The Moral Dilemma Of Money, Medicine and Success

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All right, everybody, it is Matt, and this is another edition of the Practice Profit System. And today we're going to talk about the moral dilemma of making money as a doctor. Well, in actuality, it's actually the moral dilemma of money, medicine, and success. So let me give you a little bit of background on this. So I was out traveling last week, and I was doing events in South Florida. We had dinner events in Fort Lauderdale, And Miami. For those of you that were able to join us, thank you so much. We had a great time and look forward to working with all of you that have taken this step, next step with us. But more importantly, a great question came up on Thursday night in Miami, and the question was really centered around the moral dilemma of this topic, right, of medicine and money and, and success and all of this. And I'm really glad I was asked the question because this is kind of an undercurrent of what I deal with a lot of times in our one-on-one coaching calls. is a lot of times doctors will have a little bit of a challenge with regards to charging the kind of prices that I ask them to charge. Now, from— there's a couple of different things in play. First and foremost, and I've talked about this in prior podcasts, there is the concept of margin. Okay? So in business, you don't make money on volume, you make money on margin. And so when I say margin, if you look at the fixed costs that you have of doing that procedure, There is a margin that you need to have. And just with our fixed costs, like with the kits or things like that, we want that margin to be— we want to have an 80% margin. That gives us enough room to be able to handle payroll and all these other things. Now, if you didn't catch that recording, go back through and take a listen to it. I can't— probably did about 2, 3 months ago where I talked specifically about pricing and margin. Okay, so that's the first component is you have to have really solid basic business fundamentals in order to make this work. And unless you have those, your business is going to continually struggle. Okay? So first and foremost, let's get that out of the way. You've got to have margin in order for this to work. That means that you're most likely going to be charging significantly more than you have because when you do the analysis of your numbers, you're going to realize you're not making enough money to pay for everything. Okay? So that's the first part. But the really big— there's 3 key things that I want you to really take away from today. So the first big idea that I want you to take is, Matt, is it ethical to charge premium in prices. That's kind of the first thing. And I've had some people say, well, gosh, you know, the insurance companies are making big money, the pharmaceuticals are making big money, the hospitals are making big money. Does that make it okay for me to charge significant dollars? Because what a lot of times it's happening is it's, it's making it challenging for a lot of my patients to be able to afford something. Well, first, go back to margin. You have to charge enough money to be able to stay in business first and foremost. Second, the concept of what we teach about with regards to charging premium prices isn't about overcharging. It's really, again, this concept of margin. But the other thing is, is that you have to be able to— like I said, you've got to be able to stay in business. You are responsible for people, right? You've got payroll, you've got rent, you've got utilities, you have your vendors, you have your family, you have your, your spouse, your children. Some of my doctors are supporting their parents. Maybe they're supporting other family members that are unable to work. So, it's not necessarily just about is it ethical to charge premium prices. It's really what does your business need to be able to thrive, not sustain, but thrive? Okay, really important distinction is you've got to be able to thrive because that leads to big idea number 2. And that is, Matt, I took an oath to serve my fellow man and I feel like I'm excluding people. when I do that. Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine. So a friend of mine— this was probably about 15 years ago because I was having this same moral dilemma because of my faith and how much money should I make and what's enough. And, and for those of you that don't know, I'm a follower of Jesus. Please don't judge me. So, but I have lots of people that I work with that are Muslims and atheists and agnostics and Hindus and Mormons, and it doesn't matter to me, okay? That's my faith. It's another topic for another day. Okay, but I was having a really big problem with this because I really was struggling with the fact that I was making so much money and so many people could do without. And I have a very— I have a lot of friends that have done very, very well over the years, but I have a very good friend of mine who at the time was probably worth at least $500 million. That is no joke. Today, I wouldn't be surprised if he's worth a billion with a B. Okay, now. We had an extensive conversation and he is the type of person that you would never ever know, by the way, in a million years that he was worth that kind of money. His business is, he got started flipping, rehabbing houses and flipping houses, then started doing partnership deals. And now he has a number of different businesses across the US where he's done extremely well, all kind of related in land and apartments and commercial property and things like that. And he's the kind of guy that you would never ever know That he has that kind of money. Okay, so first and foremost, he's not overly flashy.

He—

look, don't get me wrong, he has a very nice house. Okay, it's very, very nice, and it's a pretty decent-sized house because he does a lot of entertaining, and he is a member of a nice country club, and he does drive a nice car, but it's not like an uber fancy car. Okay, I think last time I checked, he was still buying used luxury vehicles, which anyway, that's neither here nor there. And he said, you know what? He started doing this when he first started. His first business was buying foreclosed property, rehabbing it, and selling it. He said every time we did a deal and we cashed a check, what we did was we— they were really— they had adopted a couple of kids from Africa. And what they do is they provide clean water for villages in certain parts of Africa. Okay. And it costs like, I don't know, at the time it was like $800. I know it wasn't above $1,000, he said. So I might make $8,000, $10,000 on a house, and you know, it might take us one or two homes to be able to fund that, but we'd take a small portion and we would fund that. Now, nobody— and he said in his office he had pictures of all these water wells, and you never really knew what they were until you asked him. Okay, so that was the first thing. Every time then, as his business grew, he started, um, a foundation or a charity, however you want to look at a mission field. Where in Thailand, there's a lot of underage girls that are in prostitution, and what they would do is they would buy them out of prostitution. Okay, so he was taking a large portion of his profits, a significant portion of his profits, and he was funding this. And they were—I forget what the number is at the time—maybe 50 girls or something like that. I'm sure it's much bigger. Here's and here's the funniest story of all time: He gives a lot of his money away, and he has a very giving heart. And he was in Haiti. after one of the earthquakes, the numerous earthquakes that hits there, and doing mission work. And he flies down there as an advance team is there. And he is— he's like, his local guy's like, boss, we got a problem. Um, all of our medical supplies are off, off. They can't get them in. They're still in the boat. And the guy who runs the port won't bring them in. And he goes, oh, that's an easy thing. So he goes in and he talks to the guy. And the guy wanted like, I don't know, $200, $300. So he reached in his pocket, gave him $200, $300, and they had the medical supplies.

And one of his friends like, well, Really what you should have been doing?

I mean, isn't that—is that ethically okay to bribe somebody to get the medical supplies in? And he's got this really southern accent. He's like, "Manny, what I told him was, hell, I didn't care. I just want to make sure that people could get healed." Okay. So my point in all of this is, if you feel like you're still called to serve that—the people that are underserved—use a portion of your profits from what you're doing in your cash practice to be able to do that. That's what I told Dr. Vicki James to do. I have a lot. I know a lot of you. I mean, do Doctors Without Borders or go into the inner city where they don't have family medicine and and give time. I mean, there's a lot of different things that you can do, and if you don't have time because you have a lot of kids, then maybe fund that so other people can do it. Okay, so use the money. Use it in different ways that you make the profit because some of us are gifted at making that money to be able to give it away. So go ahead and do that. All right. The last problem or concept I want you to understand is. Matt, if I charge premium prices, then lots of my patients won't get the service. Well, the reality is, is that a lot of people aren't getting this service anyway. Okay. They can't afford— granted, they can't afford the PRP or the BMAC, but again, take some of that money to create a foundation so that you can serve a couple of people. I have a pastor friend of mine who has, uh, some back issues and would probably— and is going to benefit tremendously by BMAC and PRP, and we're working with one of my doctors to provide that to that pastor at a very low cost, um, through what we're charging other people. Okay. So unbeknownst to them, they're kind of funding that, that growth in that work. So the thing is, is that you, you know, don't look at just the, from the concept of the money, don't look at it just from the standpoint of saying, well, gosh, if I'm charging these premium prices, does that make me greedy? Look at what you can do with it. Look at what you can do with that. Fund the kingdom or fund what you are. You're part of the world or you're part of what's in your heart from your faith standpoint. I know plenty of people that take portions of money and they, like I said, they buy young girls out of prostitution or they help people go to college or they help underserved people come here and go to med school or whatever it is, whatever you do that, do a small portion of it and you don't have to give 10% or anything like that. Just decide what that number is and what that works for you. Or more importantly, fund your retirement first so you're not a burden on your own children. How about that? Okay, so that's it for this week. Couple of quick things real really quickly. We've finished up filling up our business mastery fellowship, and so now it's time actually for us to grow what's known as private client group. If you are a practice owner who is doing at least seven figures a year, or and or you want to and you want to grow that higher, maybe you want to go from two million to four million. Or you want to open multiple locations and you want to take more time off, then contact us about Private Client Group. We are relaunching Private Client Group. It is our original program, and we're upgrading the people that are involved in that program significantly. We want it to really be the leaders and the changers in our industry. And so, if you want to be around like-minded leaders in our industry, doctors, nurse practitioners, business owners, all of that, then contact our office. You can just go to callwithmatt.com and book a call with me, and I'll talk to you about it. So that's going to be opening up so you can get on the list and find out a little bit more, see if that's a good fit for you. Okay. That's it for this week for the Practice Profit System. I'm very humbled, by the way, the number of you that have reached out to me over the last couple of months and told me how much you enjoy the podcast, how much you listen to it. To those of you that listen to it when you're getting a manicure, or a couple of folks said they have like a, they appreciate the short versions because they have a 15-minute drive back from home to work. I appreciate all the great comments and thank you. It's our pleasure to serve you and to help you live the life that you richly deserve. So we'll catch you next week on the Practice Profit System. I'm your host, Matthew Gillogly. Stay classy, people.

Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, take a moment and share it with your fellow medical professionals or post a positive comment and rate it on wherever you just listened. Now, don't forget, you can get a copy of my book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Practice, for free. Just pay $7.95 in shipping and handling. Plus, you'll get over $1,197 in free bonus material. Simply go to srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. That's srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.