Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Erik Ferjentsik, and this is actually Part 2 of my conversation with Erik. You can check out Part 1 by listening to last week’s episode. Erik is the founder and principal of Visionary Practice Group, a firm that works with optometrists to broker, consult, and appraise their practice for transitions. In part 2, I pick up the conversation with Erik where we started talking about the difference between an asset and a sto...
Sep 23, 2019•41 min•Ep. 46
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Erik Ferjentsik. Erik is the founder and principal of Visionary Practice Group, a firm that works with optometrists to broker, consult, and appraise their practice for transitions. I’ve known Erik for a number of years and it was great to have him on the show. We have a common bond in that we’re both married to ODs so we both look at the profession of optometry through a different set of lenses, so I was excited to di...
Sep 16, 2019•52 min•Ep. 45
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! As a quick reminder, if you’re going to be attending Vision West in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks and have a topic you’d like to discuss, I still have one more opening in my schedule to record an episode in person. If you’re interested, be sure to email me at podcast@integratedpwm.com to share your topic. My guest on today’s show is JT Metzger. JT has a storied and tenured career of working to help businesses evaluate, strategize, implement, an...
Sep 09, 2019•52 min•Ep. 44
Hello, and welcome to episode 48 of 20/20 Money! Even though this episode is coming out on the first Monday in September, it is Labor Day and therefore I’m pushing back the “Selling in September” theme until next week, when the next four episodes will be dedicated to topics relating to selling one’s practice. My guest on today’s show is Dr. Matt Mitchell. Matt has been on the show in the past and I wanted to have him back to talk about a problem that I hear a lot of ODs trying to solve, and that...
Sep 02, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 48
On this episode of 20/20 Money, it’s all about the ABC’s and 123’s of disability insurance for optometrists. We’ll discuss what disability insurance is, the different kinds of disability insurance an OD can get, how much of a benefit you can get, and what riders you should make sure are on your policy (including the most important rider of all). I’ll also share with you some of the carriers that we’ve seen write good policies for optometrists and talk you through the underwriting process and how...
Aug 26, 2019•43 min•Ep. 42
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! Today’s show is all about retirement plans and specifically whether (and when) an optometrist might consider switching from a SIMPLE IRA to a 401(k). During the show I first start by laying the foundation and going over the basics of how 401(k)’s and SIMPLE IRAs work, specifically as it relates to some of their small but significant differences. I share the differences in matching formulas as well as the total contribution limits that apply to both of them...
Aug 19, 2019•57 min•Ep. 41
Welcome everybody! Welcome to the 40th episode of 20/20 Money. My guest on today’s show is Dr. Jennifer Stewart. Jennifer is an optometrist and partner at Norwalk Eye Care and Performance 2020 and this is actually the second time that she’s been on our show. I wanted to have Jennifer back on the show to talk about dailies and the role they have played in her career both clinically as well as how educating and encouraging pt adoption of a daily disposable lens have helped the profitability in her...
Aug 12, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 40
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Nina O’Neal. Nina is a partner and investment advisor with Archer Investment Management in Raleigh, NC. What’s interesting and unique about Nina, though, is her breadth and depth of experience in the world of real estate investments, specifically as it pertains to strategies and solutions for the gains and proceeds that are realized when business owners sell commercial real estate they owned either as part of their bu...
Aug 05, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 39
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Jeff Smith. Jeff is a long time friend of mine and works as what is known in the investment world as a “wholesaler,” which means that it’s his responsibility to communicate primarily to other investment professionals that work with clients what his company is doing to understand the markets. This is a unique episode, though, as we record it “on location”…not from an investment conference or stock exchange, but from th...
Jul 29, 2019•50 min•Ep. 38
Welcome back to another episode of 20/20 Money. My guest on today’s show is Dr. Matt Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell owns Bluffton Family Eye Care, a private practice located in…you guessed it…Bluffton, IN. What’s unique about Matt, though, is that his practice is located in what many would consider to be a “rural” practice setting, as the population of his entire county is less than 30,000 people and is dominated by agribusiness. In this conversation, Matt starts out by talking about the current make-up...
Jul 22, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 37
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! In today’s episode I talk about the different retirement savings vehicles that ODs should consider given the mode of their practice and the “ladder” in which they should order their savings strategy. I begin with the versatility of the HSA and why it’s good to think about the HSA as not an account that exists for day-to-day healthcare expenses but more of a long-term savings vehicle. I also talk about the importance of retirement plans in the practice, the...
Jul 15, 2019•37 min•Ep. 36
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Jennifer Stewart. Jennifer is a partner at Norwalk Eye Care, a private practice in Norwalk, CT. The reason that I wanted to have Jennifer on the show is because of her insatiable quest for knowledge on how to run an incredibly efficient and profitable practice by becoming a student of the numbers within the practice. She’s also dedicated part of her professional life to the growing specialty of sports vision train...
Jul 08, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 35
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Nathan Hayes. Nathan is the Practice Finance Consultant at IDOC and has worked with countless practices to help them understand not only the financials of their practice but how to make strategic business decisions based on the financial health of the practice. Our conversation was centralized around an Optometric Management Tip of the Week Article titled “ 3 Misconceptions About Buying Optometry Practices. ” I wanted...
Jul 01, 2019•59 min•Ep. 34
Today’s show talks about how you can make the most out of your time when attending optometry conferences. As clinicians, your ability to produce revenue is directly to your ability to see patients, so it’s important to get a great RoT (return on time) at your conferences because the cost of the conference is not just the expenses of the conference but also the opportunity cost of what you otherwise COULD be earning in your practice had you not taken the time to attend the conference. I walk you ...
Jun 24, 2019•35 min•Ep. 33
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! M y guest on today’s show are Drs. Matt Geller and Antonio Chirumbulo.Matt & Antonio were guests on our 3rd episode and are the co-founders of the popular website www.newgradoptometry.com , a website dedicated to providing relevant and timely information for…you guessed it…new OD grads. It’s the beginning of June, and what that means for new optometry grads is that it typically gives new grads a bit of some downtime while they wait for their...
Jun 17, 2019•47 min•Ep. 32
Welcome to another episode of 20/20 Money! Today will be another solo episode and we’ll be talking about the basic four levers that you can pull when it comes to “retirement” or, as I like to call it, financial independence. Now, if you’re listening and far away from retirement, I’d still encourage and ask you to stick around for the show, because (a) it’s not a long episode and (b) there are variables that I’m going to talk about that you can act on TODAY that will have significant implications...
Jun 10, 2019•33 min•Ep. 31
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Eric Botts. Eric is a practicing optometrist in Macomb, IL and what I love about Eric’s practice model is that he is the lease holder at four different Walmart vision centers. In today’s conversations we talk about what his practice looks like and the make-up of his team and how he balances the dynamics of having a relationship with not only the team that he pays but also Walmart team members that work inside the ...
Jun 03, 2019•57 min•Ep. 30
In today’s episode, I share three different events that have transpired over the last couple of weeks that have gotten me to think about the emotional connection we have to cash, specifically cash that is on hand in an “emergency fund.” I share two personal stories that have brought this to light over the past couple of weeks along with an example from a (not named, of course) client conversation. I then talk about the two psychological biases that cause us to have the emotional connection to ca...
May 27, 2019•31 min•Ep. 29
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Kent Godfrey. Kent owns a multi-location practice in and around the Denver, CO area and has, by most definitions, a very successful practice. In this episode, we talk about Kent’s path into practice ownership and the state of his practice right now. We also touch on something that is very important to him and that is using his professional skills as an OD to give back to those that need an ECP through his volunteerism with V...
May 20, 2019•1 hr•Ep. 28
Hello, and welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Britt Gustafson. Britt is a practicing optometrist in Eden Prairie, MN. The reason that I wanted to have Britt on the show is that she has used her degree as an optometrist to not only provide clinical care to patients in a practice setting, but also by getting involved in the research and development of contact lenses and contact lens solutions. In this episode we talk about Britt’s path in optometry and discuss ...
May 13, 2019•46 min•Ep. 27
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show are Drs. Jimmy Deom and Roya Habibi. This conversation is a great one because, in addition to both being practicing optometrists, Jimmy and Roya are co-hosts of the popular optometry podcast Try Not To Blink, which I was actually privileged enough to be a guest on a couple of weeks ago. In this episode, we talk about each of their paths in optometry and their chosen specialties, what’s different about optometry than they anticipate...
May 06, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 26
On the show today is Amber Banks, co-founder of MW Banks Consulting. What’s awesome and unique about Amber is that she has an incredible depth of knowledge and experience in working with doctors to help them make smart financial decisions in their practice based on the financial metrics of their business. In this episode we “complete the life cycle” of a practice by talking about key financial considerations while still in school depending on whether you’re looking to buy an existing practice or...
Apr 29, 2019•48 min•Ep. 25
Welcome everybody, to another episode of 20/20 Money! On the show today I have Dr. John Ormando with Uppercut Consulting. John is co-owner of a successful private practice in Rhode Island that is one of the (if not the largest) single-location optometry practices in the country. What’s unique about John, though, is something that came to my attention while reading Optometric Management’s “Tip of the Week” which had a catchy title: “What I learned from Losing $300,000.” We talk about the experien...
Apr 22, 2019•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 24
In this week’s show, it’s all about taxes! You’ll learn how our federal tax system works, the difference between someone’s “top tax bracket” and what their marginal tax bracket is, and the different types of taxes that you’re obligated to pay based off the income that you earn. I’ll also share with you different planning strategies to consider whether you found yourself getting a refund or having to pay. From there, I’ll explain the difference between underpayment, late filing, and late payment ...
Apr 15, 2019•40 min•Ep. 23
Welcome everybody to the first episode of the newly renamed/rebranded podcast “20/20 Money!” Since inception, this show has been called The Dose as it primarily discussed financial concepts and strategies that would apply to white coat professionals in the dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, and physician landscape. However, as we continued to record episodes, I started to realize that more and more of the content and ideas that we were discussing had a definite lean towards optometry…and as my pres...
Apr 08, 2019•59 min•Ep. 22
This is part two of my conversation with Michael Pote of The Growth Cooperative. In this conversation we talk about the role that private equity has played in the transition and succession planning of optometry practices over the past couple of years. In this episode we discuss: What private equity is, how it works and a couple of different ways in which private equity is different than a traditional clinical buyer of your practice such as one of your associates, another optometrist in the same ...
Apr 01, 2019•41 min•Ep. 21
We’ve been on a roll lately in having some of our past guests share more of their knowledge and today is no different. This episode is part one of a two-part conversation with Michael Pote. You may remember Michael from episode 8, where we talked about several areas of practice management and what his organization The Growth Cooperative is doing to help optometrists across the country. Today we talk about all things related to selling a practice, specifically from a seller’s perspective. In this...
Mar 25, 2019•40 min•Ep. 20
We’re back with another episode of The Dose. Today I have another returning guest, Josh Kegley with Retirement Plan Consultants. You may remember Josh from one of our earlier episodes where we talked pretty high level about the retirement plan space and the evolution that practice owners go through as it pertains to the various vehicles that they can utilize to build wealth inside of a retirement plan. Today, we get into the weeds on how to utilize a qualified retirement plan like a 401k to maxi...
Mar 18, 2019•39 min•Ep. 19
In this episode we talk about one of the most common questions I hear from optometrists: should I pay down debt or should I be saving for retirement? While every person’s situation is different, it’s important to understand the one theme and idea that’s constant in that equation: the time value of money and compounding interest. During the show, I’ll discuss: How compounding interest works, using a snowman as an analogy A hypothetical example showing the real cost of waiting The max number of ye...
Mar 12, 2019•33 min•Ep. 18
Today’s show is another solo episode that takes you on my personal journey as I evaluate healthcare options that my family is considering now that we no longer have access to group health insurance through my wife’s employer. During this episode I discuss some of the details about how COBRA coverage works, the benefits of an HSA, and how to understand the different plan options provided through www.healthcare.gov , which is otherwise known as “Obamacare” or the Affordable Care Act (ACA). I go in...
Mar 04, 2019•47 min•Ep. 17
