Meet Brooke Niss

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooke Niss.

Hi Brooke, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My journey began after working for a grassroots lobbying organization after college in 2003-2004. I had been going door to door and organizing with a non-profit doing good work, yet I began feeling utter desperation with the start of the Iraq War and the increasing problems and inequities in our communities. I then spent six months working in small communities in Central America learning from these communities how to grow food, and other sustainable practices. I became increasingly aware of how I felt called to pursue work that was positive and
proactive to affect change and that was tired and disenchanted with the mainstream political systems in the US. I returned from Central America
with the firm belief that if our urban communities could connect to nature and the source of our food and medicine, and if we could create access and education around holistic health, that we coul create healthier, more empowered communities. In 2005, I became a Master Gardener and began working in school and community gardens throughout LA. At the same time, I began working as an administrator at the school of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Santa Monica.

This is where I would realize my eventual journey toward becoming an acupuncturist, Chinese herbalist, and functional medicine practitioner. Working in urban gardens while learning about holistic medicine allowed me to see firsthand how the best medicine grows in the ground all around us. And that even in the densest urban environments, connecting to nature can empower communities to feel healthier and take
care of each other and the land.

In 2006 in Seattle during graduate school, I was blessed to meet my business and life partner, Michael Niss. We shared the common goal to create access to acupuncture, herbal medicine and the holistic approach to health. We both were passionate that all people, not just the elite class should have access to learn tools for living their healthiest and happiest lives.

Mike and I move back to LA together in 2009 and designed our current clinic, Universal Family Wellness Clinic to be affordable, accessible, and of the highest quality holistic medicine. We have a private practice setting with a sliding pay scale model we call the Middle Model.

We work with patients with all stress related illness and disease, digestive issues, headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression, chronic illness or infection, diabetes, cancer, women’s, men’s, LGBTQ, and pediatric health, pain, injury and so much more. We work with patients to find the root cause of their disease and to support their healing.

The Sliding scale Model means patients choose their rates based on their income and budgets and how often they need to come to see best results. We have offered the most affordable rates in the country for private practice acupuncture and holistic medicine for the last 11 years. Through this time, we have proven that this model creates access to care for diverse communities, allow people to access consistent care and see better results, as well as
providing sustainable living for the practitioners and staff at the clinic. Our philosophy is that every person in our community has the right to quality health care at a fair price. We are committed to developing and demonstrating a sustainable business model that can provide affordable access to natural medicine.

Additionally, Mike and I were inspired to create our own line of high quality, toxin free herbal products at affordable prices, called Applied Botanicals. At our clinic we integrate Acupuncture, East Asian Herbal Medicine, Functional Medicine, and Functional Nutrition to heal beyond the confines of Western disease diagnostics, providing a holistic and customized approach to help patients achieve their optimal health.

We are currently in the process of expanding the clinic to a much larger space where we will be able to expand our reach even further.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Oh man, well yes there have been struggles but we have learned fro each one. A very wise teacher once taught me that “big fires can burn out quickly, small fires burn slow and steady”. So, for the last 11 years we have tried to grow our business as the demand and need grew, slow and steady. In the beginning colleagues in our field told us that the sliding scale for private practice acupuncture wouldn’t work. People would say, “Why wouldn’t everyone just pay the lowest rate?”, and “You’re degrading the value of the medicine by charging less”. We definitely listened to these opinions but we knew in our hearts that we had to try something different. Along the way, we have made many choices that are in line with our philosophy. And this has served us to create a community of staff and patients that are respectful, and immensely grateful for the experience of empowering healthcare.

Learning how to manage our team effectively has been a beautiful challenge and we can now say that each member of our team is equally valuable and unique and the combination of all of our practitioners and staff create the clinic that is much bigger than Mike or I. This has really been affirmed through the last year with our greatest challenge yet, working with humans in person through a global pandemic.

We have been re-opened since May 2020 and have been operating safely throughout. We have been able to support our community with basic health needs, covid related symptoms, post covid related symptoms, and so much more.

This has been immensely challenging as business owners, and we did put our planned expansion on hold for the last year while we did our best to be safe for our patients and to keep our whole staff on and to stay open.

We are now back working hard on our new space that we will be moving to late Summer 2021. Over the years, Mike and I have developed all of our systems, we have had challenging times, and it is definitely a challenge in it of itself to work with my life partner, but it is also the greatest gift.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am deeply passionate about the integration of East Asian Medicine and Functional Medicine, including the systems of acupuncture, herbal medicine with Functional Medicine. I am passionate about finding the root cause of disease in our bodies and in our communities. I work with complex immune and inflammatory patterns and understand the body, mind and spirit as a puzzle that is waiting to be understood and put together.

I fight for my patients and work hard to support them with what they need to feel empowered in their health journey.

I am most proud of my family, Mike, my daughter 9 and my son 5, and for our amazing community of patients and clinic staff. I am so honored to work with such brilliant, kind and dedicated humans everyday.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I once drove from San Francisco, CA to Panama, Central America in a pickup truck. I learned more on these travels from all the people I met that I ever could have imagined. These travels informed and fueled my passion for what I do today.

Pricing:

• At Universal Family Wellness Clinic we operate on a sliding scale of $50 to $80 per treatment, we offer a $40 low income rate, and a $90 high income rate.

Contact Info:

• Email: brooke@universalfamilyclinic.com
• Website: https://universalfamilyclinic.com
• Instagram: @universalfamilywellness @appliedbotanicals
• Facebook: Universal Family Wellness Clinic
• Yelp: Universal Family Wellness Clinic

Image Credits
Kathleen Deloso