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Tina McClelland

Exploring Life & Business with Tina McClelland of Hydration Room

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Tina McClelland.

Hi Tina, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Hydration Room started as a very personal problem. While I was in residency training to become an anesthesiologist, my now-wife was struggling with debilitating migraines. Like most people, she tried to manage them with oral medication, and the relief was slow and inconsistent. In the hospital, I had a front-row seat to how differently the body responds when you deliver vitamins and medication intravenously rather than orally. The speed and effectiveness simply weren’t comparable. I started giving her IV therapy for her migraines, and the difference in her quality of life was dramatic.
That was the genesis of Hydration Room. What I was doing for my wife out of necessity, bypassing the limits of oral absorption to get faster, more meaningful relief, was something that could help far more people than just those in a hospital bed. So in 2014 I set out to bring that same clinical-grade IV therapy to people outside the hospital, delivered safely and properly, in a setting that actually felt good to walk into.
From there we grew location by location across California. That founding philosophy still shapes everything we do. We blend Western medicine with an openness to Eastern principles, because we’ve never believed the best care means picking a side. Today Hydration Room is a physician-founded IV and injection therapy company with more than 60 clinics across California and over 1.5 million therapies safely administered.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Honestly, no. And I think anyone who tells you building a medical company was smooth probably wasn’t doing it right. A few of the real challenges:
Operating as a true medical facility, not just a wellness brand. Because we’re physician-led and clinically licensed, we carry a level of regulatory, insurance, and staffing complexity that a typical spa or studio never has to touch. It’s been worth every bit of it for the credibility and safety it gives our patients, but it added real weight at every stage of growth.
The physical footprint. Opening in new communities means navigating landlords, leases, and zoning. Anyone who has grown a multi-location healthcare business knows the real estate side is its own battle, entirely separate from the clinical one.
Building the right team. We ask our nurse practitioners and clinical staff to do more actual patient consultation, not just administer a set menu. Hiring and training the right people for that takes more time and care than a faster, lower-touch model would. None of that is unique to us. But it’s a big part of why our growth has been steady rather than explosive. We’ve cared more about doing it right than doing it fast.

As you know, we’re big fans of Hydration Room. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Hydration Room is a physician-founded IV and injection therapy company. The simplest way to describe us is this. We deliver IV and injection therapy with the standards of a doctor’s office, in a setting that feels calm and modern.
Our focus is deliberately narrow. IVs and injections, done exceptionally well. That range runs from foundational hydration and vitamin therapy to more advanced offerings like NAD+, peptide therapy, and regenerative services. What ties all of it together isn’t the menu. It’s that every therapy is physician-formulated and delivered by licensed clinical staff.
What sets us apart is how we practice. Most places in this space hand you a fixed menu and let you self-select. We don’t. Every new patient meets with a nurse practitioner for a complimentary consultation, and we build a plan around what that person actually needs, whether that’s iron support, recovery after an illness, athletic recovery, or a broader wellness protocol. That consultation-first model is slower and harder to scale, and we chose it on purpose. Add to that standardized clinical documentation and vitamins sourced from vendors held to USP 797 and GMP standards, and you have something categorically different from a mobile service or a spa offering IVs on the side.
Brand-wise, what I’m most proud of is that we’ve grown without diluting the standard. Every location has to clear the same clinical and safety bar, which means the people matter enormously. The caliber of nurse practitioners and nurses who’ve chosen to build careers with us is something I don’t take for granted.
What I want your readers to know is that we’re not chasing a trend. IV therapy has been used in hospitals for decades. We’re simply bringing that same physician-grade care into everyday life, with the standards you’d expect from a doctor’s office and not a pop-up.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Honestly, I’ve come to believe most of what people call luck is really timing meeting preparation. There’s some good fortune in the fact that the culture caught up to what we were already doing. Wellness became something people were willing to invest in, and by the time that wave arrived, we’d already spent years building real clinical infrastructure. So when the demand came, we weren’t scrambling to look credible. We already were.
But it wasn’t all tailwind. Plenty broke the other way, from leases that fell through to conditions we didn’t choose to the ordinary friction of growing a medical company one clinic at a time.
If there’s real luck in my story, it’s the people. The right nurse practitioners, the right clinical partners, the right team showing up at the right moments. That’s the kind of good fortune you can’t manufacture, only try to be worthy of. My job has mostly been to build something good enough that talented people want to stay. When they do, the rest tends to follow.

Pricing:

  • Our offerings span IV and injection therapy, advanced protocols, and an at-home line for maintaining routines between visits. || Injections starting at $30 || IV therapy starting at $99
  • NAD+ therapy, offered as single sessions or a series starting at $549 || Peptide therapy, available following a clinical consultation || Regenerative services, personalized after a clinical evaluation
  • At-home wellness sprays and serums to help patients maintain their routine between visits || Memberships starting at $165/month for patients who want to make care a regular routine
  • Complimentary consultation with a nurse practitioner for every new patient || Not billed through insurance, but therapies are FSA and HSA eligible
  • We’ve worked hard to keep our pricing accessible without sacrificing quality, so there’s something for everyone. Foundational hydration and vitamin support is priced for everyday care. Our more specialized therapies, designed to support goals like weight management, longevity, and iron or other nutrient needs, carry a higher price that reflects what goes into them: more clinical time, more advanced formulations, and closer oversight.

Contact Info:

Four healthcare professionals in blue uniforms standing in a bright, modern clinic with white walls and furniture.

A nurse and a patient sit on white chairs, holding hands and smiling at each other in a medical setting.

A woman in medical scrubs standing and talking to a seated woman in a medical setting, both smiling.

Woman sitting on a white armchair with a pillow, smiling in a bright room with blue wave wall art.

Two people sitting on white sofas in a bright room, smiling and talking, with a blue wave design on the wall behind them.

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