Clearer Answers, Built-In Education: How Dr. Sarah Byrne, MD Brings Gut Health into Primary Care

About Dr. Byrne‍

Dr. Sarah Byrne is a board-certified family medicine physician and the owner and Medical Director of Root Family Medicine. Root uses a hybrid model, in which most providers work in a membership model but can still bill insurance for primary care. She has over 15 years of experience blending functional medicine, primary care, and  a love of herbal medicine, as she digs into underlying factors like gut health, stress, and diet. Living with celiac disease has made her especially passionate about gut health, and her favorite part of her work is caring for whole families as they grow.

Why she switched

Dr. Byrne has been doing some form of gut testing since 2011. With PCR testing, she'd get results showing which species were high or low, but she wasn't always sure what to do next. "In primary care, I'm not an expert in every bacteria," she says. After a few patients told her they'd found Tiny Health helpful, she took a closer look at shotgun sequencing. Seeing what the microbes are actually doing (i.e. their functional capacity), not just which ones are there, gives her a practical picture of what's happening in the gut and how to improve it.

How she uses Tiny Health

The patient and provider interface was a big draw for Dr. Byrne. Patients can click into their results to learn about each species, and the portal's educational resources are updated over time with the most current, emerging research. "I love that it is on the patient's side, so they aren't just getting a sheet of paper with bacteria that they can't understand," she says. 

Getting started

The built-in education was a big part of how she was able to make the switch from PCR to Tiny Health so successfully. She reviews new results with Tiny Health's microbiome specialists and reaches out when a new metric comes up to learn more.  “There's a lot of education in there. I learned a lot just ordering the tests and navigating it for myself."

What she'd tell other practitioners

"Once I started doing this test, I really stopped doing all the other tests because I just found it so much more useful and practical… I just don't see why I would use another test." Price matters too, since insurance often doesn't cover gut testing. She finds the standard gut test cheaper and more useful than what she used before, and the PRO kit comparable in price to competitor tests. Collection is also far easier, which makes patients more willing to retest.

In her words

• "You can utilize the interface to teach your patients, and you can learn and continue to learn [from] the coaches at Tiny Health."
• "It's an easier ask, a better price point… then you can even repeat it and see how [they] are.”