Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Chris Wolfe, host of The Chris Wolfe Podcast, founder of the online billing & coding LMS EyeCode Education, and a partner in Exclusively Eye Care, a private practice in Omaha, NE.

 

This is part 2 of my conversation with Chris and I’d really encourage you to check out Part 1 of our conversation over on Chris’s podcast The Chris Wolfe Podcast (links in the show notes of this episode). Part 1 will really give some context behind the mindset that’s required to embrace some of the strategies and concepts that Chris talks about during this conversation.

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the 20/20 Money Masterclass, a platform that we created to help ODs become “brilliant at the financial basics,” please check out the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more.

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Chris Wolfe, OD. Listen to part 1 on Apple Podcasts Listen to part 1 on Spotify

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Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guests on today’s show are Drs. Jeremy Ciano & Jennifer Stewart. This is another 20/20 Money takeover, so while I usually will spend the introduction giving you a glimpse into what we talk about on the show, your guess is as good as mine about what this episode is about…since I just gave them the platform to talk about whatever was top of mind for them around the topic of cold starting & satellite expansion. Enjoy!!   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, and we have a link to that site right here in the show notes of this episode. While visiting the website, be sure to subscribe to our monthly “planning life on purpose” newsletter that’s filled with tips and ideas to help you plan your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the 20/20 Money Membership, a platform that we created to help ODs become “brilliant at the financial basics,” please check out the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more.   And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy the show takeover conversation with Drs. Jeremy Ciano & Jennifer Stewart!!  

 

Resources:

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Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Bethany Fishbein, OD, consultant and executive coach with Leaders of Vision. Bethany has been on the show many times in the past and today she joins us to talk about a topic that is admittedly harder and more distressing to talk about: embezzlement in optometry practices. In Bethany’s experience as a consultant having worked with many practices over the years, she’s unfortunately been privy to instances where embezzlement was happening. We talk about who’s likely to do it, what they’re likely to do, and small ways you can cross check the systems in your practice to ensure that you’re running a tight business.

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the 20/20 Money Membership, a platform that we created to help ODs become “brilliant at the financial basics,” please check out the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more.

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Bethany Fishbein, OD.

 

Resources:

20/20 Money Membership Information

 

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For past episodes of 20/20 Money with full companion show notes, please check out our episode archive here!

 

 

ChatGPT Prompt/Answer

Embezzlement in an optometry practice (or any healthcare setting) can occur in several ways due to the complex nature of transactions, including patient billing, insurance claims, and cash handling. Below are some realistic examples of how an employee might embezzle funds in an optometry practice:

 

### 1. **Billing Fraud:**

   - **Overcharging Insurance:** An employee could submit inflated insurance claims by increasing the cost of services or adding services that were never provided. They would then pocket the difference between the amount paid by the insurance company and the actual cost.

   - **Phantom Patients:** Creating fake patient records and submitting claims for services or products (like glasses or contacts) that were never provided, then diverting the insurance reimbursement to themselves.

 

### 2. **Skimming Cash Payments:**

   - **Cash Payments Not Recorded:** If a patient pays in cash, an employee might record the visit as "invoiced" or "to be billed later" rather than marking it as paid. The employee then takes the cash and destroys or alters any record of the payment.

   - **Under-reporting Receipts:** An employee could under-report the total cash collected at the end of the day, skimming small amounts regularly to avoid detection.

 

### 3. **Inventory Theft:**

   - **Selling Optical Inventory:** Employees could steal optical products (like glasses, contacts, frames, etc.) and resell them privately. Since optical products are high-margin items, this could go unnoticed if inventory management is lax.

   - **Ordering Extra Supplies:** Over-ordering contact lenses, frames, or other supplies and then selling the excess or returning items to vendors for cash or personal store credits.

 

### 4. **Falsifying Refunds or Discounts:**

   - **Fake Refunds:** An employee could process fake refunds for products or services and divert the refunded amount to their personal account or as cash.

   - **Unauthorized Discounts:** An employee might give unauthorized discounts to friends or family and accept a bribe or kickback in return.

 

### 5. **Manipulating Payroll or Expenses:**

   - **Payroll Padding:** The employee could inflate their working hours or add fake employees to payroll, then collect their salaries or wages.

   - **Expense Reimbursement Fraud:** An employee might submit inflated or completely fake expense reimbursement claims, such as fake mileage for business travel or falsified invoices for office supplies or services.

 

### 6. **Misappropriating Patient Deposits:**

   - **Misusing Prepayments:** In cases where patients prepay for services or products (e.g., contact lenses ordered in advance), an employee could misappropriate these funds, not recording the prepayment in the system.

 

### 7. **Altering Financial Records:**

   - **Adjusting Daily Ledgers:** An employee responsible for managing the daily financial ledger could adjust entries to match up with the cash they skimmed or misappropriated, making it appear as though the totals balance.

   - **Reconciling Bank Deposits:** Employees responsible for reconciling bank deposits might under-report the actual cash received, depositing a portion into their own account or taking some before it is deposited.

 

### 8. **Vendor Fraud:**

   - **Fake Vendor Invoices:** An employee could create a fake vendor, submit invoices for non-existent goods or services, and then approve payments to the fake vendor (which is actually the employee’s personal account).

   - **Colluding with Suppliers:** An employee could collude with a real supplier to submit inflated invoices for services or products, splitting the overpayment with the vendor.

 

### Safeguards to Prevent Embezzlement:

While this experiment is theoretical, it’s crucial to implement safeguards to minimize the risk of embezzlement. These may include:

- **Segregation of Duties:** Ensuring that no single employee has control over multiple aspects of financial transactions (e.g., someone handling cash should not be responsible for reconciling the ledger).

- **Regular Audits:** Conducting surprise audits and thorough annual reviews to catch discrepancies early.

- **Inventory Management:** Using automated systems to track inventory and spot unusual fluctuations in stock levels.

- **Bank Reconciliation:** Assigning bank reconciliation duties to someone outside of the person handling deposits.

- **Transparent Payroll:** Having a separate, trusted party regularly review payroll and expense reports.

 

Testing your practice’s internal controls without actually attempting fraud can help you spot weaknesses before they become a real problem. Would you like to explore specific ways to strengthen the financial controls in your practice?

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Mike Neal, OD. Mike joins me on the show to talk about something that we’ve indirectly talked about on various episodes in the past: delegation. Specifically, we talk about the mindset shift that happened for Mike when he started looking at his team as an investment in the business and the opportunity cost of him hanging onto so many trivial and administrative tasks in the practice…and what happened to him and his business when he let go of those items and focused his time on the best and highest impact activities in the practice.

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the 20/20 Money Membership, a platform that we created to help ODs become “brilliant at the financial basics,” please check out the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more.

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Mike Neal, OD.

 

Resources:

20/20 Money Membership Information

Atomic Habits

Email us your best delegation task

Bonus structures that work for non-OD team members w/ Dr. Michael Neal, OD

 

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Erich Mattei, founder of Akrinos. In this conversation, Erich and I discuss five specific concepts and ways that optometrists can make prudent business decisions in their practice and reduce the chances of making a strategic wrong decision.

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the 20/20 Money Membership, a platform that we created to help ODs become “brilliant at the financial basics,” please check out the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more.

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Erich Mattei.

 

Resources:

20/20 Money Membership Information

Akrinos

 

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Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Jennifer Stewart, founder of the private practice Look New Canaan and OD Perspectives.

 

In this episode, we talk about two major themes that she’s observed over the years as she has consulted with both friends and colleagues. Whether it be an OD launching a cold start or trying to make decisions inside of an established practice, there are two reoccurring themes that she’s observed ODs doing that is causing them to make mistakes with some unfortunate financial and quality-of-life implications.

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the 20/20 Money Membership, a platform that we created to help ODs become “brilliant at the financial basics,” please check out the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more.

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Jennifer Stewart.

 

Resources:

20/20 Money Membership Information

Episode on Accountability Partners

The Hedgehog Concept

Extreme Ownership

Who Not How

The Impact Filter™

Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Daniel Palmer, founder of Morether Creative, a Fractional CMO for optometrists nationwide.

 

In this conversation, we talk through and explain the Story Brand process and the SB7 framework. We talk about the common marketing mistakes that biz owners (not just ODs) make when it comes to marketing their brand, how to think of the SB7 framework through the patient experience, and some of the Next Best Steps that ODs can take based on our conversation. Daniel also shares a really impactful framework called the one-line story brand and how ODs can use this simple, 3-part framework to explain each part of the patient’s journey through the practice which ultimately demonstrates the value of the practice to the patient.

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the 20/20 Money Membership, a platform that we created to help ODs become “brilliant at the financial basics,” please check out the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more.

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Daniel Palmer.

 

Resources:

20/20 Money Membership Information

My StoryBrand

Building a Story Brand (book)

 

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Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Bethany Fishbein, OD, Consultant & Executive Coach with Leaders of Vision. Bethany and I talk about a topic that an OD might not think about directly correlating to the financials of a practice: leadership skills. However, I believe that we quickly illustrate in our conversation how the things that negatively impact a practice’s profitability—staff turnover, patients not returning, and an overworked/overwhelmed owner just to name a few—are usually the symptoms of an underlying “disease:” an owner that has neglected to focus on improving their leadership skills and emotional intelligence. Throughout this conversation, Bethany shares practical ways for owners to take action and, at the end, shares a very easy Next Best Step that an owner/leader can take to make progress.

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the 20/20 Money Membership, a platform that we created to help ODs become “brilliant at the financial basics,” please check out the link in the show notes of this episode to learn more.

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Bethany Fishbein, OD.

 

Resources:

20/20 Money Membership Information

https://www.leadersofvision.com/leadershipEQ  

Parenting with Love and Logic Podcast

 

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Welcome to this episode of 20/20 Money! My guest on today’s show is Dr. Michael Neal, OD. Michael joins me back on the show to discuss bonus structures that work for non-producing members of your team, and how they can be put together in a way that is advantageous to both the team member and the overall growth of the practice.  

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. You can also check out any number of additional free resources like our eBooks, blog posts, and on-demand webinars. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming launch of the 20/20 Money Membership, please check out the link in the Resources to learn more about what we have in store for you!

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Michael Neal, OD.  

 

Resources:

20/20 Money Community Information

Flights And Insights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHEtC0iyNMg

How utilizing a streamlined hiring service can help save time and money by ensuring the right people are on the bus with Dr. Mike Neal, OD

How a hyper-effective, right-fit team can increase your profitability: a follow up convo with Dr. Mike Neal, OD

 

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In this episode, we break down why the Federal Reserve decided to cut interest rates by 0.5% (50 basis points) and what it signals about the economy. More importantly, we dive into actionable steps that optometry practice owners can take to benefit from these lower rates while preparing for potential economic shifts.  

Resources:

20/20 Money Community Information CS Eye Optometric Billing Consultants

 

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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 examples to show how the numbers work out for each partner. He also shares how he uses operational margins as an incentive bonus structure for his non-OD staff and which line items of the P/L are used to determine whether they’ve accomplished their margin goals and when those bonuses are paid out.

 

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 your best 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 country reduce their tax bill, proactively manage cash flow, and make prudent investment decisions both in and out of their practice to ultimately help them live their best life on purpose. You can also check out any number of additional free resources like our eBooks, blog posts, and on-demand webinars. Lastly, if you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming launch of the 20/20 Money Membership, please check out the link in the Resources to learn more about what we have in store for you!

 

And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kurt Steele, OD.

 

Resources:

20/20 Money Community Information

 

https://www.legitvisionpllc.com/ 

 

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For past episodes of 20/20 Money with full companion show notes, please check out our episode archive here!