Your Hype Girl

The PEO Solution: Streamlining Business Admin for Medical Practices

• Shea Nielsen MSN, NP-C • Season 1 • Episode 6

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In this episode of Your Hype Girl, I’m joined by Brynlie Nielsen from American Benefits—our go-to PEO partner at Revival. If you’re a med spa owner or thinking about starting one, you need to hear this. We dive into what a PEO (Professional Employer Organization) actually is, how it can save you time and money, and why having the right support for HR, payroll, benefits, and compliance is a total game-changer. Brynlie is a powerhouse in this space, and I can confidently say she’s someone I highly recommend to every med spa owner. Let’s break down the business side of aesthetics and set you up for long-term success!


American Benefits Company https://goamericanbenefits.com

Brynlie Nielsen 

Email: Brynlie@goamericanbenefits.com

Shea Nielsen:

Hi, I'm Shea Nielsen, the nurse practitioner coach. Today we're hosting a podcast with a PEO, and today I'm here with Brinley Nielsen. I'm going to let her introduce herself.

Brynlie Nielsen:

Hi everyone. My name is Brynlie. I'm from American Benefits Company. We operate as a PEO, which is a professional employer organization. We can help you from payroll tax, hr benefits, insurance you name it, we can do it.

Shea Nielsen:

Awesome. So I started working with ABC, actually when I was in neurosurgery. The neurosurgeon I worked with was let go of another practice and within one week we had to start an entire new medical practice, and so because of my connections which really is my sister-in-law I reached out to them in a panic mode and said help us, we have got to get this going ASAP. So that was my first interaction with ABC, and then, a year and a half later, I decided to open up my own med spa, Revival Aesthetics and Wellness, and as a solo practitioner and business owner. For one, I'm taught medicine. I'm not taught anything about business, although I did learn quite a bit in starting Summit Brain and Spine. I really needed all the help I could get, and so I reached out to Brinley, and she has helped us along the way. We're actually celebrating four years this week. We're so excited, love it.

Shea Nielsen:

But I couldn't do it alone because as a business owner, we wear a lot of hats and I feel like one of the most important things we can do is hire a PEO. That's been my experience anyways, so let's dive into it. I really think that med spas. So, with my business consulting, I work with a lot of medical providers starting their own practices and getting them in connection with a PEO. Obviously, I highly recommend ABC and I will be able to share their information at the end of this podcast as well as in all of our social media. So, brinley, tell me a little bit about the PEO. I know you kind of explained it a little bit, but kind of dive into what you can offer, especially in the med spa world Of course.

Brynlie Nielsen:

So PEOs operate just slightly different than your traditional payroll companies. We actually handle the tax from underneath our own tax liability and our own tax account. What that means is that, instead of filing the 941 quarterly reports for each individual client, we actually file it under American benefits. That means that we handle your W-2s, we handle your quarterly filings. The benefit of doing this is that health insurance companies actually recognize the PEO relationship slightly different. So this will allow for you to be able to offer voluntary benefits things like that for your client or for, excuse me, for your employees, without having to go get your own policy in place.

Brynlie Nielsen:

So a lot of health insurance carriers, as you know from a medical perspective, they require certain participation from the employer and their employees in order to offer the plan. We already have those secured. You don't need to go through the extra steps of securing those coverages. So it helps round out your benefit package. It also allows you to have HR support in-house from our HR director, leslie, so we're able to give you benefits in HR right off the bat and that tax liability is no longer sitting solely on you. We'd remove that from your plate, awesome.

Shea Nielsen:

So I posted a while ago on my social media about one do you know what a PEO is? Two, what questions do you have, especially as business owners getting started, what we can help with? And when you bring up the insurance piece of it, I find a lot of them are like well, I got to keep my full-time job because I don't have health insurance and I think there's a misunderstanding that you can still get really affordable insurance through working with a PEO.

Brynlie Nielsen:

Yes, and it all depends on the experience and the experts within that department, right? So we have some really good people that have gone through the trenches of benefits and health insurance and we've made those connections and partnerships with the right carriers. It all depends on how many employees you have, what kind of benefits you're looking for, but I think a lot of people see health insurance and they think it's a one size fits all, when in reality it needs to be a conversation of let's explore what you need and then let's go build that based off what your employees are asking for?

Shea Nielsen:

Yeah, absolutely so. As far as revival, aesthetics and wellness, I can tell you that American benefits manages pretty much everything for me, from professional to my personal life. They help me with payroll workers comp, all of my insurance, including homeowners auto life, all of our health insurance. At the office, they manage our 401k for us. What else do you do for me? She brings me coffee every once in a while. If you're local, yeah, they do everything for me. So, as far as if someone were to have a consult with you, are there requirements that you're looking for on bringing on companies as far as, like, how many employees, how big, how small?

Brynlie Nielsen:

Not really. I think it's more of let's have a conversation of where you want to take your business. When you start a business, usually it's coming from you're the expert in that field, and now you want to go do it for yourself. You want to get that flexibility, you want to start that business, build that name and brand for yourself. And a lot of people don't realize the administration lane of owning a business. They only see the operational side right.

Brynlie Nielsen:

So, for example, with MedSpots, we have this medical provider that is fantastic with what they do. They're known for being that medical provider. But yet then they step into owning a business and now all of a sudden there's payroll taxes and there's HR things and there's employees to hire and hey, I have an employee that's doing X, y and Z. How do I handle this without putting my business at risk? And when you put your business at risk, have we actually insured your business so that it's not now putting your personal life at risk and your personal assets?

Brynlie Nielsen:

So there's that conversation of where do you want to take your business? And are you currently swerving between lanes of operational and admin, and we thrive in the admin lane. We can help remove all of that stress from the admin so that you can focus on operational. I always say your operational lane makes you money, your admin costs you money. So if you're spending more time in admin, you're spending more money and time when you could be an operation building and it all comes down to how much like what's your time worth. When your time starts to become more valuable that it needs to be in the operational lane lane, that is when I'm a good solution for you, absolutely.

Shea Nielsen:

I think that as, especially as medical providers, one of our roadblocks is like oh my gosh, well, how much is this other system or thing going to cost me? But at the end of the day, if I look at, okay, you're saving me a few hours minimum every single month. I just need to see a couple of clients during that time. What I'm really good at, and that completely covers everything that you guys would bill for. What does the cost of using a PEO look like.

Brynlie Nielsen:

It all depends on the size of your company, obviously, but I think that most people are surprised at how affordable it actually can be when you start tallying up all the services that we offer. We kind of price it as if it's almost a buffet. You pay for entry and then you load up the plate of all the services that we offer at no extra cost, right? So it really comes down to the type of business you're running, how frequently we have to service it and offer all of these coverages, but it's actually really affordable. I don't think people realize how affordable it can be when you start to add up. I now need an HR consulting.

Shea Nielsen:

Worth their weight in gold.

Brynlie Nielsen:

You guys, I have used them a few times and man it helps to have someone on your side that can just help you be compliant. We're not in the business of telling you how to run your business. We are here to educate and then you decide how you proceed with that information. We are here to educate and then you decide how you proceed with that information. But if you're paying for an HR service, someone to file your taxes, just filing your W-2s can be incredibly expensive. If you're going through an accountant or a tax firm, right Workers' comp management, we're going to help you with those audits. We're going to make sure that it's compliant. I mean, Revival has been in business for four years. I don't think you've done one work comp audit. We've helped you with those since the beginning. So that's one more thing off your plate, right? So it's those kinds of situations that when you start adding up all of these services, you're looking at thousands if you're using multiple providers, whereas you're looking at a fraction of the cost if you just go with us Absolutely.

Shea Nielsen:

One of the things that we posted about or talked about this week was the difference in W-2 employees versus 1099, which I think is really important for MedSpot owners to understand, because a lot of the clientele that I work with in the coaching world um, a lot of med spas will use 1099 employees and I don't think most understand what that actually looks like, that they actually have a W-2 employee. In fact, when I listened to your speech the other day, I learned a lot. I don't have any 1099 employees, but I actually didn't understand a lot of those qualifications to be considered a 1099 employee.

Brynlie Nielsen:

Right, and I think that's where the HR component comes in. And also the tax. We're not a tax advisor, like we can't give you professional advice on how to do taxes and how to like your business taxes, things like that but we can help you navigate and understand where the IRS guidelines fall. Right. So it's.

Brynlie Nielsen:

It's definitely one of those situations where, if you are even slightly unsure, you should be talking to us of, like, what is a 1099? What's the difference? Right? A lot of people just like, look at it and go, no, they're 1099 because they make commission and that's not always the case, right? Their schedule, if you're in charge of, if they basically represent you and your insurance policy, follows the work that they're doing, they're technically not 1099, right? So it's just one of those things where it's like let's have a conversation because, again, we're never going to tell you how to run your business or pressure you into doing one thing or the other, but we are going to educate, let's make sure that you know all options and the consequence or the positives of both options and then you make a decision based off that.

Shea Nielsen:

Yeah, that's one thing I love about ABC is, anytime I have an issue, it's that personal approach. You guys aren't just some big company that we can't get ahold of. And for me, when I take care of my employees, if there's an issue like this week that we took care of, we had missed some hours on a paycheck because our employee hadn't clocked in or clocked out. But she needs that income and so I'm able to text them and say, hey, shoot, we missed out on six hours. Can we hurry and cut a check? So you guys are really fast at getting that taken care of.

Shea Nielsen:

And then our HR issue that we've dealt with a couple of times. Wearing a business hat can be kind of hard for me. I let my heart come into my business sometimes and I forget sometimes those boundaries and it's really nice to be able to call somebody and say, hey, help me, take a step back and understand what the policies are with our business and what kind of you know kind of help me, guide me and what I need to do. But also like, hey, let's go back to your employee handbook. There's a you know, there's a policy here and this is how you should maybe conduct a meeting. And you guys have been so helpful for that kind of stuff. What other situations do you feel like you guys get a lot of for that HR?

Brynlie Nielsen:

department situations. Do you feel like you guys get a lot of for that, that HR department? I think a lot of times as business owners we put trust in our employees and our managers that they have the best interests of our, our business, at heart. We build this company and it becomes like I've been in the trenches of building companies and you start to become emotionally attached to this entity as if it's a newborn right, it's your baby, it is my baby and it's hard because you spend so much time and effort building this and that it becomes you.

Brynlie Nielsen:

It's an extension of who you are and sometimes we sit in these positions and we trust employees and managers that they have the same emotional attachment to our business that we do when that's not always the case, and it's okay. I mean, we don't expect our employees to have that, but it is sometimes ill-placed trust and that, at the end of the day, if you're not training your managers and training your employees on what your culture is and what your policies are, they're not going to lean to that and they also. You have to clearly outline consequences of not following those things. And what's the consequence? Is it a write up? Is it disciplinary action? If you do this x amount of times that now result in termination and a lot of the liability of your company is following these employees and what they're doing. Following these managers and what they're doing. Following these managers and what they're doing.

Brynlie Nielsen:

We see a lot of hey, my manager did this or my employee did this. It's against our policy, but I don't know how to enforce something now. So it's a lot of those conversations We've even sat in on terminations of hey, I have a new manager. We're afraid they might not know what to do, and we provide the training. And then at the end of that training of like, here's things you should say, here's things you shouldn't say, that will hopefully keep the business out of harm's way, and really sitting in on a training, and then they, they vocalize I'm still not comfortable doing this and then we actually sit in the termination to help them, you know. Or the disciplinary action. So there's, there's been some situations that you kind of scratch your head and you go what? What were you thinking in that moment? Right, but at the end of the day, I think people are just trying to do their best and it's more rare to find someone that's trying to hurt your business. But it's also. You have to be proactive in teaching and training your employees to represent you.

Shea Nielsen:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that for me, abc is just like this big security blanket for me. I feel like there there is a lot of risk in running a business and you know, employees usually have really good intentions and the same. As a business owner, I feel like a lot of the situations we found ourselves in isn't because it was ill intentions on our part or anything. It could be just naive about certain things and running a business where I've been able to lean on you guys to kind of help me navigate and answer some of those questions, which has been really cool. So I obviously I work mostly with med spas. I run my own med spa um do business consulting with a lot of medical providers, but they also you guys. You guys work with everybody, and all over the country too, so from electricians to crumble cookies, to right.

Brynlie Nielsen:

We're nationwide. We're operating in 40, 40 something States. I think we're entering 47 this month. So we're you know from the humble beginnings of what American Benefits was. I think that that is like our founder and owner, Jamie Nilsen, who also is a sister-in-law. We like to keep it close to the heart here, but Jamie's a business mastermind and I will always give her her flowers, even though she shies away from it. But the way that Jamie has set up American Benefits so that everything is under one roof, and if you were to outline or even pin like what does American Benefits stand for?

Brynlie Nielsen:

What is our main principle or character that defines everything we do? It comes down to customer service. So we will always try to go above and beyond. We'll always try to be creative. We're not in the practice of automating everything. We do Like we want to have that personal touch with our clients.

Brynlie Nielsen:

That means that you can have my cell phone number, means that when you call you get your account manager directly, you can text them, you can email them. We're local for those that are in Utah, so that we can have that personal connection. But we try really hard, even with out of state clients, to build that relationship with them. It's FaceTime, it's phone calls, it's text messages. I think the people in my life are always so annoyed that I'm always on my phone, but it's because I value my clients right. My screen time is astronomical, but it's important to help people find confidence. No one wants to end their workday wondering if their business is at risk of something. We want to be able to walk through the door and say, hey, I made a lot of money today and my family gets to sleep at night.

Shea Nielsen:

Yeah, absolutely. There is a lot of anxiety with running a business, for sure. Yeah, what questions do you have for me?

Brynlie Nielsen:

What would you say is like the most beneficial reason for using you as a coach if you're starting a med spa?

Shea Nielsen:

That is a good question. Well, because I've been there, done that, I've been in the trenches. I think that when I first started my med spa, I wish I'd had a business consultant that could help me with all of these things like finding a PEO, finding the services that bring the biggest ROI and finding a space, finding a name, trademarking. All of these things take a lot of time and money, similar to what you guys offer. You've got this. Everything's in house and people don't have to, you know, find somebody to do payroll, find somebody to do your taxes, find somebody to do your insurance. It's all in one house and that's what I pride myself on is it's. I can help them with everything, whether that's cash pay, whether it's insurance, um, and it doesn't just have to be bed spots.

Shea Nielsen:

I've actually branched into helping some other um entities just in business because I feel like I'm really good at business. I've done really well. We started our med spa and gross seven figures in the first year, which is insane with a solo provider, and have just grown each year with and that's because I have systems in place like an incredible PEO. I couldn't do it without the different connections that I have for sure. So highly recommend using you guys.

Brynlie Nielsen:

We love you. I think one thing that I've always respected about you and how you conduct your business is that when people come to you with questions're not afraid of competition, and it's more of the you become like, the more the merrier type of thing. You will always push yourself to be the pinnacle example, but you're also willing to let other people become their own pinnacle, and I've always respected that. We have too much competition. It's okay to be competition, but also like root for each other, celebrate the competition.

Shea Nielsen:

I think I've always viewed competition a little differently than some people do. Competition is good when you have competition, especially in a small community. I still consider Spanish Fork a small community. It elevates the patient's experience. It also elevates what we're doing, because I have to sit down with my staff and say, well, why are people coming to us instead of going somewhere else? You, you have to be do better. You have to treat people better. You have to have a good culture. Yes, People, people coming in your doors, will they know what kind of culture you have in your office? If you've got high turnover, you don't have a good culture. Um, and so you know? I I will reach out to other MPs, PAs, physicians around the area. We have a great community. Honestly, Some of it is in the med school world. Some girls are not girls' girls, and that's really hard for me because I am.

Shea Nielsen:

I love seeing people succeed. There is opportunity for everybody, Everybody. There are probably hundreds of thousands of PEO companies and people that have options, but because they have options, we're going to do better. Right, we want to make sure it comes down to that customer service, like you talked about, and I think that that's what we try really, really hard to do. And, um, I also learn from other people too.

Shea Nielsen:

I'm not the all you know end, all be all, and I am learning constantly. Even when you know I have coaching clients, come in there, you know, they're only a few miles away, even opening up doors. I'm learning from them as well, and we can share patients. Patients don't, um, not everybody's gonna like me, and that's okay. Their personality might be better fit somewhere else. Um, and I like being able to say hey, oh gosh, you drive down from Idaho, I've got a great clinic up north that I can send you to. And sometimes they go and sometimes they say you know, we've got a, you've got great customer service, you take really good care of us, we're going to drive down, and so. So I think that's what makes Revival stand out, is similar to ABC is that our cultures are ran very similarly and we really really pride ourselves on the customer service as well.

Brynlie Nielsen:

Educate and customer service. It's so crucial. It's so crucial I was actually teasing you just a little bit ago that I think you need to read more. If you ever have the opportunity to get a sneak peek of Shay's office, it's loaded with books. I love that you are consistently educating yourself and it means so much. If I'm going to take advice from someone, I need someone that's innovative, that's reading, that's staying up to date.

Shea Nielsen:

I love it. I am addicted to reading. One bookshelf is all business and personal development and then the other is my novels. Some of it's smart I'll own it. But as far as business development, we've started, actually the last year and a half, doing a book club at Revival because I feel like personal development is so, so important in every aspect of business, especially as business owners, but even for our employees, if they're.

Shea Nielsen:

I always want people to leave my, if they are to leave to be a better version of themselves, whether that's a client or an employee. So I try to pour a lot of that energy into them, trying to read, um, different books. What can we do? I'm always trying to stay one step ahead of the industry, which is an ever-changing industry, which I love, and I do feel like revival has done a good job of that. A lot of people like how do you stay so far ahead? And it's like has done a good job of that. A lot of people are like how do you stay so far ahead? And it's like because I'm constantly learning and constantly pushing myself and, yeah, I pride myself on that.

Brynlie Nielsen:

I love it. I love it. I've always respected that about you. Tell me what you would consider the hardest thing in the last four years. What is one thing if you could pinpoint like I know it's hard, building and growing a company is so hard but like one thing that you would say hey, watch out for this, be prepared for this If I'm opening a med spa.

Shea Nielsen:

Um, I think I have a different perspective because when I first started up and when I first started my business, my brother said don't do it, he's a business owner and it's like. It is so stressful, it's so like the things that keep you up at night. I just left neurosurgery, working 80 hours a week for somebody else, building somebody else's dream, and I was worried about somebody dying every night. And now I'm not. I still work those same hours, but I get to choose those hours. I think the hardest part for me over the last four years gosh, I haven't had a lot of hard, hard things. I came from hard. I think building it and growing it has been the hardest part.

Brynlie Nielsen:

Um but I also think that comes from like a perspective like you, you very much operate your business with a perspective of gratitude, yeah, like.

Shea Nielsen:

I am grateful for this. Yeah, you know I maybe not for me, but watching my coaching clients, I can tell you that the number one thing that I see them struggle with is getting patients in the door, and I think the reason I don't struggle with that as much is a few things. One is networking with businesses. We just went to Brinley, invited me to BNI this last week and I'm trying to always put myself out there, but also your reputation, Like even now.

Shea Nielsen:

Even before starting a business, if you're working in the trenches, you got to treat people kindly. I have had neurosurgery patients follow me to my new clinic. I've had nurses from the hospital, physicians from the hospital have all have followed me to my clinic because of how I've treated people. But growing a business, you have got to do the work. You've got to get to know people. You've got to network. You've got to socialize. Most people don't know this, but I'm actually an introvert. I would much rather be home reading my book than doing podcasts or going to events. That's actually out of my comfort zone. But you have to get uncomfortable. You have to get uncomfortable to get that growth that you want.

Brynlie Nielsen:

Love it. It's a famous saying right, there's no growth in the comfort zone. Yeah Right, love it, yeah.

Shea Nielsen:

Okay, yeah, all right, we're going to wrap things up. If you have questions for Brinley, I'm going to put her social media contact here. We'll also post this on social media comment below.

Brynlie Nielsen:

So that, brinley, can um answer those for you and we can point you in the right direction. Awesome, thanks for having me.