How to thrive in an economy that fires its doctors

It is no longer unusual to hear about doctors losing their jobs.

In this episode, Dr. Una shows you four things to do so you can thrive in our current healthcare space.

Yes, we are in the middle of a disruption but you can adapt so it has no impact on your career or your finances.

Don't forget to share this episode of the EntreMD podcast on your social media channels and tag us #EntreMD. 

Listener spotlight of the week

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GoodluKC

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I had been looking for a podcast that gives physicians business advice. As a medical student, this podcast is a valuable asset to use to help me create the practice I want in the future. This is a great podcast that is constantly dropping gems of info.

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Thank you so much for your kind review. I am so happy you are learning these things now as a medical student. I can’t tell you how many times doctors in the audience when I speak say they wish they knew these much earlier on. Looking forward to meeting you in person one day.

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Links mentioned in this episode:

Freedom Formula Masterclass 

When you are ready to work with us, here are three ways.

1. EntreMD Business School Accelerator - If you are looking to make a 180 turnaround in your business in 90 days, this is the program for you.
2. EntreMD Business School Grow - This is our year-long program with a track record of producing physician entrepreneurs who are building 6, 7 and 7+ figure businesses. They do this while building their dream lives!
3. EntreMD Business School Scale - This is our high-level mastermind for physicians who have crossed the seven figure milestone and want to build their businesses to be well oiled machines that can run without them.

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Transcript

speaker 0:   0:00
Hi docks. Welcome to the entree, Andy. Podcast where it is all about helping amazing physicians just like you and raise entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Well, welcome back to the entree, MD podcast. I am super happy as always, that you are here. You are in for a treat today. Today we are going to be looking at how to thrive in an economy that fires its doctors. Okay, we have had an alarming trend that has been going on of doctors being replaced, doctors being fired. And I want to show you how to thrive in spite of that. Now, before we do that, I want to give a big shout out to an amazing person who left us a review on iTunes. Um, and this is from a medical student. So if you know me, I love medical students. I love residents because they are in a position to learn the things that they need to do to thrive as physician entrepreneurs, even from that early stage. So when we have our live conferences like we had entree, MD live in June of 2019. We actually gave scholarships for medical students and some residents to come attend, because we know how much of the game changer can be for them. So this is from good luck. And this is a medical student says Great podcasts. I have been looking for a podcast that gives physicians business advice As a medical student, this podcast is a valuable assets who used to help me create the practice I want in the future. This is a great podcast that is constantly dropping gems off info. Thank you so much. Good love for that amazing review. Truly appreciate it for you, taking the time not only to listen, but to let me know that it's making a difference. Thank you so much, and I would like for you to reach out to me on social media. That's doctor in a Chiku on. I would love to give you a complimentary ticket to entree MD. Live for June of 2020. All right, so let's get down to it. I am going to start by reading some reports that I pulled up about how doctors have been fired because sometimes were not fully aware of what's going on. So according to Med page today, on November 19th 15 full time doctors in Edward Elmhurst Health in West's urban suburban Chicago, we're told at a staff meeting that they would be fired and replaced with nurse practitioners to reduce costs. Determination would be effective as of April 2020 so they have five months to figure it out. 15 full time doctors okay, Last year in 2018 27 Pediatrician's at a chain of clinics in the Dallas area lost their jobs and we replaced by nurse practitioners and also in 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina. A term health ended a nearly 40 year contract with the 100 member physician group signing up instead with Scope Anesthesia, which says is dedicated to forming partnerships with certified registered nurse anaesthetics. Atrium said it was looking to reduce patient costs. Now we can go into all the other things that are going on, But for today, what I want to look at is, if you're a physician and you're in, you find yourself in that situation. What do you do? What do you do to prepare yourself if something like that was gonna happen to you and this is the whole reason why the entree M d podcast theon trendy platform exists. Okay, now, before we go into this, I do want to say I'm not doing this to be disrespectful to anybody who's gone through this. I cannot imagine what it's like to maybe have had, you know, contract. Maybe worked in a place for 10 years or 15 years. And someone just tells you have five months to figure it out. We're replacing your too expensive to maintain. I don't know what that possibly could feel like, but this is a trend. And I want to help somebody to avoid going through the same or to position themselves such that if that were to happen to them, they're able toe handle it. Okay, so let's get into the things that we need to do. The first thing doctors. The first thing you have to do is you have to become your own boss. You have to become your own boss. You have to start working for you incorporated. No matter who you work for. Okay. No matter who cuts your check, you need to take responsibility for your career for your earning power. For how often and how hard you work. You need to become your own boss. I want you to take a moment. I want you to say this out loud. I mean, except you're somewhere where you can say it aloud and say I work for Dr and insert your name incorporated for me. I work for Dr Yoon Incorporated, and I always have. Okay. All right. So you may contract eight hours of your day to your job, but you still work for you. So if that's the case, then you're gonna have to start looking at yourself differently. For instance, when Amazon came up and became much bigger and started causing other brick and mortar stores to lose their market share, Wal Mart could have said, Oh, my goodness, I don't know what's going on. But that's not what they did. They had to set up platforms to start competing. They had to set their own online portals. They had to set up, you know, same day, pick up. They had to set up things where you can order a home and it's already package. You just have to get to the parking lot. And they put it in your car. They had to do all of that. So at this stage, you're a job is to do a SWAT analysis, right? Look at your strengths. Your weaknesses. Look, it the threats that are affecting your company, your company being doctor, you incorporated. Okay, So Amazon, you know, started what they now call the retail apocalypse. Right? So you have warm, are closing stores. You have Macy's closing stores. You have Payless going out of business. You have, you know, Toys R us, going out of business. You have all of these happening, and a lot of it. A lot of it has been attributed to e commerce, Amazon and all of that stuff. There is a threat to your job. There is a threat to you. Being able to keep a job may be in a certain place, but there is a threat going on. Right? So the question becomes, How you gonna pivot? What are you gonna do to position your company so that that doesn't become an issue for you? So it starts from the very first places you recognizing. I work for Dr Me incorporated, and that takes away the thing of always not fair. I don't know what's going on, that you're a business person. You own a company, you're a CEO. You analyze the threat, you analyze the trends. Are you prepared to be ahead of it, Mike. So first thing you work for yourself. The second thing is you have to build out your personal brand. As a physician, you have to build a brand. Now some people usually tell me, You know, I don't want to be on social media. I don't really think we need to be building brands and stuff. But the truth of the matter is, you actually have a browned, whether you've built it out or not. If you haven't built it out, you just have a brand that's not built out, because guess what happens if anybody is looking for your services. Even when you apply for jobs, people are Googling you. People are going to Facebook to look for you people, so you have a non existent brand. But guess what is still a brand is just a non existent one. That especially if you are employed, you need to be building a brand because your brand is your leverage. Your brown could be used for negotiations your brand can keep in a job when they fire everybody else. Your brand will position you that even if they let you go, it is so much easier for you to get another job because you bring more to the table. OK, so I will give you an example. I have a client, and what she's done is she's built out of brand. So yes, she's a physician's. She's a family doctor, but she is in the media, So she's done. You know, a number of interviews on CNN and Hln and Sister Circle and all of those themes. She's very prominent on social media, and I'm not talking 10,000 followers. Okay, that's not the point. But she has a following, okay? And she's taken up speaking and she's doing all of those things. So if her hospital comes out and says, Oh, we're gonna fire these 30 family medicine doctors there a number of things that will happen. Number one dami fire everybody except her right. That may well happen because they know we have patients coming because of her. Our name shows up on CNN because of her, so they might go like, you know, we're firing all 32 but her. The second thing that may happen is they may fire her, but she couldn't go somewhere else and say, Listen, I'm a family doctor. I have a great following, so I will be bringing patients to your practice. I show up on CNN, so the name of your practice will be on CNN, and it gives her more leverage. OK, so you need to be building out your personal brand. So you're not quote unquote, just a physician, and I don't say that to demean our training or any of that. But I'm saying if you can have two things, I have one. So be a great clinician and have a powerful brand. All right, so you're literally just one step away from leveraging yourself even better, Okay? And like I said, it doesn't have to be a gazillion followers. He just needs to be an engaged community. And you can do that. And you know, that's part of what we do in freedom form the masterclass. Freedom for the master classes. A 12 week course that we dio and you get trained on how to manage your online browned, how to manage your offline brand. How to create your message? How to create this. Determine your focus, right, so you can build that personal brand out. So I'll post the link for it in the show notes so you can get more information about it and sign up for it Would love to have you as part of our community, but you've got to build out your personal brand. Okay, The third thing you need to dio is you need to learn business skills. I have been saying this for about three years. Your MD is no longer enough. Don't get me wrong. Your MD is great, is powerful, your great condition. You're saving lives, and that is wonderful. But in the current healthcare space where we find ourselves, you are going to need business skills as well. Okay, so back in the day, it used to be that as a physician, you could just hang your shingle and they would come. But in the world, we existed. Right now that doesn't exist anymore. We're just in a completely different space. It's a space where, you know, job security used to be a given, and I'm not saying doctors. All doctors were losing their jobs or at risk of losing their jobs. But there is a trend going on, and we need to prepare. We need to pivot. Okay, so it's no longer a place where job security is a giving given is a place where sometimes our training is not valued. It's more cost over proper training, right? So that's going on. And we must learn to compete if we are going to thrive. So business skills were no longer optional is just something that you need tohave. Okay. And sometimes you say, Well, not a business person. Yeah, but what? Before you went to medical school, you were in a doctor. You trained to become a doctor, and you can train to become a business person. So you have to invest in yourself in this area. You should be attending business conferences. You should be reading business books. You should be listening to podcasts like this one. You should be getting a business coach on board. You should be doing these things to learn the skills that you are going to need to thrive. Okay, the fourth thing you're going to need to do is we're gonna need to build out your brand as an entrepreneur. Okay, so you're a clinician, and that is great. But they're also other things you can do, right? You should be thinking multiple streams of income. Have you looked at real estate investing? Maybe that's something that's a passion of yours. You need to start developing that. Working on that, creating that as an income income stream. You need to be picking up speaking. I am a believer that every physician should be a speaker and not just on clinical things, But everyone should develop that ability to stand in front of the stage and get their message across. Okay, you should be picking that up. That is another stream of income. And if you have a business that is the fastest way to grow your business, you could be a brand ambassador. You should. You could take up consulting. You could take up coaching. There's so many things that you conduce you but that aspect of your career as an entrepreneur you want to build it out as well. Okay. No, I need you to think about it. Think about you work a job or the work of business. Whichever you work. A job. But you've built out your personal brand. As a physician, you have taken the stance of I am my own boss. I am responsible. You have learned business skills and you've built out your brand is an entrepreneur, right? If you get called into that kind of meeting where they tell you Oh, you know these 30 doctors, we've decided to lay you off, right? If you're in that kind of meeting, then you have options. Option number one, you can say You know what? You fire 30 of us. I'm going to go, you know, on go open my own thing. I'm gonna go open my own practice. You may decide to do that by yourself. You may say, Hey, 30 30 of us. We already have a big group here. Come on, let's do this right. You can decide to do that. Or you can say, You know what? I've always really wanted Teoh. You know, I wanted to really develop this other side of wanted to be a coach or developed a diet, and I really wanted Teoh push that aspect of my my business or I've already been tinkering around with these online business things and I want to give that a go or I want to do real estate investing like I mean it. You can use that as your opportunity to transition out of clinical medicine because maybe that's something you've been thinking about is not for everybody but there. Many people who that's what they want to dio. The other thing you could do is you could say, finally, I've been meaning to take six months off, you know, toe work. To spend time with my family to travel the world. I'm a homeschooling parent, and I want them to have you know, this experience of world schooling. You could say I've been meaning to take a vacation and, you know, because I'm a doctor who is so in tune with the needs of my patients, I couldn't bring myself to, but hallelujah that you're letting us go. I can finally go and do this. Do you see how this gives you options? Okay, so you would be prepared, you would be in control and your finances would be unharmed. So don't wait for a staff meeting. Don't wait for there to be a shaking in your company. Start doing this right now. Right now, Get your financial future and the future of your career out of the hands of your boss and take it into your own hands. Become your own boss, build out your own brand, learned the business skills and build out your brand as an entrepreneur. Okay, so don't wait. All right? No. What I want you to do with this episode is I want you to recognize that this is an epidemic going on. It is not unusual for doctors to get replaced is not unusually. It's the thing that is becoming more and more common. It's an epidemic. And this is the vaccine. So I want you to share this episode. I want you to text it to you know, four or five of your colleagues I want to share you to share it on your social media handles. You can actually take a snapshot as you're watching it at listening to it and posted on social media with what you got out of it. But I want you to commit to share this episode, okay? And we have a community, the entree MD tribe on Facebook, and I want you to join that community. Is on trendy dot com slash join where this is all we talk about. This is all we work on. We work on our brands, we work on our messaging and I want to help you to become that physician who would not care about a meeting like that because it will only make your life better. So thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being a part of the entre MD community. If you have questions I want you to posted in the on tram, the private Facebook group, I would be happy to create a segment just for you. And I will see you next week. Don't forget to share the episode. I'll talk to you that if you love this podcast, please take a moment to subscribe Share and you don't as you go about your week. Remember, you're not just men Urine on trendy. Don't forget to tune in next week for another great episode. Until next time