Episode 135 | Jun 19, 2025

The Coaching-First Healthcare Model, With Tierni Eaton and Dr. Jason Shumard

What does it look like when health coaches are fully integrated into a medical practice—not just as support staff, but as central figures in the care team? This week on Health Coach Talk, Dr. Sandi sits down with Dr. Jason Shumard and Tierni Eaton to explore how their practice is redefining functional medicine through true practitioner-coach collaboration. Together, they share how their remote model combines one-on-one and group coaching to create powerful, personalized outcomes for patients managing chronic disease.

“I think every single medical office, every integrative office, every practice handling chronic disease should have a health coach on their team—because if not, they’re missing a huge component of the body’s healing capacity.”

Dr. Jason Shumard

Dr. Shumard’s passion for root-cause care was sparked by his mother’s battle with diabetes. Today, he leads a mission-driven team at the Integrative Wellness Center of San Diego that’s on track to improve the lives of one million people. When he recognized the limits of his own time and skill set, he turned to health coaches to support his patients—and never looked back. After hiring two graduates from the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy (without realizing they came from the same program), he decided to exclusively recruit from FMCA, confident in the training and expertise they bring.

Tierni Eaton, now the lead health coach at the practice, found her calling after navigating her own health challenges, including cancer, Lyme disease, and perimenopause. She turned to nutrition and lifestyle changes when conventional care didn’t offer answers, and her personal transformation eventually led her to FMCA. Soon after graduating, she joined Dr. Shumard’s team, where she now leads a growing group of coaches and helps guide patients through a nine-month journey of deep lifestyle change.

In the episode, Dr. Shumard and Tierni describe how their practice model works: the clinical team handles diagnostic testing and initial plans, then hands patients off to coaches who guide them through implementation with autonomy and trust. The care doesn’t stop at individual appointments—monthly group coaching sessions build community, foster accountability, and offer space for learning and support. Patients often stay connected even after completing the program, highlighting the impact of relationships and human connection in healing.

For health coaches, this episode is a powerful example of what’s possible when coaches are viewed as essential members of the medical team. Dr. Shumard makes a compelling case for coaches as educators, change agents, and advocates who help patients make sustainable shifts in nutrition and lifestyle. As the healthcare system moves toward automation and AI, both guests stress that the empathy, trust, and emotional nuance coaches bring to the table can’t be replicated by technology. This is the kind of partnership that defines the future of care, and health coaches are at the center of it.

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Transcript

Dr. Sandi: In today’s episode of “Health Coach Talk,” I interview two people. They work together. I interview a practitioner and his lead health coach. These two are really revolutionizing the practice of medicine, because it is truly a collaborative care team where there’s a practitioner and there are health coaches and the number of health coaches in this practice is growing. So, I can’t wait to share this conversation with these two people.

Let me tell you about Tierni Eaton. With over 25 years of heartfelt dedication to health and wellness, Tierni is passionate about guiding people to rediscover their health through the healing power of functional medicine. She believes vibrant health is possible at every stage of life and empowers each client with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to create lasting change.

Blending scientific wisdom with genuine compassion, Tierni helps people understand that everything they put in their bodies and on their bodies sends powerful messages that shape their health. Her step-by-step personalized approach honors each client’s unique journey, offering encouragement and sustainable strategies at a pace that feels right for them. Tierni believes that when people truly understand how their bodies work, they gain the freedom to make choices that build a life they love. Her greatest joy is seeing clients step into their strengths.

Dr. Jason Shumard has postgraduate education in functional endocrinology and clinical nutrition. Over the past five years, he has worked with patients with a multitude of conditions, specifically hypothyroidism and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Shumard is passionate about helping patients reverse their diabetes and take control over their health. He’s the owner of Integrative Wellness Center of San Diego, which he opened in 2005 with the desire to promote safe alternative treatment options to the community of San Diego. I hope that you will enjoy this episode as much as I did recording it. Dr. Jason Shumard, Tierni Eaton, welcome to “Health Coach Talk.”

Tierni: Thank you.

Dr. Shumard: Thanks for having us.

Dr. Sandi: Dr. Shumard, you run a practice. How did you happen to decide that you want health coaches on your team?

Dr. Shumard: Yeah, so for over 10 years, I basically handled everything in the health coaching arena. And you get to a certain point and you’re like, “You know what? I probably don’t know as much as I probably need to know on this and to help these individuals and what they were looking for.” I know I have limitations on my skills and things that I enjoy doing, and I felt that coaches would probably be better suited to answer those questions, guide and support our patients. And it’s been pretty incredible implementing our coaches and the amount of changes that they’re able to get and the support they’re able to get. And we’re always about outcomes, right? And so the outcomes have just been incredible.

Dr. Sandi: It’s so, so good to hear. And you chose functional medicine health coaches.

Dr. Shumard: Yeah, I first started looking for health coaches. I did probably what most people do. I did a LinkedIn ad. And I just started scouring the internet to see if there was any other options out there. And I came upon Functional Medicine Coaching Academy and didn’t know anything about it. Did a little bit of research and just posted an ad. And I probably did maybe five group interviews. And there was roughly about 30 per group interview. And I started narrowing it down. And interestingly enough, when I hired two individuals, they were both from the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. Didn’t even realize that until at the end, after I hired them, I said, “Okay, this is not a coincidence. There’s a reason for this.” And so from that point on, I only hire from that coaching academy only.

Dr. Sandi: Well, that’s music to my ears. I want to turn to you, Tierni. How did you find your way into this space?

Tierni: Oh, my gosh. So, I was always interested in health and wellness. I think I first found my way in, in my 30s. I was diagnosed within a year. I had cancer and neurological Lyme disease. So, that’s when I really knew that the answers I was getting from my medical team were not something I wanted to follow. So, I really dove into the whole food and lifestyle is medicine piece of the research. In my 40s, when I went into perimenopause and could not figure out what was going on with my body, my mood and all of that, and my friends are all in the same boat, again, I went to three of my female doctors and they all said that this was what you had to put up with. This was the norm and I was incredibly frustrated. So, I wasn’t about to take that sitting down. So, again, I dove into the best and the quickest and the most accessible way to manage all of that. And that was blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity. And I fell in love with it then. And then found your school, your amazing spot. And, yeah, it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me for sure.

Dr. Sandi: So, you graduated from FMCA. Then how did you find Dr. Shumard’s practice?

Tierni: So, I graduated from FMCA and it had to be no less than a month later, I saw his ad on the job board and applied and went through the whole interview process. And don’t know how I made it, but I got the job and it’s just been the biggest blessing ever.

Dr. Sandi: I love that story. Well, let’s dive into how the practice works. Dr. Shumard, what do your health coaches do? What do you appreciate about them?

Dr. Shumard: Yeah. So, basically our coaches do the entire one-on-one approach to the recommended plan of action. So, basically myself or one of my other doctors will meet with initial patients, do some of our comprehensive tests, put the plan together and then he essentially hands it off to the health coaches and they handle the whole process with them the whole time until there’s any kind of reanalysis or things that need to be done specifically by one of the docs in the practice.

But we give them autonomy, right? I trust them and they’re really well-trained. They understand what needs to be done. They understand our processes and our expectations. And of course, there may be questions along the way, and we have great communication with each other. We meet once a week to discuss cases and go over cases. I meet with them every single week on this, but they have a lot of ability to do things on their own. They’ll ask, “Well, what do you think about this?” I’m like, “Sounds good. You guys probably know better than I do in that type of thing.” So, I let them handle on what they’re going to help individuals and how they’re going to recommend things with food and nutrition and guidance. And they’re just incredible. I’m very blessed to have them on my team.

Dr. Sandi: So, why do you think… And I’ll ask this of both of you. Why do you think health coaching is so important?

Dr. Shumard: Do you want to go first, Tierni?

Tierni: I think everybody, including health coaches, need a health coach. It’s someone who is not only a cheerleader for you. And especially if you choose the right coach with the right certifications and the right training, they’re so incredibly knowledgeable. I can’t believe how intelligent and wonderful, the women I work with, the coaches are. We can guide, support, and spend the time that these people need. And in this practice, the magical thing about it is we are with these people for nine months. So, they almost become family. And so I think every single solitary practice in the country should have a health coach, at least one health coach on board for sure.

Dr. Sandi: Well, absolutely. And that is my mission. That’s why I just released a new book, “Your Health Coach Will See You Now,” really arguing for the benefits of health coaching on medical care teams. And the research is there. We know that it works. There’s tons of studies backing that up, almost every condition. So, in your practice, Dr. Shumard, why is health coaching so important? And in a general sense, why do you think it’s important?

Dr. Shumard: I think it’s important because unfortunately, the regular population does not understand nutrition. They don’t understand what real food is. With all the marketing that’s out there and going to the grocery store, I can’t tell you how often, for example, we may tell someone, “Well, you can’t eat dairy,” and they’re like, “I can’t eat eggs?” I’m like, “That’s not dairy,” because the grocery store has the in the dairy section and they think it’s dairy. So, they have all this data and fun, and they just really don’t know what and how to be eating that’s best for their body.

We always talk about nutrition as the foundation of our health, right? It helps the body get into a state that it can actually heal. Oftentimes, nutrition will do some healing as well, but it’s going to require more than just the way you’re eating, the lifestyle in general. And coaches can really help individuals learn, understand, and to implement this easily into their life. And I think that’s so important. I’m so happy to hear that you’re writing a book and putting things out there because I think every single medical office, every single integrative office, every single office out there that’s handling anything in chronic diseases or whatever should have a health coach in their practice as part of their treatment because if not, they’re missing a huge component of the healing capacity of the body.

Dr. Sandi: That’s so true. My husband just had his visit with his primary care doctor, and I asked him when he came home, “Well, did he ask you about exercise?” “No.” “Did he ask you about your sleep?” “No.” “Did he ask you about what you’re eating?” “No.” It was just get your lab done, get your medications, took his blood pressure, and that was it. And I’ve seen this repeatedly. They’re missing that crucial lifestyle factor, which is driving 90% of chronic diseases, if we address those first. When I worked for many years as a health psychologist, that’s what I saw. I was doing health coaching. I didn’t even realize it. The profession didn’t exist at the time, but addressing those lifestyle factors are really critical. So, I’d love to learn more about the nuts and bolts of the practice. How many doctors do you have? And you’ve grown your health coaching team. I’d love to hear about that. So, whoever wants to take that question.

Dr. Shumard: I’ll start with that. When COVID happened, and I was in a brick-and-mortar practice, and I was doing everything on my own and thinking I could do this on my own, I realized at that point that I needed to pivot even though five years prior to that, I wanted to move to more of a virtual practice, which we have now. But essentially, COVID was a blessing for me because it allowed me to start kicking into gear to move to this virtual model, if you will.

And so, when I did that, I was able to create this team and implementation of what we do now. So, when I went virtual, obviously I continued doing everything on my own. I had two team members, and we call them our patient care coordinators with myself. And we were just doing the three of us. And as we started to implement more and make things more easier for us to manage, right, type of things, I was able to hire… So, we hired our first two health coaches. At that time, I believe it was in the summer of 2021. And then over the years, we’ve been able to optimize things. We’ve been able to hire more and more, including doctors, etc. So, currently, we have five… We call him Directors of Admissions. He’s the individual who meet with patients, go over testing, review testing with them, put the plan together, and then hand it off to the coaches.

And we actually have I think now… Correct me if I’m wrong, Tierni. Is it seven health coaches that we currently have on the team now? Yeah. So, it’s been an incredible experience to just allow us to grow. And I know we have more to get to, because the thing is, for me, is that I really created a mission in 2021. My mom passed from diabetes. I got into this because of her almost 20 years ago, but she passed from diabetes in 2021. And that kind of put a fire under me, if you will, to really start to expand and really thinking outside the box of what I was currently doing.

And so I really wanted to create a team and a mission to change the lives of a million people. And I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. I needed an amazing team. And so I’ve been very blessed by being able to obtain incredible individuals that share this mission, share the passion, and we just have fun. We love what we do every single day.

Dr. Sandi: That really stands out when you have fun, when you’re mission-driven, it’s genuine and it really comes across. And I believe patients feel that and feel comfortable in that type of environment. So, what do you do? What’s fun for you, Tierni, in the practice and what are your responsibilities?

Tierni: So, I’ve been a coach with Dr. Shumard for three years. Back in October, I took on more of a lead coach role, which has been so much fun. My favorite part is coaching. Obviously, when I had my own private practice, I found that I spent so much time doing everything about coaching. And when I had the opportunity to join Dr. Shumard’s practice and collaborate with him and learn so much from him and interact with the other coach that was there at the time, that’s what I really loved.

But being a part of this incredible nine-month journey with people that really is pivotal in their lives, it affects them and their family members and watching the ripple effect they have, because when they’re learning and it finally starts to click for them, they’re sharing it with their family and their colleagues and other people start to get healthier off of them. That’s my favorite part. The worst part is when they go on, they’re healthy, which I love, and they leave us. But, yeah, it’s the coaching and the hiring has been amazing. Having the opportunity to just share how exciting this job is with other coaches.

Dr. Sandi: And I love that you’re hiring FMCA graduates.

Tierni: We were bringing on today. So, it’s just… I don’t know. I love all of it. Like I said, it’s a dream job.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. And when you are mission driven, when you love your work, it’s so important because so many in the profession in healthcare are burned out. We have amongst physicians, suicide is exploding, and the dissatisfaction with the system, all of the paperwork and all of the administrative demands where you get seven minutes to see a patient, you feel like you’re frustrated, even those who are carrying, those who want to really make a difference in patients’ lives and they’re just hampered. Then they feel very frustrated and they see chronic diseases going up. And so this is such a wonderful prototype, wonderful model for others to learn from. And yeah, we want this to be in every medical office. We want health coaching to grow. So, are people seen individually, remotely? Are they seen in groups? How does that work?

Dr. Shumard: Yeah, I’ll start with this, Tierni. You can finish on it if you don’t mind. So, the way that I wanted to create this model was a one-on-one approach to where they get that feeling that it’s just the two people, right? And I think people really like that one-on-one approach. So, we have it to where the coaches meet with their individual patients at their scheduled appointments. Typically for us, they meet with them twice a month, and then eventually they go to once a month as things start to become easier for them and they’re able to handle things more on their own.

But we also add an additional benefit to their program where once a month, one of our coaches, they do a one-hour group coaching call. They’re just so great at this. I don’t have to do anything. I keep saying I’m blessed, but it’s just an amazing thing that we’ve been able to create here because of their help. But they usually do some sort of presentation and then they just go through and ask questions. And Tierni can talk about this more because she’s involved in more of those group coaches, but I know they’re very interactive. People really enjoy them. Some of our patients, even though, like Tierni said, they’re so healthy and they don’t really need us anymore, oftentimes they want to stay just for that group coaching because of that connection they’ve been able to create and have that ability to still ask questions and have some accountability there as well. I just think that having that one-on-one with an option of group coaching is great. For me, there’s probably some benefits in both, but I implement them both, so they get the full benefit of both action steps there.

Dr. Sandi: That’s a beautiful model. So, how do those groups work? And what do you see in terms of the changes that people make?

Tierni: The monthly group coaching is grown to be really big and so much fun. Like Dr. Shumard said, each coach takes a month. We do a presentation on a topic that we’re either hearing a lot about in our sessions. There’s a lot that’s confusing to patients. And one of the things all of our coaches do is really simplify what’s going on in their bodies.

So, using science and using physiology, they need to learn. There’s a huge difference between us telling them not to eat white bread or processed food and actually explaining what’s going on in their bodies. So, what comes up in those group coaching calls is really amazing. I mean, now I find nobody wants to talk to me. They’re all talking to each other, which is what we wanted. That’s the community that I had always wanted to happen from the Facebook group. You’ve got people who are just starting. You’ve got people in the middle of the program, people that are in there for aftercare who have finished the program. And it’s just so incredible to watch them all interact. They ask so many great questions. They’re smart. Patients are smart now. So, it’s an incredible thing.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. That’s beautiful. And it brings back memories for me of when I was a health psychologist, and I worked… One of the groups I worked with were a bunch of oncologists. And every Friday, I would go in. Everything was live. We had no zoom then. And I would take over their staff lunchroom. Clear out the pizzas and other foods left by the drug reps. And we had this big table and people would come in and just as you said, some were brand new. They were just referred by their doctors. Others had been in the group for three years, four years. And the people who were the old-timers loved welcoming new people in this, “Oh, you’ll think you can never give up sugar, but I used to have a candy dish on my coffee table, and all night I would nosh from it but I stopped that. And if I could do that, you can too.” They were so welcoming, and it was an open-ended group and they were mostly seniors and some because of loneliness and some who couldn’t drive and they had caretakers, but they would not miss a group session. It was so important primarily for the community.

But togetherness, the idea we’re all in this together, an opportunity to share their experiences, to troubleshoot issues. And it really was effective. So, kudos to you to this practice for having that group component because I think it’s often overlooked but it can be critical. And I like how you’re combining it with the one-on-one sessions as well. So, I’d like to ask your thoughts. A lot has been written in preparation for my book. I did a lot of research looking at the AI health coach. It seems like almost every other week, something will come across my desk. Oh, Apple’s working on one. Samsung’s got one. Google, they’re all working on what they think will transform healthcare and get people healthier where they’re getting data from, let’s say a wearable. You now get some interaction with this AI health coach. And what I’m seeing is that can never replace this human element, this heart-centered connection. So, I just wondered your thoughts on that. Can it be replaced by an AI health coach?

Tierni: Do you want me to take that first?

Dr. Shumard: I’ll have you take this one first and then I’ll follow up, if you want me to.

Tierni: There’s absolutely no way. I think the greatest part of coaching is that connection, especially if you’re doing a long-term program. So, I can’t imagine interacting with yet another form of technology, especially when it comes to something as important as this. So, I cannot see it happening. I hope it doesn’t happen.

Dr. Shumard: I think there’s some time, right? Number one, the video quality, the humanism of stuff is going to be way far out. I think if it happens, it’s going to be 5 to 10 years down the road. So, there probably needs to be some pivoting. There probably needs to be some education there. Well, if they create an AI health coach, yeah, that’ll be incredibly intelligent. All that research and everything was great. But I think what Tierni just mentioned and what sounds like you’re mentioning as well, Sandi, is that the humanism, the emotion, the empathy, that’s not going to be able to be mimicked in an AI approach. And to really show that passion and care, I mean, that’s going to be very challenging for them to have. And I think people want that. They like that, especially when you’re dealing with food. People are very emotional around food. And if you have this robotic-type person telling you what to do, it’s like, “Yeah, I’m not going to do this.” But if you have that emotion there, you have that connection, it’s easier to start chipping away at changing that individual’s mindset, their habits and things. And it requires time, energy and effort and empathy. And I think that’s going to be very challenging for AI to do that.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. Well, I agree 100%. And they may be able to provide advice. They can look at your watch data. They could look at some of this incoming information and say, “Well, you need to do this.” But that’s not health coaching. As we know, health coaching is really listening and it’s asking the right questions. And when those questions are coming from a human being, and you have this connection, it is so impactful and it can never be replicated. And I think that the more we go in the direction of AI, the more people are going to long for this type of connection that’s human to human and want it, because medicine is already going in that AI direction. I’ve been reading about these care pods that are just, oh, you’re walking in the shopping center. You go into your pod. An AI robot greets you. You get your blood work. And in five minutes, you get an interpretation. And then a drone from Amazon will drop off your medication by the time you get home. So, we need that human being.

Dr. Shumard: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And it’s scary. In my opinion, it’s very scary because it just becomes so automatic, that medication and pharmaceuticals and that first line of defense becomes, “How can we treat symptoms and diseases rather than trying to understand what’s really going on and get to the root cause?” And if we don’t continue doing this journey and it moves down that, we’re going to have a society full of sick individuals, which is again, part of my passion and why I love what I do, because I want to get you to educate and put as much information out there. That is a model we need for sure. But this, what we’re doing should be first line of defense. And this should be for emergency situations. And this is what your healthcare should really be about. I mean, we talk about healthcare, health insurance, the reality is that we all believe… I mean, I believe that we don’t really have healthcare or health insurance. We have sick care and sick insurance. And healthcare truly comes from within. And if we can do the right things for our body now, it’s going to pay dividends in the future. When we get to that age group or whatever that people say I should be deteriorating or whatever it is.

Dr. Sandi: Oh, absolutely. So, as a remote practice, I know you’re located in San Diego physically, but can people anywhere become patients? Are you found by licensing in California? How does that work for your practice?

Dr. Shumard: Yeah. So, since we are a health coaching program and we let them know upfront, we use scientific data, testing, etc., to evaluate, but we do not diagnose. We do not treat or anything like that. We’re addressing functional losses, right?

So, since we’re a health coaching program, we can work with individuals all over the country, right? And so it makes it super simple. We’ve got people in rural Texas, or Wisconsin, which seems to be very rural, by the way. I didn’t realize it was so rural, but the towns are so far from each other. And so people who don’t have access to local functional medicine doctors or functional healthcare can now have access online, virtually, from their own home. All they need is an internet connection, right? Either a cell phone, a computer, whatever.

And we communicate with them and we can send them things through mail, which makes things super simple, including testing. Testing can be done locally through their local Labcorp, or testing through urine, stool, saliva, etc., that we can run. All be done at their home and then sent back through the mail. So, it makes it super simple, super efficient. And we just want to help people, educate them on what they can be doing to help their bodies, help their life, and to help start reversing their chronic conditions and get them off medications, if it’s possible, with the help of their doctor.

Dr. Sandi: Well, I love what you’ve started and I’m excited for the future for you to see this grow. I think this is the future of functional medicine, the future of medicine. You are a real trailblazer. So, where can people find you?

Dr. Shumard: Yeah, so the easiest place is our website, and I’ll make it easy. It’s my last name, drshumard.com. You’ll get a nice introduction to what we do and how we help individuals. And we even have a link on there for my webinar that I present on to educate individuals further on what we do to see if they may be a good fit, if they’re looking for something that we’re offering, which gives them an opportunity to purchase an initial consultation, to meet with one of our team members, and taking through the process to make sure that we can help them, and guide them, and support them on what their needs are. Obviously, it’s the patient’s needs first, what they’re looking for on optimizing their health and to give them a better chance for quality of life.

Dr. Sandi: That’s great. Tierni, where can people find you?

Tierni: Working at Dr. Shumard. I had a private practice, but this has been so much fun. I’m floating around on social media.

Dr. Sandi: Okay, absolutely. And then they can find you directly through Dr. Shumard’s website as well and learn more about you and other health coaches. And this has just been wonderful conversation. Thank you for all that you do, for your patients, for the mission of health coaching and for being a believer in health coaching and its power.

Dr. Shumard is going to be on a panel from IFM’s annual international conference. And I don’t know when this episode will be aired, but this will be a really important panel discussion with other practitioners sharing their models and showing how health coaching can really be key to a successful medical practice. So, thank you both.

Tierni: Thank you.

Dr. Shumard: Thank you.