Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Nathan Hayes with IDOC. Nathan joins me back on the show and we put a quantitative spin on our conversation today. We talk all things benchmarks and margins in an optometry practice. We discuss how to use benchmarks to make smart practice decisions and ways in which benchmarks can actually give you a false sense of anxiety and stress in your practice. We explain (defend?) why it’s better to focus on increasing your revenues in y...
May 13, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 288
In the spirit of managing information overload, I wanted to take a week to pause on new information and rather share a process or organizing and prioritizing your thoughts, goals, and actions that can often stem from listening to shows like 20/20 Money and the consumption of other content. Resources: 20/20 Money Community Information reMarkable 2 Tablet ————————————————————————————— Please rate and subscribe to 20/20 Money on these platforms Apple Podcasts Spotify For past episodes of 20/20 Mone...
May 06, 2024•28 min•Ep. 287
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guests on today’s show are Dr. Todd Cohan and Sadie Blair. Todd & Sadie join me on the show today to talk about the successful dynamic that exists between both of them as owner and practice operations manager. Todd shares how impactful it’s been to have a great team member and integrator like Sadie in the practice and how that has allowed the practice to continue to grow. They share how they’ll both process all of the ideas, strategies, and concepts...
Apr 29, 2024•47 min•Ep. 286
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Bethany Fishbein, OD. Bethany joins me on the show live from Vision Expo East to talk about one of the most important relationships in an optometric practice: the relationship between the practice manager and the owner/OD. In this conversation, she talks about the evolution of the managerial role in the practice as the practice matures and grows, the characteristics of a valuable practice manager, the mistakes that both she and ...
Apr 22, 2024•54 min•Ep. 285
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Jennifer Stewart, OD. Jen joins me on the show today to talk through her journey launching her tepid start practice, Look New Canaan. I’ve had Jen on the show multiple times in the past, and this was admittedly one of my more enjoyable conversations with a podcast guest. Maybe it’s because it was live, or maybe it’s because Jen’s passion for this profession is so, well…passionate. But we hit on so many amazing and pointed to...
Apr 15, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 284
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Kayla Ashlee from Spexy . Kayla joins me live on location at IDOC Connection 2024 to talk all things optical. Optical is admittedly an area of practice management that has always been intriguing because of the retail component—I feel like there are a lot of “retail 101” lessons that we can take from how other retailers manage their business. While practice owners may not have the multi-million dollar IT and inventory management ...
Apr 08, 2024•50 min•Ep. 283
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Adam Ramsey, OD, representing VA Healthcare . In this episode, we talk about the role that a virtual medical assistant can play in your practice’s patient flow and how to think about the changes that you’d have to make in your practice for this to be a viable option. Adam provides a list of responsibilities that they’re doing in his practice and how he thinks through capacity for this person while ultimately striving to deli...
Apr 01, 2024•54 min•Ep. 282
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Nathan Hayes from IDOC. Nathan joins me back on the show to discuss and dialogue about the two basic ways practice owners can think about the way in which they hire associates for their practice: easing into it by bringing them into the practice gradually or proactively planning ahead by stockpiling cash in the practice and thus then “making the leap” by hiring an associate full-time—and then intentionally stewarding the practic...
Mar 25, 2024•52 min•Ep. 281
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Kurt Steele, OD. Kurt joins me back on the show to talk in further detail how he and his partners have structured their compensation structure in a way that works for everyone in the practice while also ensuring that there is parity in comp based on the amount of revenue that each of them collect for the work they do clinically in the practice. He shares the details and formula he uses and we run a couple of hypothetical exa...
Mar 18, 2024•56 min•Ep. 280
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Mike Neal, OD. Mike is the founder of a number of different businesses, include a primary care practice in PA called Lakeside Vision and Build My Team , an effective outsourced hiring system for eyecare that does not use resumes. Mike joins me back on the show to provide additional context and clarity around the numbers that he shared on the first episode, proving/dispelling the naysayers out there about the margins of his p...
Mar 11, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 279
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Kurt Steele, OD. Kurt is one of the owners of Precision Eyecare, a member of the Vision Source Network, in Newport, TN and also the founder of Legit Vision , a consulting firm to help ODs unlock the potential in their practice. Kurt joins me on the show today to talk through the unique and successful way that he has married the growth of his practice into the succession planning considerations that he wanted to have in place...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 278
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Charlie Steingas, founder and chief actuary at Cash Balance Actuaries , a firm that specializes in the design, implementation, and ongoing monitoring of cash balance plans. In this episode, we define what a cash balance plan is and how it’s different from a defined benefit plan (hint: they’re similar, but still different), what influences whether one would go DB vs Cash balance plan, how investing your plan assets impacts overal...
Feb 26, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 277
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Michael Neal, OD and this is another episode in which I experimented a bit with the format of 20/20 Money: we recorded this episode at 8,000 feet, flying from Indianapolis to Chicago! As you’ll hear in the beginning of the episode, Mike was in town meeting up with other successful practice owners from around the country. They’re all friends and have turned their personal friendships into a professional mastermind group, wher...
Feb 19, 2024•26 min•Ep. 276
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guests on today’s show are Drs. Eric Baas and Bob Steinmetz, co-founders of iCare advisors, a consulting firm dedicated to the success of cold start practices nationwide. With close to 350 successful cold starts nationwide and 11 practice starts between them, I was really excited to have them back on the show to talk through the “state of the cold start” marketplace—looking back on 2023 as well as looking forward (as best they can) to what’s coming down...
Feb 12, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 275
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Kevin Wills. Kevin is Sr. Vice President, Healthcare Business Banking with PNC Bank and I wanted to have Kevin on the show to discuss the state of lending, specifically in the healthcare space, from a nationwide perspective. In this episode, Kevin and talk about steps borrowers can take to put themselves in the best financial position prior to going through underwriting, how important projections and pro formas are in the underw...
Feb 05, 2024•51 min•Ep. 274
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guests on today’s show are two more of my favorite people in the optometry space: Drs. Chris Wolfe and Kyle Klute . Although, this is a bit of a different episode in that they’re not only guests on the show…they’re guest hosting the show! This is another 20/20 Money Takeover and basically a response to the first takeover episode I release with Drs. Jennifer Stewart and Jeremy Ciano ( link here ). Kyle was kind enough to reach out to me after the origina...
Jan 29, 2024•47 min•Ep. 273
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Ted McElroy. This is part two of our conversation that we teased on last week’s episode, and today Ted and I talk about the importance of resilience as a trait and quality that we should all embrace. He shares what resilience has meant to him in his life and how it was demonstrated throughout his life, most influential and notably by his grandfather, and how he’s strengthened that quality over his life…and how that’s benefit...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 272
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Ted McElroy. This is part one of our conversation where we talk about the importance of vulnerability as a leader, and why the two traits (vulnerability from today’s episode and resilience from next’s week’s episode) are intertwined. That is to say you can’t have one without the other. I believe Ted and I hit on a number of very important ideas in this albeit abstract conversation, but it’s one that I really enjoyed…and I ac...
Jan 15, 2024•59 min•Ep. 271
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! This “housekeeping” episode is all about knowing the timely and relevant numbers that impact your various savings strategies as we enter into the new year. I also spend some time talking about an awesome new feature for defined benefit plans (thanks to SECURE Act 2.0) and a PSA to all of you that received the ERC in 2023 (or anticipate receiving it in 2024). As a reminder, you can get all the information discussed in today’s conversation by visiting our we...
Jan 08, 2024•39 min•Ep. 270
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! Kicking off the new year, I wanted to share with you three important questions I ask myself that I’ve found to be very valuable and impactful when considering new projects, initiatives, or “asks” that occur throughout the year. These questions, when asked successively and answered together, can help bring a lot of clarity around where and how you spend your capital of time, money, and energy. As a reminder, you can get all the information discussed in toda...
Jan 01, 2024•28 min•Ep. 269
Welcome to this episode rewind of 20/20 Money! I think I’m starting a bit of a tradition, because I felt compelled to bring back this episode again, just like I did last year, for the last episode of the 2023!! Given that this is the last episode of the year, this is usually when we are thinking about goal setting, and everyone’s schedule is anything but normal being the day after Christmas, I wanted to bring back the conversation that I had with my friend, business collaborator, and advisor coa...
Dec 25, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 268
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Bethany Fishbein, CEO of The Power Practice and host of the Power Hour podcast . On today’s episode we continue our dialogue that we started on my last appearance on the Power Hour podcast, which was around year-end planning. However, this conversation starts with the non-financial decision-making process that practice owners should be considering as they map out the direction of their practice going into the new year, speci...
Dec 18, 2023•52 min•Ep. 267
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Erik Ferjentsik, MBA, founder of Visionary Practice Group . Erik and I have good, spirited discussion about transitions and what he’s seeing in the marketplace right now. We spend some time giving an update on the state of private equity, some common mistakes that he sees being made, the difference of listing with a broker vs “just” paying for a valuation and then shopping/listing it on their own through their own network, and a...
Dec 11, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 266
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Jackson Pace, founder of the Refractional CFO. Jackson and I talk through some of the year-end planning considerations that are likely on OD practice owners’ minds and how to think through that decision matrix. We talk about the importance of essentially beginning with the end in mind, evaluating paying cash vs financing a new piece of equipment, how purchasing equipment should be thought of for owners that are looking to sell i...
Dec 04, 2023•49 min•Ep. 265
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! This is my guest appearance on The Power Hour podcast hosted by Dr. Bethany Fishbein, OD, CEO of The Power Practice . I really enjoyed this conversation with Bethany and was grateful that she had me back on her show. We talked about year-end planning considerations (both financial and otherwise) and how practice owners can be thinking more intentionally about their practice as they prep for the upcoming new year. If you don’t already, I put links to Power ...
Nov 27, 2023•43 min•Ep. 264
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! This episode is my guest appearance on Akrinos Access Live , a livestream hosted by Erich Mattei, founder of Akrinos . Erich had me on his series to talk through practice succession options for sellers. The specific option that we discussed during this conversation was around owner-financing. I share my thoughts on the benefits and exchanges of owner financing and how that decision impacts other aspects of the selling process. As a reminder, you can get al...
Nov 20, 2023•52 min•Ep. 263
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Mila Ioussifova. Dr. Mila is founder of South Waterfront Eye Care in Portland, OR and she joins me on the show to talk about her journey as a successful, 10yr old cold start. What’s unique about Mila, though, is how intentional she’s been about how she runs her practice and the role that she plays in her businesses. During our conversation, she’ll share her journey as a cold start and why she chose the location that she did,...
Nov 13, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 262
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guests on today’s show are two of my favorite people in the optometry space: Drs. Jeremy Ciano and Jennifer Stewart. Although, this is a bit of a different episode in that they’re not only guests on the show…they’re guest hosting the show! I decided to try something different and essentially just turn the show over to them. No agenda. No topics. No script. Not even really a time limit. Just the two of them and a couple of microphones. My introductions u...
Nov 06, 2023•50 min•Ep. 261
As a reminder, you can get all the information discussed in today’s conversation by visiting our website at integratedpwm.com and clicking on the Learning Center. While there, be sure to subscribe to our monthly “planning life on purpose” newsletter that’s filled with tips and ideas to help you plan life on purpose. You can also set up a Triage conversation to learn a little bit more about how we serve in the capacity of a personal and professional CFO: helping OD practice owners around the coun...
Oct 30, 2023•51 min•Ep. 260
Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Gina Wesley, OD . Gina joins me back on the show to talk about the journey she's been on over the better part of year simultaneously launching an in-house patient membership plan called "the 2020 club" while also going out of network with her last (and largest) vision care plan. Gina talks through how she proceeds to evaluate the impact that it was going to have on her practice and the goals that she set which initially defi...
Oct 23, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 259
