Evolution of Medicine Podcast · Functional Forum

From Artisan to Infrastructure

February 17, 2026·32 min·2 clips

Hims, Hers, and ChatGPT Health are forcing clinics to compete on convenience, logistics, and integration.

1. Evolution of Medicine Podcast episode “From Artisan to Infrastructure” focuses on how functional medicine clinics should respond to a louder market and tighter margins. 2. James Maskell hosts the episode, and Seth Conger is named as the founder of Legacy, the mastermind program for clinics over $1 million in revenue. 3. The episode asks how functional medicine can move from pioneering practices to repeatable infrastructure that becomes standard care. 4. Maskell says the market is louder because more people now talk about longevity, root cause medicine, and functional medicine. 5. He says the tools are faster, pointing to AI, and the expectations are higher for what patients want from a practice. 6. He says margins are tighter, so clinics must scale functional medicine with trust while still growing revenue. 7. Maskell contrasts the early Functional Forum era of webinars, dinner talks, Facebook ads, and flyers with today’s delivery problem. 8. He says information used to create trust, but now lifestyle is no longer differentiating because the consumer already understands participation in health. 9. He argues that patients are choosing between narratives, using Moldco as an example of a telemedicine and testing company with 40,000 sign-ups. 10. He says noise drives confusion, protocol hopping, and doctor hopping, while trust is the only moat that still matters. 11. He describes direct primary care as one trust-based model, citing a panel of 400 patients paying $150 a month as an example. 12. He says winning clinics need both convenience and connection because convenience keeps promises and connection strengthens the practitioner-patient relationship. 13. He frames the shift as moving from rebellion to infrastructure, saying the movement now needs a different skill set than the early functional medicine era. 14. He says well-funded competitors focused on employers first, with Virta Health as an example of technology plus keto aimed at diabetes. 15. He explains that telehealth normalization, subscription expectations, and AI explanations changed the market for consumer-facing health services. 16. He details ChatGPT Health with medical records, Apple Health, Function, MyFitnessPal, Weight Watchers, AllTrails, Instacart, and Peloton integrations. 17. He argues that harder cases like cognitive decline and autoimmune disease have more longevity because current platforms cannot yet deliver those outcomes alone. 18. He says objective data, a great team, an outcome-based program, and a back-end membership create the full-stack clinic model. 19. The episode is a long-form solo keynote recap with a direct, strategic, and pragmatic tone. 20. Listeners who run functional medicine clinics or care about practice operations will get the most from it, while people wanting a light or personal interview may skip it.

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