What is Health?

At RiverRock, health actually means freedom. Or if you like the fancier, more precise word, it means autonomy.

Just like having money in the bank means you have the freedom to make choices, you also have a health bank.

Health actually means freedom.

People talk about your "financial health" because there's an intuitive understanding of this concept - that health is autonomy. Health is the "money in the bank" that allows you to make decisions about your life.

If you have 10 million dollars in your financial bank account, you have a lot of freedom to go buy things, or do things with that money.

Just like having money in the bank means you have the freedom to make choices, you also have a health bank.

But, if you weigh 500lbs, or you have heart failure, or you're just not fit enough, then your depleted "health bank account" will limit what things you can choose to experience, no matter how much money you have. You can't go snowboarding. You can't go climb machu picchu. You might dream of those things, but those are just illusory, pie-in-the-sky dreams. Those dreams cannot become reality, because you don't have enough freedom to choose to make those dreams into reality.

But, if you do lose weight, if you recondition your body, become healthier, then suddenly those choices are open; those dreams becomes viable options. Your health has increased, and now you can choose to make those dreams real; because that's what health is - The power to choose which dreams you want to make real.

That's what health is — The power to choose which dreams you want to make real.

The only reason to have health is so you can do other things. Your doctor should helping you do other things, helping you have more freedom to choose.

And that's what RiverRock is really about, what medicine as a whole should be about - moving you to a better state of health, giving you more options, more autonomy, more freedom. It's about increasing the number of things you can choose to do - the number and the quality of the options you have.

Just to illustrate, let's consider this extreme scenario -

Severe illness has few options

Let's say there's a guy in coma, in the ICU, and he's got very few choices, right? What can he choose? He's almost dead. There's almost no freedom of choice, no autonomy there.

Now, if he's a little healthier, let's say he's at least awake, able to write on a pad or nod or something - he's got at least 1 choice - the choice to tell his doctors and nurses to stop. He can at least choose to die or choose to continue trying to get healthier.

Now, if he gets better, get's out of the ICU, he can choose to work with physical therapy, to eat or not eat certain things, to choose what to watch on TV, what to read, he can choose all these things. But he cannot choose to safely leave the hospital. He doesn't have enough health - enough autonomy to make that a viable option.

this patient isn't just getting rid of illness ... he's gaining health. We know he's gaining health because more dreams are becoming viable choices.

So, he gets a little bit stronger. And he can now choose to walk on his own, where he wants to go, like "Do I want to go outside for a little while? Go to the cafeteria? Maybe I'm strong enough to go home and at least be able to walk around the house."

And so on, as he gets better and better, maybe he goes to a rehab facility, gets stronger, he's able to choose to have a job, have non-dependent relationships, etc. etc … - All this is a progression - an expansion - the breadth of viable choices he has.

And that's one of the key insights that started RiverRock - this patient isn't just getting rid of illness ... he's gaining health. We know he's gaining health because more dreams are becoming viable choices.

That insight, that health is the stuff that makes dreams into choices, is what lies at the root of RiverRock's approach.

Standard medicine doesn't consider this at all

The issue with regular medicine, even regular concierge medicine, is that once you meet some arbitrary standard, once you don't have any overt symptom that's obviously abnormal, once you have moved out of the "ill" territory, modern medicine basically gives up and says there's nothing more we can do. We've moved you from the crappy end of the bell curve to the middle, and there it is.

Once you have moved out of the "ill" territory, modern medicine basically gives up and says there's nothing more we can do.

Nobody in standard healthcare is talking about giving you more freedom than that - As long as you can sit on the couch, watch TV, go to your job, and come back home, and have any sort of relationship and eat and drink and go to the bathroom (ADLs), that's basically where traditional medicine stops.

And that's where RiverRock is different.

Because that is not good enough. Go beyond that.

To go beyond that, you have to look at getting even stronger, and it's difficult, because now you have to have some deeper meaning in mind.

Why do I need some 'Deeper Meaning' to get healthier?

Most people want to be able to have relationships, to be able to go to the bathroom on their own. Those are basic functions. They're so ingrained that the desire for enough health to do those things is already there.

Regular doctors can work with those ingrained desires, you don't have to talk about it much. But once you get to that level, the issue is, you have to start to dream at an even higher level of health, you have to say, no, I want to climb Machu Picchu, I want to go on safari, I want to go camping, I want to do this or that. You have to have those dreams, something to shoot for, in order to have enough motivation and direction to say "ok, in order to do that, what would I need? I'd need to be able to walk this far, I'd need to be able to tolerate this much", or be able to climb this, or whatever else ... and that's where medicine breaks down - we stop helping people, we stop expecting people to have bigger dreams.

Doctors are like 'What? You can go to your job, come back, watch tv, go to the bathroom on your own, feed yourself, what more do you want?'

Doctors are like "What? You can go to your job, come back, watch tv, go to the bathroom on your own, feed yourself, what more do you want?" And that is the problem - we stop helping people gain freedom, because we don't expect people to have bigger dreams than that.

And that is the idea of RiverRock - it's for people who have bigger dreams. Do more, work harder, dream bigger, and we will help you build your health and your freedom to the point where those become realistic choices.

And that is what defines the RiverRock patient - people who are willing to partner with their doctor to solve problems, people who say, "If my doctor gives me a pathway, I'm going to walk that path, because I'm trying to pursue my dreams. I'm trying to become free of my obstacles, and RiverRock is going to help me have autonomy."

And all that sounds great, but then the question is "how?" And the answer is the RiverRock Root Cause Analysis