Have you ever thought about starting a virtual private practice as a dietitian but didn't want the work of setting up your own business?

Listen to (or watch) my interview with my dietitian friend and amazing Entrepreneur, Adrien Paczosa, RD, LD, CEDRD-S, of the tele-health nutrition counseling company, Nourish.

Adrian Paczosa with Nourish
I got involved in private practice almost 17 years ago.There was a local eating disorder treatment center that needed outpatient dietitians. I said that I could figure it out! It was so important to me to create affordable care - I wanted to make sure that cost was never an issue for patients to come and see a dietitian, especially in the mental health world.

Stacey Dunn-Emke with NutritionJobs
But now you have started a new chapter as a dietitian entrepreneur. Tell us about your new venture as a dietitian and how you are building a new company, Nourish.

Adrien Paczosa with Nourish
Nourish is a fully virtual telenutrition company that has almost 70 registered dietitians in 38 different states. We have big goals to keep growing. All of our dietitians are w2 employees. With Nourish, we want to provide an employment environment that provides a community of fellow dietitians.

We have full-time dietitians and part-time dietitians, but truly when it comes down to it, we are a true community of dietitians, collaborating, learning from each other.

Stacey Dunn-Emke with NutritionJobs
I like so many aspects of creating a non-traditional role as a dietitian. I like the creativity and broad range of skills that come with being an entrepreneur running my own business. But if I can be honest, running the business part of the business is not my favorite. And all the hidden costs and consultants I need just to run the business. Like accountants and attorneys. And website developers. I think the beauty of Nourish is that you can embrace your job working with patients without setting up a business. Can you speak more to that?

Adrien Paczosa with Nourish
With Nourish we also provide our dietitians both education and support. Because running a private practice on your own is lonely, and it's hard. The best part is that the dietitians employed with Nourish don’t need to worry about any of the backend stuff that comes with running a private practice.

Nourish has an amazing customer experience team, a marketing team, an engineering team, a billing team to take care of the insurance paperwork, and an onboarding team to take care of bringing in new patients. A Nourish dietitian just needs to come to [virtual] work and be a dietitian. We are flooded with patients and you get to say how many patients you want to work with, you set the cadence and you still have complete autonomy.

At Nourish, we have more patients that we have available appointments with a dietitian right now, so the need for our services as dietitians is truly available. And it's just so exciting to be able to meet patients.

Stacey Dunn-Emke with NutritionJobs
Wow! I want to work for your company! But this is a good time to say that this interview is not sponsored by Nourish.

I just want to share what Adrian is doing with Nourish and bring it to fellow dietitians who want to work as a telehealth private practice dietitian without having to set up their own business.

Who is your ideal candidate for this position?

Adrien Paczosa with Nourish
The ideal candidate for this position is someone that has 2-3 years of experience with outpatient nutrition counseling.

We are also looking for dietitians that want to be part of our community but without the headache of paperwork and the backend work that comes with running your own business (that is just soul sucking!). We want dietitians that truly want to be a part of the patient's journey.

One of our pillars of excellence is care, collaboration and developing behavior changes in our patients over a long period of time. Because we are able to take health insurance, we are able to see patients more often and we are able to truly make long-term behavior changes.

We really want to work with dietitians that believe this is also part of their value system and their approach to care, as well.

We are seeing a really large influx of patients with gut health problems, diabetes, disordered eating, and emotional eating. I also encourage people to reach out if those aren't your areas of expertise or experience. We will help and support our dietitians to learn more.

Stacey Dunn-Emke with NutritionJobs
I was impressed with the website, UseNourish.com, in that you have really great materials for job applicants. To find Nourish’s career section, scroll to the bottom of the website, select careers, and learn how to apply for the dietitian jobs in more detail, such as what Nourish is looking for in a candidate, the employment onboarding processes, the compensation and benefits, and why join the Nourish team of dietitian.

What tips can you give dietitians applying for a job with Nourish to help them stand out and what types of job interview questions can candidates expect and prepare for?

Adrien Paczosa with Nourish
There are a few rounds in the interview process. The first interview is to get to know you and the second interview is learning about your clinical skills.

That first interview with Nourish will be with our recruiting department where you'll get to learn more about Nourish and we can learn about you. Come prepared with questions. For example, “what is it like to work at Nourish?”

That second interview is with our clinical team and that's where we can understand your nutrition counseling skills:

• What is it like for a patient to come and see you?
• There might be some role playing with somebody on our clinical team
• We want to learn how you work together with patients
• What is your approach to care?
• What are your PES statements and your charting
• How you approach a patient

So my biggest advice is don't skim and treat our interview questions like you are truly charting and show off your amazing counseling dietetic skills. Have a rockstar PES statement. We liek the candidates that really put forth effort and take it seriously. We love that.

Stacey Dunn-Emke with NutritionJobs
Where do you see the future of dietitians in private practice?

Adrien Paczosa with Nourish
Well, I think they should all come to work at Nourish! Running your own private practice is hard, really hard. It's hard work getting patients and it's lonely work. Also, spending time on the backend running a business takes a lot of time. Working with health insurance companies is getting more and more difficult. One of the cool things that nobody ever talks about in the dietitian world, is how much community really impacts our education, our growth mindset, and our job satisfaction. And so I think private practice dietitians should all just come work for Nourish because it fills up your soul as a dietitian. And you get to meet with other dietitians. It fills up your dietitian soul to have a place to ask questions, to not feel alone and to not have the headache of the back office.

Stacey Dunn-Emke with NutritionJobs
You can search for jobs with Nourish on NutritionJobs.com and UseNourish.com.