contact with another attorney for my boyfriend due to the restraining order my ex filed against him. This lawyer got this resolved and became my third lawyer. He was able to get the five years of using the court system to abuse me to end until recently.
After my 5-year lease was over, I moved my clinic in with another nurse practitioner-owned clinic. I paid to add an additional exam room. The office manager quickly started demanding that I pay half of the bills early. She even chased me to my car one day. Then she started trying to control my staff to the point that one of them resigned.
After three months she demanded that I move my clinic out. Due to they were on the lease and I was not I decided to merge my clinic with a big hospital group. Within the 5.5 years of Absolute Health, I cared for approximately 1800 patients that were newborns on up.
Within 30 days, I realized that my collaborating physician was what we in healthcare call a “candy doctor”. This means a provider who prescribes narcotics and benzodiazepines together despite never doing urine drug screens, thorough work-up, or checking the TN database. Patients were even driving from other states and paying cash which is a huge red flag.
I quickly reported it to upper management who were at first supportive. Then I was told to follow this physician’s plan of care or find a new job. It broke my heart but I left my 1800 patients because I refused to be part of illegal and unethical practices. It took me two years but I paid off the clinic debt.
My next job was to help get a new concept up and going which was exciting for me. There were mobile vans that were staffed with a nurse practitioner and EMT. We traveled to businesses to provide preventive physicals. I helped grow this concept from one van to three vans which went from no visits to thirty a month. After three years a new nurse practitioner was hired. I knew within the first week that this person was toxic like my ex.
After six months of a toxic work environment, I went to human resources. I also found out that they had forgotten the ultrasound machine but still charted as they had done the ultrasounds which were billed for as well. I went to upper management due to this was unethical and illegal. They turned it around on me so once again a new start was needed.
I then went to work for my collaborating physician from when I had my clinic but they were unable to provide benefits. I adopted my daughter after 17 years of feeling called. She has special needs so she needed medical insurance that was not as expensive as the marketplace insurance that we had. Then COVID-19 hit which definitely hit healthcare everywhere hard.
My husband knew the medical director for another big hospital group and they recruited me to come to help them fix one of their clinics. I quickly learned that unless they started over with most of their lower, middle, and upper management that things would never improve. Not to mention that they also were doing illegal and unethical things. I refused to risk my license due to the patients not being taken care of due to mismanagement.
Fast forward to recently when I decided that if I truly wanted to help change health care then it was time to apply for management. So currently I am the assistant director of nursing for a company that has homes for those with disabilities. It is totally my dream job and I am loving it.
My previous boyfriend became my husband in 2016. He is a personal trainer and owns his own personal training studio. He has been begging me to open another clinic within his personal training studio. I swore that I would never own another clinic. About one year before we adopted our daughter, I realized I needed more money saved up for adoption expenses.
I had been using Rodan + Fields products for the previous five years and had been asked multiple times to become a consultant. But I always came up with excuses. My childhood pen pal found me on social media and finally convinced me to become a consultant to earn the adoption costs. Within the first year, I earned enough to pay for the adoption agency fees for our daughter. But this business did so much more than that. It helped me find myself again.
Fast forward and three years later, I opened up a concierge clinic, Absolute Health. I refuse to deal with the insurance industry again. I want to give patients what they deserve which includes not having to hurry them in and out. I offer primary care, telehealth, home visits, Botox/Fillers/Rodan + Fields, and IV hydration.
Having an entrepreneurial spirit doesn’t mean it is only about success but about getting back up every time you fail and figuring out what can make it better!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. Some of the struggles along the way were staffing issues and getting divorced.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Absolute Health?
Absolute Health was born because I was tired of the health insurance industry telling me how to take care of patients. Patients deserve to have their healthcare needs met and not rushed in and out in 15 minutes.
The clinic offers Primary Care, Telehealth, Home Visits, Botox, Fillers, Rodan + Fields, and IV Hydration within my husband’s Personal Training Studio. We strive to take care of all of you and help you conquer your complete health.
So maybe we end by discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters to me is that my patients feel that they are listened to and are important.
Pricing:
- $50 per primary care visit or membership prices.
- Botox $8 per unit.
Contact Info:
- Email: Jenyfnp@yahoo.com
- Website: Www.fitwithkeith.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AbsoluteFamilyHealth/
