20/20 MONEY: The Business of Optometry

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 h...

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 th...

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...

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'...

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"...

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 posi...

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. Jenn...

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 not...

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 ve...

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)....

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...

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 w...

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...

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 "j...

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 pie...

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 abou...

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 financi...

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...

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 scri...

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...

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...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! In this episode, we have a special guest joining us, Dr. John Rumpakis.  Dr. Rumpakis is a medical coding consultant for OD's, and founder of CodeSAFEPLUS, which gives you the knowledge and factual data you need to be safe, compliant, and profitable in today's healthcare environment. Today Dr. Rumpakis will walk us through a step-by-step process for optimizi...

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 to revisit a topic that we've discussed in the past but is worth revisiting on another episode: partnerships. Nathan and I share both of our experiences and thoughts about practice partnerships at all stages of their lifecycle: before, during, and towards the end of a partn...

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today's show is Dr. Heidi Bell, OD, FCOVD. Heidi is a partner in  Elite Eyecare , which houses Elite Vision Therapy within the practice and joins me on the show to talk about the success and passion she has for vision therapy and how following that passion has led to incredible success in the practice and fulfillment for her—personally and profes...

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...