20/20 MONEY: The Business of Optometry

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Nathan Hayes. This conversation is a follow up to the episode that Nathan and I did around partnership compensation structures. In that episode, Nathan in passing made a couple of comments around associate compensation structure and the feedback we received from that episode around that specific topic warranted its own show. In th...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! On this episode, we'll provide a brief refresher on the important components of long term disability, talk about the differences between short and long term disability (and why I will usually not recommend you purchase short term disability policies), and provide an update on the group disability insurance plan offered through the AOA. As a reminder, you can...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Dr. Steve Vargo . Steve joins me back on the show to talk about a certain growing pain that practice owners may eventually find themselves in and that's the idea of adding an associate to their practice.   We tackle this conversation from two different viewpoints—the qualitative ("Is my practice ready for an associate?") and quali...

Welcome to a Rewind episode of 20/20 Money! It's September, which means that it's the time of year when practice owners should be reviewing their current retirement plan and determining if it's the same type of plan that they want to have serving their practice into the next year. This was a popular episode around this time last year, so I'm bringing it back for another listen. Choosing a retireme...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Jen Goldman . Jen has spent her career helping service-based businesses think through and build processes that ultimately help the business grow larger than any individual owner, thus allowing the practice owner to build a bigger enterprise value (higher valuation) of their business while allowing more freedom and flexibility for...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! Back with me on today's episode is Nathan Hayes with IDOC.   The genesis for this episode stems from a slight digression we had on a previous conversation around the importance of understanding cash flow in your business, specifically as it relates to reading and understanding your statement of cash flow that you can pull from your accounting software. Natha...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Dr Matt Mitchell and this is actually an episode rewind, going back to episode #43 of 20/20 Money which aired almost 2 years ago to the day!   I've been having a lot of conversations with both new and existing clients about how and when to break through to the next level and add an associate to help grow revenues and, ultimately,...

  Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Ed Wildermuth, CFP®, ChFC®, CPA . Continuing on the topic of permanent insurance that I started on last week's episode, Ed joins me on the show today to do a deeper dive on permanent insurance solutions such as whole life and universal life and talk through some of the dos and don'ts with those type of policies. We also discuss...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! Today's episode is all about the options that you have if you've purchased whole life insurance in the past and you're wondering what options you have if it hasn't necessarily lived up to your expectations. While whole life insurance can have a place in a financial plan and we're not 100% anti-whole life, we've seen more than our fair share of examples where...

On this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Nathan Hayes. Long time listeners will know that Nathan and I can talk about almost any business subject that impacts optometrists, and today's topic is no different but it's one that I think is going to resonate with a lot of OD practice owners: key considerations when evaluating partnerships within your practice. In this conversation, N...

Welcome to another episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Michael Pote .   Michael has been on the show before (you can check out those conversations by clicking here for Part I and here for Part II ) to talk about selling your practice to private equity and I wanted to have him back on the show for a couple of reasons as I've found myself personally having more conversations and doin...

Welcome to another episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Nate Ebel. Nate is the founder of Ten31 Marketing, a marketing agency located in Bloomington, IN that serves optometrists nationwide. In this conversation, Nate and I talk about different strategies and tools practice owners can use to increase the effectiveness of their marketing, web presence, and patient communication platfo...

Welcome to another episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Nathan Hayes. Nathan's been a guest in the past on the show and he joins me today to talk about a topic that's been front-and-center for both of us in a lot of conversations that we've been having lately with ODs around the country: preparing for an exit. Specifically, we break it down into three questions that an owner needs t...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money, and if you're listening to this on July 12th, happy National Heterochromia day! Today's episode is my guest appearance on the podcast Try Not 2 Blink , a really enjoyable optometry podcast hosted by two great ODs Drs. James Deom and Roya Habibi. I've put links to the podcast in the show notes or just search Try Not to Blink on your favorite podcast player. I...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! I often get asked the question "Have I saved enough" for retirement or "How did my portfolio do compared to the benchmark?" In this episode, I'll share with you why I think that's the (semi) wrong question to be asking…and what the right questions to be asking are regardless of where you are in your wealth building timeline.   As a reminder, you can get all...

Welcome to another episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Justin Castelli. Justin has become a good friend of mine and is also an advisor located in Fishers, IN. Through Justin's storied career as an advisor, he's built his firm RLS Wealth Management and is more recently taking an active role as the VP of Marketing and Brand Development with Onramp, an integration platform that helps...

Welcome to 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Dr. Aaron Neufeld, OD and this is Part 2 of our 2-part conversation. As mentioned in the first episode, Aaron wears many hats in the optometry space. He's the owner of Los Altos Optometric Group , co-founder of ODs on Finance , the author of many optometry articles, co-author of The Optometrist's Guide to Financial Freedom , and speaks at optomet...

Welcome to 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Dr. Aaron Neufeld, OD and this is Part 1 of a 2-part conversation. Aaron wears many hats in the optometry space. He's the owner of Los Altos Optometric Group , co-founder of ODs on Finance , the author of many optometry articles, co-author of The Optometrist's Guide to Financial Freedom , and speaks at optometry events around the country. I wante...

On this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Dr. Ted McElroy. Ted joins us back on the show to talk about an albeit abstract concept that may not seem like it has direct financial implications: constraints in our lives and how we deal with them. We tag team this topic as we cover the concept of constraints from the personal, professional, and financial point of view…and how we've bo...

Hello 20/20 Money community, welcome to a "holiday week repeat." Given that this episode is coming out on Memorial Day, I wanted to hold off on releasing a new episode and bring back a recent episode that seems to have struck a nerve with practice owners, and that's the importance of practice owners "defining your number." I had this conversation with Nathan Hayes from IDOC. We're defining "your n...

On this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Dr. Rich Zimbalist. Rich (who's been on the show in the past) is a practicing OD with the VA in Columbia, Missouri and has turned his passion of website design into a business of helping optometrists around the country grow their practice through website design search engine strategies. I'll admit this episode is a bit unorthodox as we tu...

On this episode of 20/20 Money! My guests on today's show are Drs. Eric Baas and Bob Steinmetz, co-founders of iCare Advisors . If you missed last week's interview or this is your first time checking out 20/20 Money, please go back and check out last week's interview. You don't need to listen to that one first to gain value from the rest of our conversation, but you'll definitely want to go back a...

On this episode of 20/20 Money! My guests on today's show are Drs. Eric Baas and Bob Steinmetz, co-founders of iCare Advisors . iCare Advisors consults with ODs all around the country and their specific area of expertise is helping ODs navigate the decision making matrix and analysis behind opening a cold start practice. This wide ranging conversation was so deep and so long that I actually wanted...

It's tax season, which means that we're spending a fair amount of planning energy reviewing clients' tax returns to ensure that strategies that we're discussing and implementing with clients are proactively and properly reported on their tax returns. However, sometimes lines of communication get crossed or DIY tax preparers overlook how strategies should be reported on your personal and business t...

On this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Dr. Chris Wolfe. Chris joins the show to talk about a topic that can directly impact the profitability of a practice, and that's around the introduction of managed care into an optometry practice. Whether you're a seasoned OD that has been providing managed care for your patients for years or you're an OD that has intentionally stayed awa...