Why physician-owned businesses need our attention and support [PODCAST]

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

“There has been a growing wave of entrepreneurial physicians finding joy and value in starting consulting and coaching businesses. Many use their expertise to work with physicians exclusively. Our company has been excited to play a part in better spotlighting these businesses. Today it is now even easier to find doctors who can give you guidance on everything from running your own practice more efficiently, build a better relationship with your spouse, to negotiating your next job contract.

We are all aware of the tired refrain that ‘physicians are bad at business.’ It is time to retire that phrase. Business has not been our primary focus, and perhaps the state of medicine may result from that.

So if given a choice, consider supporting more physician-owned businesses. If you have a problem that needs solving, there may be a colleague out there who has already figured it out and can help.”

Michael Woo-Ming is a physician entrepreneur.

He shares his story and discusses his KevinMD article, “Why physician-owned businesses need our attention and support.”

Did you enjoy today’s episode?

Please click here to leave a review for The Podcast by KevinMD. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app to get notified when a new episode comes out!

Do you know someone who might enjoy this episode? Share this episode to anyone who wants to hear health care stories filled with information, insight, and inspiration.

Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show, we have Mike Woo-Ming. He’s a physician entrepreneur, and he wrote the KevinMD article “Why physician-owned businesses need our attention and support.” Mike, welcome to the show.

Michael Woo-Ming: Kevin, it’s been an honor. Thanks for having me.

Kevin Pho: OK, I’ll do your article in a little bit, but first off, can you share your story and journey to where you are today?

Michael Woo-Ming: Yeah, I think it’s fair to say I’m a pretty unconventional doctor. We’ve spoken in the past, so you know a little bit about my story, but I’m family medicine trained, although I haven’t done primary care in some time. I’ve always been entrepreneurial. I started a business in medical school that continued on into private practice, and then I started a consulting company, a marketing company, and a software company, which actually allowed me to retire for some time.

But then I still had the itch to come back into medicine, but I wanted to do so on my own terms. And I wanted to see if I could open up a cash-pay practice in Southern California, where I live currently, which is not the easiest thing to do, but somehow we were able to manage to do that. I started an age management and med spa. Next year, we’re going on 10 years. I’ve got a dozen employees. And now I work with other physicians who want to find their entrepreneurial journey, either starting up their own side business, online business, or even opening up their own direct-pay practice or med spa. So it’s been fun. It’s been a fun journey.

Kevin Pho: I always like to talk about physicians and their interests outside of medicine, because I always say that physicians, we’re more than our degrees. Now, why would physicians want to start a business outside of clinical medicine and what they trained in?

Michael Woo-Ming: It’s funny, because I think some of my family members are still asking me that same question. I think we have really seen a phenomenon in the last several years. You’ve heard the term side gig or side business, and I think it’s because physicians are perhaps missing something. Maybe they’re not getting gratification in their current 9 to 5 or 8 to 8 p.m. job, and they’re missing something. And I think because of things like the internet, they’re allowed to have a voice. I always tell my physicians, if you have knowledge or expertise that you can share with others, that could be the formation of a business.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve been working with physicians who’ve been able to find that, whether it’s physicians helping other physicians with burnout, or, I’m working with a physician right now who’s involved in real estate investing, and they’ve developed their own strategies on doing that. And then they work with other clients, helping them start their own real estate business. It can even be starting up a car wash, whatever they want to do. They’re getting fulfillment, besides, obviously, the making-money aspect. They’re getting fulfillment that perhaps they’re not getting in their current jobs.

Kevin Pho: So you’re absolutely right. A lot of physicians are getting burned out at their clinical job, like you said, the 9 to 5, and I’m sure it goes much longer than 9 to 5 for some other physicians. Now, where can these doctors start if they want to start a business or start something outside of clinical medicine? Where do you recommend they start?

Michael Woo-Ming: It’s different, really depending on what they’re doing. I think what it comes down to is, for me, I got involved in businesses back in the late ’90s, early 2000s, and back then, I was really interested in things like online businesses. Kevin, if you remember back in those days, the dot-com days, we were seeing all this money being thrown out, right? For online companies selling pet food and delivering those kinds of things. And for me, it was just getting involved in technology. So I got involved in an online startup, because that’s what I was interested in.

So I think it first comes down to: What are you interested in? What do you want to do, whether it be getting involved in real estate, getting involved in, I don’t know, scrapbooking, whatever that is? If there’s someone that you see and they’re actually making a living on it, maybe that’s where you want to pursue. So it really comes down to your interest, and then finding people who are actually doing it and actually making money with it, and then going to them and asking them, “How would you like your business?” I see so many people who kind of fly to whatever, the most exciting thing, and then they flock to it, but what they don’t realize is that the backbone is actually having an actual business and actually developing an income, so you can continue growing that business.

Kevin Pho: So there’s a perception in some corners that physicians aren’t good at business. We’re not business savvy, we’re not good with money. Now, from all your years of working with physicians in that context, what are your thoughts on that?

Michael Woo-Ming: You’ll probably laugh, but I think it’s true to some extent. And it’s not because we don’t have the smarts to do it. We’re all highly educated. We’re able to grasp complex information and make it understandable to ourselves and to others. It really comes down to time, and time devoted to it. And I think developing a business is just like any other skill.

So for myself, when I got involved in my own business, it was finding a mentor, finding someone who was actually generating a living from it, and asking the right questions, and then studying it. And these days, information is everywhere. Sign up for a course, read a book, go to these things called libraries, right? Now these days, you have online libraries; you can look up any information you want. Look on YouTube. Information is everywhere. But then I think when it comes to information, it’s then having a mentor actually disseminating all that and saying, “You know what? Ninety percent of this you don’t really need to know. It’s that 10 percent that can really make a difference in your business.”

Kevin Pho: All right, let’s talk about the KevinMD article that you wrote. It’s titled “Why physician-owned businesses need our attention and support.” Now, for those who didn’t get a chance to read that article, can you just walk my audience through it and share the story of why you decided to write it?

Michael Woo-Ming: Yeah, it really came down to what I had been seeing, what we talked about at the beginning, this trend of physicians helping other physicians or helping others with what I call knowledge-based businesses, helping them get through relationships. And I just saw a lot of physicians start to come up, whether it be on social media, starting to develop courses and training and mentoring. And what it really came down to was that where they lacked was education about business. One thing that I feel is one of my strengths is marketing, and specifically online marketing. And I wanted other physicians to recognize that there is this growth of these physician-owned businesses. Let’s give them a helping hand.

In the article, I talk about how, when I was buying my house, I got involved in finding a realtor. And I stumbled onto a physician who actually had a business that catered to working with other physicians, getting them their home and introducing me to things like doctor loans and other things that I didn’t know about.

And it got me thinking about when I started my marketing company. I was involved in a marketing company where we worked with practices like plastic surgeons, helping them with their reputation management and online marketing. And we were able to build that to over 150 clients. I’m not saying that we were the best in terms of search engine optimization or pay-per-click advertising. But I was able to get the decision maker, because they found out that I was a physician. And I was able to talk directly to the owner of the practice, and I was able to get their contract, because they felt that they understood what I was going through.

And I think there are a lot of different businesses out there that you may not know are being owned by physicians. In my specialty, in the age management medical spa industry, the leader of the biggest association in that industry is an attorney. And we all know about this death of private practice, right? We know more physicians are employed than going into private practice, and there are lots of reasons for it: regulations, the idea of being an entrepreneur. But just in terms of medical school, where we get zero business training, we don’t get to talk to, at least I didn’t get to talk to, a doctor who was in private practice. And we’re going to continually put dirt on private practice.

My article was just a way of saying, “Hey, just as we support veteran-owned businesses, or we support mom-and-pop businesses versus the big conglomerates, why not start supporting physician-owned businesses?” And that’s where it starts: If more physicians can support other physicians, then maybe we can have a voice at the table, maybe we can be the head of these associations and get back what we’ve lost.

Kevin Pho: You mentioned this earlier, but what are some common examples of physician-owned businesses that could be found?

Michael Woo-Ming: I mean, just as an example, what we talked about with burnout. Research has shown, and I talk about it in the article, that when it comes to it, a physician would rather talk to another physician when dealing with these issues. And in terms of their success, their success matches that when they are able to talk to someone who’s been there, who understands what they go through, who may have gone through burnout themselves most of the time. So that is one of the examples: If you are looking for someone to help you get through burnout, find a physician burnout coach.

Now, I see other aspects where it goes through dealing with relationships. A good friend is a very, very well-known physician relationship coach, and she’s a physician herself. So I think in terms of those, those are where I’ve seen the biggest growth, but even then, I’ve seen things like getting involved in investing, getting involved in real estate investing. There are lots of different courses you could take. There are a lot of different gurus and mentors. I’m currently going through a course where they’re both run by physicians.

And I’m not saying that physicians are the best at everything, but, that being said, I kind of make an analogy to getting into the military, right, where we support our veterans. I’m not saying that fighting wars is like going through medical school, but in some aspects, you can kind of see there are some overlapping examples of that, that we understand what they’re going through. We understand that with physicians. Hopefully, they have the right ethics; they understand us. They understand that we’re busy. And a lot of times, I don’t want to go through all of the muck. I just want to get the answer. My time is busy. I have problems that I need solved, and I feel like with a physician-owned business, more times than not, it’s usually the right decision when I go with someone who is a physician.

Kevin Pho: Where can doctors find physician-owned businesses? Is there some type of repository or central place where doctors can look for other doctor-owned businesses?

Michael Woo-Ming: Well, this is probably self-serving, but I do own a directory, and the reason why I started it is because I had the same question. I wanted, for other physicians, my clients: Where could they find other coaches? So I started it up just like a good entrepreneur would: If I couldn’t find the solution, I started it myself. It’s called physiciancoaches.com, and there are over 150 physicians there that you can choose from. It’s completely free. You can find physicians who get involved in leadership, in relationships, in investing, in helping them with losing weight. Anyone that you choose, you can go in, you can find them, you can read about their bio, you can go to their website, and you can contact them for free. Most of the time, you do a free consultation, and it’s been great, and it’s been growing ever since.

And I’m sure there are other sites like this. The thing is, it’s very difficult to find. It is difficult to find, but I know, like when I work with a small business, a lot of times, like in your own private practice, as I said, private practice is dying. I still like that mom and pop. And most of the time, it’s not run by a solo physician. So you do have to do some digging, but ask the right person: “Is this run by a physician themselves, or is this owned by some big private equity firm?” And they may or may not give you the answer, but that’s where to start.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking about Mike Woo-Ming. He’s a physician entrepreneur, and he wrote the KevinMD article “Why physician-owned businesses need our attention and support.” Mike, for those physicians who are interested in doing a proverbial side gig or starting a business, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see them make?

Michael Woo-Ming: Well, there’s a lot. I think the biggest thing is what I alluded to earlier: They kind of say, physicians, we’re human and we want to go to what’s hot. So they kind of look and say, “Oh, you know what, a lot of people are making money in this, so I’m just going to start a business in that.” And that’s usually the biggest disaster that I see.

Another thing, too, is people also say you need to go to what you’re passionate about. And to some extent, I agree with that. But I’m passionate about a lot of things. I’m passionate about ’80s retro songs, but I’m not going to make a living out of that. It’s really getting involved in seeing who’s actually making money. Is it something that you’re passionate about for yourself? Do you have some type of specialized knowledge to enter into this industry? And that’s kind of where it starts.

And in addition, I think the biggest mistake is not finding a mentor. As physicians, we tend to want to do everything ourselves. And like I said, there’s information everywhere. If you wanted to start up your own med spa, there’s information that’s fully available. But there’s a lot of information out there that’s wrong or outdated. So if you’re wanting to start up your own med spa or your direct-pay practice, whatever you want to do, find a mentor, contact them. See what it really is. More times than not, you might find that there are a lot of headaches, there are a lot of obstacles that you may not have anticipated. There may be a lot of money that you need to invest that you may not have known before. So it’s like anything: You need to do your due diligence.

Kevin Pho: And my final question: What’s your take-home message that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience?

Michael Woo-Ming: I think it’s really, if you want to do this, physician entrepreneurship is not for everybody. There are lots of ways that you can make money. For myself, being involved in business really fulfilled a lot of needs that I had: the need to help others, the need to teach, to educate. And that’s why I got involved.

But I think the biggest take-home is don’t let them discourage you. If you have an idea, don’t just ruminate about it. Do something every day. If this is something that you want to do, do something every day to push you. Maybe watch that YouTube video, maybe make that phone call to a mentor, maybe make a free consultation on Physician Coaches. Whatever it is, don’t let it stagnate. When we stagnate, nothing happens. It’s all about moving forward, is what I like to say.

Kevin Pho: And how can people reach you?

Michael Woo-Ming: Just like that site that you mentioned, physiciancoaches.com is probably the best site. You can contact us. If you want to be a coach yourself, we do have some training involved. Happy to talk with you, happy to help you out, if this is something that you want to pursue.

Kevin Pho: Mike, thank you so much for sharing your time and insight. Thanks again for being on the show.

Michael Woo-Ming: Thanks, Kevin. It’s been a pleasure.

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes