Remedy Place Founder Jonathan Leary on Alternative Healing Modalities and the Future of Wellness

Jonathan Leary, DC, is a concierge wellness doctor who’s worked with countless celebrities, athletes, and VIP clients. He founded Remedy Place—the first-ever social wellness club, which presently has locations in Los Angeles and New York City—based on his years of alternative health education and private practice. In this Q&A, he discusses how Remedy Place came to be, the most popular treatments they offer, why it’s so important to go beyond the traditional model of healthcare, and more.

How did you come up with the concept of a social wellness club?

I have been working on Remedy Place since 2012. It was always my dream practice idea from the moment I started my business plan. I knew that I wanted to create something different from anything else out there and I wanted to cultivate an environment different from anything else I saw in normal healthcare. 

Previously, when volunteering in hospitals during my pre-med studies I saw the chaos and stress constantly (not only for the patients but also for the doctors and hospital staff) and I knew there was a huge opportunity for improvement. 

At the end of 2015, I completed the original business plan during my four years of doctorate studies, but when it came time for funding I quickly found out business loans were not an option. I was then forced to pivot and then opened my own concierge practice, which I had for five years before the first club opened. During this period, I constantly updated the business plan after listening to my patients, seeing what worked, what didn’t work, what they were willing to change, what they were not, what stressors they all experienced, etc. This data and clinical evidence shaped the foundation of Remedy Place and put me in the perfect position to look at all of the issues I saw in the industry, and then create the solutions to them while making sure it was also a smart business. 

In short, my findings were: the environment plays a major role in the healing process (based on the quick success in my patient’s homes), alternative medicine, preventative care & lifestyle changes were the only way to fix the root cause of my patient’s health issues (based on over 1200 patients success stories over the years) and lastly almost every single patient I had said because of their healthier lifestyle changes they felt restricted and sometimes lonely because it restricted their social life. The solution – make self-care a regular practice, make an environment that is designed to heal and make it social (so we can enhance their health and social life at the same time)

What are the most popular treatments at Remedy Place?

All of our tech-remedy experiences are pretty evenly booked at each club! Furthermore, our lead alternative medicine doctors (Acupuncturist, Chiropractor, Naturopathic Doctor & Functional Medicine Doctors) are fully booked pretty much every day. They are truly the foundation behind Remedy and they are not only great for preventative care but they are naturally curing and fixing the root cause of chronic pain, gastrointestinal problems, mental health conditions and so much more!

With that being said, from an outside perspective our infamous ice bath classes are definitely the most viewed or talked about publically. As a company we prioritize privacy, especially because most of our guests fully trust us with their health and care (also the reason why we don’t do influencer collabs because we don’t want to have people filming in the space), but even the most private guests/members of Remedy sometimes like to talk about joining the 6 minute club and post about it. Also, our ice bath class experiences have over 100M views (on tikok) so a lot of peoples first introduction to the brand has been through seeing that on social media.

What’s your favorite treatment (or one you recommend most) and why?

I wouldn’t say I have a favorite only because I genuinely use everything in the space regularly! I guess it truly depends on the occasion and how I am feeling on a certain day. For the quickest positive shift to my mental and physical health I would choose my ice baths. For my overall health and performance, all of my alternative medicine doctors are my go to no matter if I have a symptom, something more serious or if I just want to make sure I am getting healthier.

Nevertheless, for the past couple of months I have lived on flights and because of being stagnant so high in the air I really enjoy our FDA-approved full-body lymphatic compression suit. Your lymphatic system is very complex, but it is very powerful. This system is responsible for helping remove toxins (and other Impurities, sodium, carbon dioxide, and many other byproducts) out of the body. This is your body’s internal system that helps remove wastes. Unlike your circulatory system there is no pumping mechanism so the only way to help push this out of the body is through movement and manual manipulation. So when seated a lot or on a flight you tend to decrease the movement in your lymphatic system (you always feel bloated or something even swollen after a long flight)

Although from the outside it looks simple, the research behind this is pretty incredible. After going through the experience for an hour and squeezing out your entire body you can test the efficiency of this treatment by testing the urine after the session when waste is eliminated out of the body.  

How do the treatments at Remedy Place enhance wellness and go beyond the traditional healthcare model?

It all starts with education. Right now to fix our healthcare system we need to teach people how to achieve their own health independence by being proactive instead of reactive. You have to make lifestyle changes and learn how to take care of yourself daily. The problem is this is not what we were taught and now people are more curious than ever but don’t really know how to do it. At Remedy Place not only is education a primary goal of our team with each guest’s experience but our end goal is to be a free education platform that can give you the instruction manual to your body.

With this as our core philosophy, we know that the future of healthcare is going to trend more and more towards alternative medicine and that is why we are cultivating the best of the best up-and-coming holistic doctors to pave the way.

Next, we truly believe that human connection is the most important form of self-care. So that is why we created “social self-care” and all these experiences to bring people together and enhance their health and social life at the same time.

Lastly, every ‘remedy’ at Remedy Place is rooted in science and my own clinical evidence. My practice in sports medicine really set us up on a healthy foundation. Listening to patients for 7 years, hearing what they liked, what they didn’t like, what worked, what didn’t, and so on – and truly understanding their stressors gave me so many data points to find solutions for. 

With all of the above together, that is what makes Remedy Place so special!

As the founder of Remedy Place, what has been the most rewarding moment or greatest client success story to date?

Honestly, everyday I wake up and have to pinch myself that I am living my dream and reflect on how grateful I am that my passion is my work and also that my passion also gets to help people at the same time. I mean this in the most genuine (hopefully not corny) way.

With that being said at the end of the year (2022) my team and I reviewed the data from the previous year and when I saw that the West Hollywood club helped people over 25,000 times in a single club and my mind was blown away. When I had my practice, I was fully maxed out with patients everyday and had a huge waitlist. This was great, but at the same time limiting my dream goal to positively impact our healthcare system at a larger scale. A patient once told me – “How are you going to change healthcare seeing one patient at a time?” That is when I really shifted my priority to make sure Remedy Place launched so it could be a platform that could reach the masses. In the future, knowing that each club should be helping guests over 40,000 times per year, per club I can truly see the impact that the club alone will make when we have 5, 10, 15, 20 club, etc. And that is just our clubs, nevermind all the other branches we are launching with Remedy Place.

What are your skincare and self-care non-negotiables?

I think skin health all starts from within. Doing my functional medicine and maintaining a healthy diet based on those results has played the biggest role in not only feeling good, but also looking good. Every day I eat healthy, I move, I do my breathwork/meditation and some form (or a couple) of self-care. It took me a long time to get my whole routine down and to truly love every single part of it, but now there is not a single thing I would change.

About Dr. Leary:

Dr. Leary is the first and only Concierge Wellness Doctor who is changing the face of standard healthcare. He graduated at the top of his class with a Doctorate in Chiropractic Medicine that provided him with an extensive foundation in anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, clinical nutrition, and rehabilitation. He spent a decade researching and developing Remedy Place’s cutting-edge techniques that optimize the body’s natural ability to heal. Throughout his career, he has brought his professional expertise to a wide range of celebrities (i.e. Kardashians), athletes (i.e. Shaun White), and patients from all walks of life. His visionary leadership, deep network of industry professionals and capital, as well as years of clinical experience place him in the ideal position to see around corners and capitalize on the next wave of healthcare trends.