- August 24, 2026
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At 15, Dr. Lisa Koche was undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia, enduring spinal taps, bone marrow biopsies and bouts of vomiting so frequent she eventually learned to embrace them.
If she knew she was about to get sick and lose her lunch, she would start binging candy bars to make it worth her while. She discovered that school passes meant for medical appointments could also be used to, occasionally, sneak friends out of class. Beneath the fear and pain, she said, was a stubborn conviction that she would survive — and that her illness would eventually serve a purpose.
“I’m unique because I was a patient before I was a doctor,” Koche says.
More than three decades later, The Tampa-native’s experience has become the foundation of a growing health and wellness business.
Koche, 56, opened an expanded, 8,000-square-foot home for Spectra Wellness Solutions in January, bringing physicians, nurse practitioners, mental health therapists and other wellness providers together with a collection of treatments ranging from conventional medical care to hormone therapy, nutritional supplements, IV infusions and services commonly marketed as “biohacking.”
The new center, located at 504 N. Reo St. in Tampa, represents Koche’s attempt to build something larger than a traditional medical practice: a cash-pay health and wellness brand capable of drawing patients from across Florida and, eventually, around the country.
Its location near Tampa International Airport was intentional, Koche said. Her plans include wellness retreats, educational programs, corporate events and appearances by nationally known speakers. An open house is planned for October.
Koche said the clinic’s strategy is to serve two broad groups: patients who are frustrated after cycling through the conventional health system without finding answers, and generally healthy people willing to spend money in pursuit of greater energy, longevity or performance.
“We have most of our clientele who are people who are frustrated with the traditional medical system and who want more,” she says.
When conventional physicians search for the root cause of an illness, they use medical histories, examinations and diagnostic testing to identify disease and select treatments supported by clinical evidence. Functional medicine uses a broader “whole body” approach, according to the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine. Practitioners typically place greater emphasis on how nutrition, sleep, stress, genetics, environment and lifestyle may interact across the body, then build highly individualized treatment plans.
It’s an approach that places Spectra within a fast-growing corner of the health care industry, but the scientific evidence backing this new model is still in its infancy.
Functional medicine has yet to appear among the specialties and subspecialties recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialists. That’s why Koche is triple ABMS-certified in internal medicine, bariatrics and anti-aging and regenerative medicine — combining conventional medical care at Spectra with nutrition, mental health services, hormone therapy and treatments commonly marketed as “biohacking.”
Spectra operates within that unsettled space. Koche presents its breadth as an advantage for patients seeking more personalized care; the business challenge is demonstrating which parts of that expansive model produce measurable benefits and persuading patients to pay directly for services that insurance may not cover.
Some of Spectra’s services, including red-light therapy, pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, ozone sauna treatments and regenerative procedures, remain the subject of scientific debate. Koche acknowledged that the clinic must be cautious about how it describes certain regenerative treatments.
For Koche, however, the business is an extension of her own long medical journey.
After her leukemia returned in an ovary when she was 20, she developed heart failure, which she attributes to chemotherapy. Those experiences led her to study medicine at Emory University before returning to Tampa for an internal medicine residency at the University of South Florida.
She began Spectra immediately after residency, initially operating within a cardiology practice and accepting about half the salary she believed she could have earned elsewhere. Her assignment was to develop the practice’s preventive side, focusing on cardiovascular disease and obesity.
Koche later studied nutrition, obesity medicine and functional and regenerative approaches. She said she helped develop an obesity program at Tampa General Hospital and began offering vitamin infusions roughly 20 years ago, long before IV therapy became common at wellness clinics and medical spas. For years, Spectra Wellness Solutions operated out of a small office space in Hyde Park, she says.
The practice evolved each time Koche’s health did.
After the birth of her daughter, Koche said, she struggled with exhaustion, chronic sinus problems, psoriasis and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune condition affecting the thyroid. Visits to conventional specialists did not bring the improvement she wanted.
She began experimenting with dietary changes, supplements and other alternative techniques. Among them was applied kinesiology, sometimes called muscle testing. Koche said she felt better after beginning the regimen and eventually brought Clearwater-based practitioner George Springer into Spectra. He has worked alongside her for about 15 years, she says.
“I already knew there were gaps in traditional medicine,” Koche says. “I wanted to be the person who treats that gap. I treat the space between patients’ persistent symptoms and what standard scans or laboratory tests reveal.”
Today, Spectra’s model depends on assembling many services under one roof. The center includes another physician, two nurse practitioners, three people in its applied kinesiology department and a chiropractor. Koche’s sister, a mental health therapist, joined the expanded practice with a team of four therapists. The business also offers aesthetics, limited pediatric services and a retail vitamin operation.
Its performance and longevity services include hyperbaric oxygen, red-light and IV therapies. Spectra also promotes hormone replacement, epigenetic testing and regenerative treatments, including procedures involving patients’ own blood products. Some of the more expensive services cost thousands of dollars, Koche said. She declines to disclose revenue numbers.
Because the practice largely operates outside the insurance system, its growth rests on attracting patients willing and able to pay directly for care. Koche argues that the model allows providers to spend more time with patients and create individualized plans. But it also narrows the potential customer base and places more pressure on Spectra to demonstrate value in a crowded wellness market.
Koche said one of her greatest business challenges is simply explaining what Spectra does.
“We do everything, so it’s hard to explain what we do,” she says.
The breadth that differentiates Spectra can also blur its identity. It is part medical office, part mental health practice, part treatment center and part community space. Koche says her greatest challenge is in distinguishing the business not only from conventional health systems, but also from functional medicine practices and med spas offering popular treatments such as hormones and peptides.
She believes her internal medicine background and multidisciplinary staff provide that distinction.
“One of the biggest challenges in practicing this way is just meeting people where they are,” Koche says. “It’s understanding that everybody's coming from a different understanding, background, prior health history, prior trauma history, and just respecting and helping people connect to their own biology and provide a path that's unique to them.”
Spectra’s growth strategy extends beyond patient appointments. Koche has spent five years speaking for the team behind famed motivational speaker Tony Robbins’ Life Mastery health program, appearing remotely at events in Fiji about six times a year and on an annual virtual stage. That exposure has introduced her to audiences numbering in the thousands and expands her market well beyond Tampa Bay.
Her next book, “The Unwritten Prescription,” is being published by Penguin Random House and is scheduled to be released Dec. 8, with preorders expected to begin in September. Koche described it as a combination of science, personal history and spirituality, with chapters examining steps readers can take themselves and questions they can bring to a doctor. She is also marketing the book to companies as a potential employee benefit and hoping it will lead to more speaking engagements.
“Dr. Koche bridges science and spirit in a way that is both revolutionary and deeply healing,” Tony Robbins says in a blurb for the upcoming book. “This book will change how you see yourself.”
At the Tampa center, Koche envisions regular educational programs, breathwork, sound-bowl sessions, outdoor yoga and contrast therapy. She also wants to host social gatherings for different age groups and create a place where patients can meet others pursuing similar health goals.
That community programming is central to her longer-term ambition: turning Spectra from a physician-led practice into a destination for retreats and collaborative wellness programs.
The expansion unfolded as Koche faced another medical crisis. In February, shortly after the move, she underwent an emergency, nine-hour brain operation. She returned to work within weeks but lost hearing in her left ear.
Koche said the experience tested the ideas about resilience that she teaches patients and discusses in her forthcoming book.
“Healing is a spiral, not linear,” she says. “You have more tools. You have more capacity to expand into more of who you really are.”
For Koche, the new facility is the culmination of a medical journey that began with a question no doctor could answer when she was a teenager: Why did she become sick?
Spectra’s business is now built around patients asking versions of the same question — and Koche’s belief that they will pay for a broader search for answers.
