My 2024 Predictions for the Physician Community

If your business isn't working the way you expected, it's not because you're bad at business. It's because no one ever taught you.

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Well, hello. Hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the On Trendy podcast. As always, super pumped to be in your ears. And I just wanted to start off by saying thank you. Like, thank you for sharing these podcast episodes, thank you for reaching out in the DMs and the private messages letting me know how this has help helped you with your business, how this has helped you navigate the very fascinating healthcare space we find ourselves in. And today I wanted to take a moment and talk about my 2024 predictions as far as the physician community goes. Now, when we look at health care, there are a lot of, you know, different things going on. And the purpose of this conversation is not really to fix the healthcare system because that's a, that's a big bigger problem. It's more around what do we need to do as doctors to preserve ourselves as we navigate this time. So I want you to think about it like kind of when you get on an airplane and the, the flight attendants are like, okay, if we, if the cabin loses pressure, oxygen masks will come down and make sure you put the mask on yourself before you try to help somebody else. So helping the healthcare system is a herculean task, which we're not running away from, we are going to do, but we have to put our oxyge mask on first. Okay. So this is really about that. Okay. And I kind of wanted to look at this in looking at the different places where doctors find themselves, different types of work or business and things like that. And so I'm kind of, you know, breaking this up into a few sections. And so the very first group of docs I want to talk about are the employed physicians. And in the entrepreneur world, you know, I'm a firm believer that every physician should embrace entrepreneurship, whether you're. You're working a job job, or whether you own your own business, whether it's a private practice or your coach or your consultant or your speaker or whatever. But we invested too heavily in our education, right? Like, you're talking $250,000 in school loans for us to not be in control of how we create a return on investment. And you may be saying, well, I didn't go to medical school to make money, and most people didn't go to medical school to make money. However, we do live in an economic world, and we don't want to pretend like money is not important. Okay, so it's not number one, but it's very close to number one. All right, so employee, physician, what's the problem? What's the problem? We're going to see more of in 2024. They're going to be a lot more terminations. A lot more terminations. I started talking about doctors taking control in 2016, and if you think about that, that was. That was a long time ago, right? That was eight years ago. And I'm like, okay, guys, we. If all we know how to do is doctor, we're gonna. We're gonna be out of luck, in control. And, you know, like, with what is going on, a time is coming where it will be harder for doctors to find jobs. And I remember how people say, oh, you're so ridiculous. That will never happen. I'm emergency medicine, trains. That will never happen. We'll always be in high demand and stuff like that. I'm like, no, you don't get it. Like, look at what is happening. And so now it's a lot more obvious. And of course, Covid made it a whole lot more obvious, but it is accelerating. It is not slowing down at all. And so I cannot believe. I mean, I knew it was coming, but I cannot believe how often it's almost every day that I see a post on Facebook by a doctor saying, I was terminated without cause. I was terminated without cause. I mean, this is something that, when I was a resident, there was no way to conceptualize that, right? Because that was just not a thing that happens. So they're going to be more terminations. Okay. And I promise you this is a very encouraging episode. Okay? I just need to tell you what is, and I'll tell you what to do. So there's going to be more terminations and our roles are going to be more commoditized. And you might be like, I don't understand why that's happening and all of that, but I'm just telling you what is right. And so you can do what you do and these five other people can do what you do, right? There's going to be more commoditized. And so if you are an employed physician or what should you be thinking about, what is the solution to this? Okay? And there are a few things. Number one, you must understand that you already own a company. Your company is Dr. U Incorporated. Your job is to build your brand. Okay? The thing about building a brand, and this is something, whether you're employed or not, as a physician you want to do, your personal brand is something that you can leverage to create all kinds of different opportunities, start all kinds of different businesses, start all kinds of different verticals, and you get to just build and build on top of it. It is an asset. It is a seven figure asset, right? And I want us to start thinking about our brands. For instance, if you get fired, terminated without cause, what kind of brand have you built that will make it so much easier compared to somebody else, so much easier to get another job. Okay? I have a doctor who's a client of mine who, you know, the hospital had given her this ridiculous contract to sign that had a non compete, that if she had signed it, she left, she would literally need to move six hours away to get a job. That's how wide the non compete was. And she was just like, I'm not signing this. Right? And she decided, you know what, I'm just gonna leave. She had, she someone who had built her brand, built her network, built her name, and so somebody else found out she was leaving, it's like, oh my goodness, I will start a whole practice for you. Come work with me. Right? Why? Because of the power of her brand. Okay? So you want to build your brand like starting yesterday, okay? And so since you couldn't start yesterday, today's the next best day. That's number one. Number two, build your network, okay? Because people are like gold, right? The more people you have in your world, the more access you have to answers, to opportunities, to jobs, to business opportunity, all kinds of things. It's all in people. And so the bigger your network is, the higher your net worth. The, the More control, the more control you have. And so maybe you're like me, you're an introvert. And maybe you're like, I was, you're painfully shy, socially awkward, introverted introvert. I just want to invite you to understand that networking is not a personality trait. It's a skill. And you can learn it. But start growing your network. Start growing the number of people you know who are in a position to be a gift to you. Now, that doesn't mean it's manipulative, right? Because again, we talk about networking, but you lean into, you know, what's in it for them, right? So you lead with service, you lead with being a gift to them. And someday when you need it, there'll be a gift back. This is just the way the world works, right? So grow your network. Don't just know you. Right? Okay. And the other thing is build business skills. It is never too early to build business skills. Every time we open up the entrepreneurly business school, people ask me, okay, so I'm thinking of opening a business six months from now, so maybe I should wait till then to start the business. I'm like, yeah, but what skills are you going to use to start the business? Right? The best time to start acquiring the skills is now. And in the entrepreneur business school world, we call it the business before the business. And the people who have done this, it's amazing that they have been able to start their businesses with a bank. Because I'm like, why are you waiting? Like, the first thing that needs to happen is you need to become an entrepreneur, right? It's not that when the door is open, it doesn't make you an entrepreneur. So I'll give you an example. There's a doctor who's on the, in the entrepreneur business school, and he was a partner at a practice and one day they call him and they fire him. Just fired him, right? But this is a deal at this point. He had been in the entrepreneur business school for almost 10 months and he was building the skill, building his social media presence, building his brand, building his network speaking, doing all kinds of things, building his team. Even though, you know, like it wasn't his team, but he was building his team and, and you know, like getting them profitable, right? Like, how do I build a profitable team and all of these things. So guess what he had when they fired him. Skills. Guess what he did when they fired him? He went and opened his own practice. And he is starting busy, right? Because he understood the business before the business. He started building his list. He started building People who are patients. He started scheduling before his do were open, and he is going to absolutely crush it. I can't even wait to get him on the podcast. Okay, but this is somebody who was fired, but he had built his brand, built his network, acquired business skills. He was ready. He was ready. You may say, oh, but my, my place of employment, they're really great. Like, they're not going to do anything like that. And that's fine. But if they are, you know, I told you this. The story of another doctor who is, who's a student in the entrepreneur business school. She's one of the EBS lifers, right? She's like, I'm never leaving and we love her. So she says, you know, she, she was talking to me at a, at a vision retreat that we had, and she said, Dr. Una, I have made the most money I have ever made as an employed physician. That's what she said. And I took 12 weeks off. Why did she do that? Because she has built her business skills and she has built her brand. Right? She's built her negotiation skills. She did all of that. So if you're an employed physician, the worst thing you can do is just stay. Like, I'm employ and my job will take care of me. Nobody's taking care of anybody. Like, it's too risky to do that. You have your family depending on you, have you depending on you, have your dreams depending on you. You take care of you. Okay. Okay. So that's for the employee physician, second group, private practice. Okay, what's the problem? Well, there's decreasing reimbursements. There is the great resignation. And so it's much harder to keep team members. There's a rising cost of doing business, whether that is the supplies to do business or the cost of the team. Right. Because now, you know, all the rates are up and all of those things going on. And so these are the challenges that private practice doctors are going to be facing in 2024. And so that's what is.

Right.

And so what is the response? Okay, so the first thing is we want to start thinking about running lean practices, right? And you know, like a lean machine. So we're looking at our expenses, we're looking at, you know, where the money is going and all of those things and cutting off what needs to be cut off. Now, I do want to say this. We don't cut off marketing. I mean, except it's marketing. It's not working. But we don't cut off marketing. We don't cut off coaching. We don't cut off the things that help us stay alive. Right? But we want to take a look, like, what are we doing? What is it costing us? I can't tell you how many times, you know, people are like, oh my goodness, everybody's working overtime. So not only are the salaries, are the hourly rates higher, but everybody's also working overtime. And I'm like, yeah, we can just nip that in the bud, right? Like, because. Especially because it's not like we're on it or anything like that. So that's one thing to do. And you might be saying, doctor, you don't understand, it's not sustainable and all that. You are in private practice, why don't we figure out how to get you to thrive? And we are coming after the system. We're just not talking about that today. We're talking about you. Okay? The other thing we can do is increase the team productivity or more like optimize, right? Increase makes it seem like we're slave drivers going to optimize the productivity. And you want to look at each role in your practice like, what is this person's contribution to the bottom line? What is the contribution of this position to the bottom line? How can we modify what they do to add revenue generating activities? Right? You want to think about that? So I did a podcast episode, how to con payroll to an investment instead of an Expense. Right? So you want to go listen to that and really pay attention to that and act on it. Because if you can up your team's productivity, then what that does is for the same amount, it increases how much revenue you're bringing in. And so that improves your, your, your profit margin. Okay? So, so that's the second thing. The third thing is to really eliminate waste. And I did a whole workshop on seven ways private practice owners leave money on the table. Okay. I did a whole workshop on that and I talked about it like open spots on the schedule. Not sending in your claims, you know, sending claims that need to be reworked and reworked. Having your doctors do things anybody else on the team can do, Right? Because they're the most expensive people on your team. And we talked about a lot of different things. And if you would, if you were not part of the workshop and you would love that, you can send us an email at Dr. Una D R U N A ntremd.com and we can send you the replay. Okay? But you wanna go through those seven things and say, okay, let me audit my practice here and get rid of these seven things that are here. Okay, Then for some of you it make absolute sense to start building verticals, right? Like, so maybe you're a pediatrician and you wanna think about ear piercing, right? So maybe there are not many doctors that do that. And that's not something that you're opposed to doing. Well, you can do that. A pretty low overhead and things like that. You may be a specialty that has more procedures and stuff. And there's some things you can bring your house. I will say though, like, you know, but you have to make sure the numbers work right because a lot of these people are, you know, predators. They'll come and say, oh, take this laser machine, we'll help you market. We'll do all the things that'll just be fantastic. And the second you sign away this something that will come to $450,000 over X number of years, they walk away and you never really see them again except to get their payment. So you want to be careful. You want this to be something that you know for a fact that it will work. There's an ROI and things like that. And you can think about adding verticals, right? Okay, so that's for private practice, right? So yes, you can still thrive, but you are going to need to show up differently. And the first place you need to show up differently is in the mindset. Like you can't say, oh, this doesn't work, it just sucks. I don't know what to do. I should just shut it down. Like, I mean, like if you do, if you make a strategic decision to shut it down, that's okay. But I want us to get out of the energy of, oh, you know, like own it. Like, let's look rather than this is not working, like, how can this work? Right? Okay, so, so that's the, the second group, third group would be consultants, coaches and cash based private practices. So like your direct primary care, direct specialty care type of models. The problem is that, you know, like the markets, because of the recession, because of the hyperinflation, you know, like the market is more sav. So during the pandemic, right, People had this realization, like, maybe I like being at home, you know, more. Maybe I want to switch careers. Maybe I want to, I want to do something different with my life. And so people and the government was pumping in money and there was all kinds of relief payments. And so people were just spending and it became so much easier to sell and to do all of those things. But now it's a different market now, right? Like people are more savvy, people are still buying, but they're Paying more attention and they're investigating more and things like that. And so what that does is it sets the stage for you to actually show up like an entrepreneur and do the work. Because the other, the other stuff is, is gone, right? Like that was artificial. That was, you know, that was artificial. Okay, so what's the solution if you're a coach or a consultant and I say this, I say this respectfully, a lot of times, you know, we start our business like, you know, hobbies, jobbies, you know, just going to try it, or we just like helping people. We don't really want to care about the money. That's not going to cut it. You're not going to accidentally get to multiple six figures, seven figures. Multiple seven figures doing that, right? You may not even thrive at all doing that. Okay, so number one is you're going to have to treat your business like a real business, right? This is a business, which means that I work at it, which means sales, which means marketing, which means all of these things. Like, like you're, we're going to have to work at this thing, right? And so treat like a, a, a real business. You, you engage marketing, right? Like the people who will love to use your service just don't know you exist. So you're going to put yourself out there, you're going to extrovert in the marketplace, you're going to grow your audience, you're going to grow your email list, all these things you've heard about. You're going to work the sales, you're going to do the one to one sales, maybe you're going to do the one to many sales, you're going to train your team, team to sell, right? Like for a more established business. But your sales and your marketing, that's gonna need to happen. Like that's gonna need to happen. The excuses of I don't like being on camera, I don't like being on social media, I don't like talking to people, I don't like talking to referral sources, I don't do people like all of that. None of that is gonna work. None of that's gonna work. Okay, so we're gonna have so many of these businesses go out of business except they realize that their business isn't act accordingly. And I think one of the other critical ones is really around the pricing. And so, you know, I'm all about the math needs to math, right? Like, so the math of business is a podcast episode I've done. You can look for that one where we talk about, you know, really looking at, you can't just arbitrarily pick up prices. Like, this is what I'm going to charge and not run the numbers. Like the numbers have to work. So for instance, if you're like, I want everybody to be able to afford my thing and so I make it a really low price and you're going to have to serve everybody to make it profitable, right? Like, so it's low ticket, high volume, right? Or you decide, no, I'm going to charge high ticket. What I do is really custom, really boutique, really concierge, and I'm going to start charge accordingly. So I only have to have a few clients. But if you're like, I want to have a few clients so I can spend all the time with my clients and I want to charge a little, then you see the problem. Like the math is not going to math. And then so many, you know, businesses will go out of business. You know, and if you are, you know, you're, you're, you've always had a one to one model and you're like, I really want to scale, then it's the time to start looking at one to many model. Maybe you're a coach and you've done one to one and you want to start thinking about groups and things like that. And so it will require you learn new skills, but you're, you're going to have to treat like a real business. Right? And so when I think about 20, 24, these are some of the problems that come to mind for, for me. And I just want us to be ready. I want us to be prepared. I want us to thrive. Okay? I want us to thrive. And so the big, the big deal here is that in all of these you'll see that our evolution is required. Like, we're not going to do things the way we've always done them. We can't say, this is the way I've always done it. We can't say I'm waiting for the good old days to come back. That is never happening. The rate of change of the industry, any industry, is so fast that we can't afford to not keep up. Right? Like, so things are changing. We need to change. We need to evolve. We need to learn to build our brands. We need to learn to market. We need to learn to sell. We need to learn to build big, build teams. We need to learn to lead teams. We need to learn to be comfortable talking about money. We need to be able to, to be comfortable asking for money. We need to be comfortable building business assets. So not, not, oh, you know, I just did this to get a buck. But you're building an asset, right? Something that can work without you ultimately. Something that you can sell if you want to, something that can have a huge impact, something that can disrupt the whole industry. Like, we're going to need to evolve to do that, right? We're going to need to evolve. So I want to embrace, I want everyone to embrace this whole concept and decide to evolve. Like, I'm going to. Going to be better. I'm going to up my game. I'm not complaining about this anymore. I'm going to do something. I'm going to take charge. I'm going to take charge of my own career, my own business, my own destiny, my own return on investment in this whole education that I got. I'm going to take control, right? Like, that's kind of what we need to do. And so as far as us as a company on TR MD, we are committed 1000% to helping physicians do this. And so I just want to give you, you a feel for the way we're going to be doing that, the ways we have available to do that in 2024. Now, we have a number of resources. The podcast is one. And my commitment is if you show up twice a week to listen, I will be coming with some of my best stuff. I don't do fluff. I've had people call me and say, why do you put all this amazing stuff on the podcast? I feel like people should be paying for that. And I'm like, yeah, so people pay me. And we work on the implementation and the accountability and the troubleshooting and all of that. But I want my podcast to be a gift to the physician community that provides the business education that we didn't get. And so this podcast is one, right? So make it part of your routine. Like twice a week, I just listen and get my business education on, right? So that's one, two is that we have a number of books. We have the on trending method. We have the Made for More book. And I have another book coming out. And I will make that announcement at a different time, but look out for it. Right? And again, these are things that are a business education. That's the, that's the whole idea. Ontram D exists to provide the business education that physicians didn't get, right? And so those are, you know, like technically free resources, books, about 15 bucks, but technically they're free. Then as far as our programs, we have three programs that we would serve physicians with the first is called the Entremd Business School Accelerator. And this is a 90 day program. So maybe you're like, I don't know if I want to do a year in the Trinity Business School, but you know, I get so much from the podcast. I want to be it. I want to get more, I want to get more accountability, more direction and more structure and things like that. And so it's a 90 day program that is really decide, designed to help you have the experience of taking 90 days of your life and creating a 180 in your business. Right? Like really turning things around. And think about it like, you know, the president has the first 100 days in office and you have your next 90 days in business business, right? And so you will get, you know, like a, a really in depth, you know, workshop on how to set your goals for the 90 days, how to create a plan that will help you accomplish the goals. You get to meet doctors who are doing the same thing, hear their stories. You get virtual networking and all that super powerful 90 days. Okay. And the second thing is Ontario Business School Grow, which is what we've traditionally known as the Ontari Business School. That's our year long program that's produced so many new businesses. Six figure businesses, Seven figure businesses, Multiple seven figure businesses. It is a group of unicorns in one community committed to building great businesses so they can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on their terms. We've had people do that. They paid $260,000 off in student loans. We had a doctor who hit a first, a million in her first year in private practice. We have, you know, doctors who are like, my marriage is better. A doctor said to me, she said on the podcast, Dr. Rebecca Barron is like, I've been therapy for years, but the entrepreneur Business school has been the best thing for my mental health. And you know, people like, I'm in the best shape of my life. It's, it's a magical place, right? And I feel every physician deserves to be there. But of course I'm biased, right? And so if you're someone who's committed and you're like, man, I just, I'm ready, man, I'm not, I'm not playing anymore. Then come join us, right? Come join us. And then the third is for the doctors who've crossed a million in revenue. You've, Congratulations, congratulations. Especially if you're female. Only 2% of, you know, female entrepreneurs do that. But you have also created new problems for yourself, right? Like, because now you have problems around you Know, building team, managing team, getting things done through a team building systems. Because the systems that got you to a million are all broken. They don't work anymore. Right. Or maximizing profits because sometimes your revenue goes up, but your profit, Profit margin keeps going down. And so you're revenue rich, but real money poor. Right. And there is a community that is filled with unicorns. I need to imagine a group of physician entrepreneurs building businesses that over seven figures in Reven Wild. It's a wild place. It's called EBS Scale. It's a. It's a beautiful place to be in. And so whichever one that is, if you're like, man, I want to, I want to evolve and I want to leverage the Entre MD Business School to do that. Then I want you to just, you know, next step is just to schedule a call on trendy.com forward slash call. And someone on my team will be happy to help you decide which next step is best for you. Okay. We do not do any high pressure sales in the Entre MD Business School. None. Because we believe that the, the, you can create, we can create a masterpiece here. We can create an unbelievable business if it. If that's what you want. And that's what we want.

Right.

Like, so we want to make sure that it's a match, it's a great fit for you, that that's what we want to do. So there's no pressure. It's just really sitting with you to see is this the best thing to do and which of these are the best for you to do do. Okay. All right. So regardless of whether you come to Entre Business School or not, I want you to embrace your evolution and just whatever you do, don't stay the same. Okay? It is going to be. It's going to look like a rough year, but you can. These are some of the things I'm telling you, so you can exclude yourself from that. Right. I'm all. I've always been about the exemption. When the pandemic hit, nobody knew what it was. Like now we know nobody knew what it was, how long it will last, what it would do to the world. And private practices were dropping like flies. And I remember coming out and saying, guys, listen, okay, I know these things are going on, but we are going to thrive. How? I don't know yet. I'm working on that, but we are going to thrive. At least we can make that decision. And we did. Right? And so, I mean, the Entrepreneur Business school was born in July of 2020. It's all about exemption. And so I want you to choose to be exempt from the craziness that's going to be happening. And these are some of the things you need to do. And your evolution is mandatory. Mandatory. If you just flow as your 2023 self in 2024, it is not going to be pretty. And, you know, I'm a very positive person. Okay. But that's why I'm showing you the way to escape that. So evolve. Keep the. The preferred picture, what you want your business to look like on your mind, and go get it done. Okay? But don't roll over. Don't play dead. Don't expect things to get better. You be better, better. Right? Jim Rohn said that. Don't expect. Don't wish things were easier. You'd be better. Right? Okay. So this episode is one I really want you to share with the doctors in your life, because we doctors all need to hear this. And I want you to make a commitment to yourself that you're going to change. I want you to share this on social media with your friends, send them text messages, tell them you absolutely have to listen to this, and I will see you on the next episode of the Entre MD podcast.