Full Transcript Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:06 Welcome to the Doctors Making a Difference podcast where we help physicians to be empowered with the tools they need to successful in medicine, 0:13 in finance, and in life. 0:15 Join us as we highlight doctors and other professionals around the world who are making a difference. 0:26 I'm really excited to share the episode today with Dr. 0:29 Mike Wu Ming. 0:30 Michael is an experienced podcaster and I've been looking forward to this podcast for several weeks. 0:36 Really excited, to connect with him and share his experience. 0:39 He's kind of done it all. 0:41 And I think you'll find this Podcast episode really interesting. 0:44 I'm very excited today to welcome our guest, Dr. 0:47 Mike Wu-Ming. 0:49 Dr Mike Wuming has been practicing since he graduated the Mayo Clinic in 1999 as a family physician practicing in Southern California. 0:58 And he started a business in 2003 and I'll let him tell you about it. 1:02 But he changed nearly everything about how he was practicing medicine and his perspective on medicine. 1:08 I think this is a really important message for our fellow physicians to hear. 1:12 Dr. 1:13 Wu Ming, Mike, would you mind introducing yourself to our audience in a little more detail? 1:18 Yeah, Peter. 1:18 First off, thanks for having me on your show. 1:22 Been looking forward to it all week. 1:24 Yeah. 1:25 So I'm a family physician, although I don't do family physicians anymore. 1:31 But first off I am an entrepreneur, a physician and a dad. 1:38 I wear lots of different hats. 1:40 From the medicine side, I run some longevity practices here in Southern California, multiple locations. 1:48 I've got 10 plus employees, actually 12 to 15 employees running that, taking care of patients. 1:58 I'm a board member of the National Association of Virtual Physicians and just helping spread the importance of telemedicine for people who don't often
Mike Wu-Ming's Background and Ventures 2:07 get access to medicine. 2:08 On the business standpoint, I am CEO of Dr. 2:11 Podcast Network, which you are a part of, set up and grow their own podcasts. 2:16 I work with Peter Kim from Passive Income D and run a coaching program, physician entrepreneurship called Momentum MD. 2:22 And I also run my own consulting practice where I help doctors set-up their cash-based medical practice to grow and scale those practices. 2:32 That's just on a Monday. 2:37 Different ventures, I love physicians, love entrepreneurship. 2:41 Yeah, that's me. 2:43 No, thank you for sharing. 2:45 You wear a lot of hats and you do a lotta things. 2:47 Part of the story I wanna focus on a little bit is, like all physicians, you went to residency, started a job, got busy, 2:56 had a family, and I think most people follow something along those lines. 3:01 But somewhere along the line, your trajectory changed a little bit and that's what I want to focus it on a bit. 3:08 Tell us the story from kind of traditional path to where you realize I have to change something. 3:15 Yeah, so I came from a family of doctors. 3:18 My dad was a pediatrician. 3:20 Uncle's a cardiothoracic surgeon, cousin's dermatologist. 3:23 It really makes for interesting family reunions because we're all immunated doctors in some standpoint. 3:28 So medicine was in my blood. 3:30 Went to residency. 3:32 I was at the Mayo, went to Arizona because, sorry, Peter, I can't take the cold winters in Minnesota. 3:38 So I ended up going to Arizona and I was in residency internship at the time. 3:44 And I did what you probably shouldn't have done. 3:47 I bought a house. 3:48 My wife was a librarian, but she was also pregnant with our first child. 3:52 And we were a dual income, but suddenly an intern here, she would have to go on maternity leave and we we're faced with not being able to perhaps pay her mortgage. 4:02 So I had to scramble fast as when she was going on a maternary leave. 4:05 Obviously as an internship, you're kind of limited about other things you can do. 4:09 It's not like you had a moonlighting job. 4:11 No, I can't work in a Wendy's or something like that. 4:15 What can I do? 4:15 And so. 4:17 I learned about, just being the geeky kind of guy I am, I learnt about the internet early on. 4:22 This is, we're talking residency was from 96 to 99. I don't think too many, there's probably people in here that may not have been, 4:30 are still in school, may have not even been born. 4:33 But internet was still on its early beginnings of it. 4:37 And I started learning about websites and I actually helped build our residency website. 4:44 And what happened was, and I wasn't even thinking about it at the time was just manning that website. 4:49 I would get all these inquiries from other premed or even foreign medical graduates who were interested in practicing in the United States. 4:57 And then they were asking me questions about how can I get to a residency of my choice or how could I interview for residency? 5:04 And I started to answer these questions. 5:07 But of course, being an intern, how much time do I actually have to doing this? 5:11 I'm not getting paid for this. 5:12 Yeah, not much. 5:13 Almost as a lark. 5:14 I was like, You know what, I'm going to write up a guide and it's going be all frequently asked questions about residency.
From Residency Side Hustle to Entrepreneurship 5:21 Well, everything you need to know. 5:23 But again, this is in the nineties, right? 5:26 There wasn't anything, there was an eBooks or anything like that. 5:29 And he said, i'm gonna go to Kinko's. 5:31 So some of you remember what kinkos is. 5:33 It's super going get it printed out and I am going create a guy and i am gonna sell it for $35 and answer all of your questions. 5:42 And then you would get a guide and I would send it to you. 5:45 And I said, you know what? 5:47 I can't do it for free. 5:48 I'm going to charge $35 for it, including shipping and handling, I think in there. 5:54 And I'm so naive. 5:55 There wasn't any like PayPal or anything to take my money. 5:58 I said, you can write me a check, write a cheque and Peter, You'll never guess what happened. 6:03 But I started getting checks in the mail for this guy that I made out of Kinko's. 6:08 That I sent it out. 6:11 And then I got, I thought, Oh, that's kind of cool. 6:15 Now I didn't get enough money to replace my, my mortgage payment. 6:20 But I had enough to take care of my truck payment and and I go, this is really interesting. 6:26 I'm getting all of these people and then I started to get a lot from overseas because there's a of doctors who were practicing in their country and they 6:33 want to practice in the States. 6:35 And then they were asking me questions like English is in my first language. 6:39 Could you help me write my personal statement? 6:42 And then my wife said, she's known as this, I'm six months pregnant. 6:45 I can help edit it and I have a college degree and then I said there's these people who have. 6:54 With my experience as getting into the residency of my choice and getting doing well on the MCATs and things like that. 7:03 And so we started to create different services. 7:05 So we created a service to help edit their personal statement. 7:10 And I started creating recordings. 7:13 I actually created an online course. 7:14 Again, this is 90s. 7:15 This is really early internet. 7:20 Very early on there. 7:22 And then there was a couple of things I learned is I probably shouldn't give people my home address and I got a PO box number. 7:28 Again, you're taking me back. 7:30 This is 30 years ago. 7:32 It's surprising on this. 7:33 I'm not telling you that I get rich from this, but we created our own business and that helped us get through residency. 7:44 I had no business background. 7:46 Of course, we don't get any business back in medicine, but I, I developed a business. 7:50 I develop the business where there was a problem and we provided a solution and I ran that business through until I graduated residency. 7:58 And that was the first beginning about entrepreneurship and just like, if you have a. 8:03 Problem and you can help solve that problem. 8:07 You have the foundation of a, of business and that's where my entrepreneurial fires first was first stoked. 8:14 Before we hit record, we talked about how sometimes you're just one step ahead of the people who are asking for your help. 8:20 And that's essentially what you were. 8:21 You were saying, this is where I'm at, and this where you want to be. 8:24 So even with kind of, the rudimentary internet services that were available in the nineties, people got in touch with you and you made money doing it. 8:32 so you started a business during residency, which is insane. 8:35 That's awesome. 8:36 It was, that led me on a path. 8:39 So learning about just starting business. 8:42 So fast forward a little bit, Mike. 8:46 You got into residency, you finished residency and then where was your first job located at? 8:53 Just about the town where I'm still living in now. 8:55 We're in Escondido, which is a suburb of San Diego. 9:00 And so you're there in Escondido and you working your first job. 9:04 And, and I know you've talked about it a little bit on your information, you have it on website, but you mentioned it in 2003, there was another opportunity 9:13 for change and walk us through that. 9:14 Cause I think this is not only a story of a entrepreneurial physician, But also just a human story, of someone who's You're a doctor. 9:23 Like I say, you're dad, your husband. 9:25 You've got all these different roles and suddenly all of these roles collided. 9:29 So tell us that story. 9:31 Yeah. 9:31 So after graduating residency, I had the experience of starting this little business, but of course I'm thinking, okay, now I am going to make real money, 9:39 right? 9:39 I m a doctor and I've done with that residency salary and am making real. 9:44 Then I learned a thing about living in California and taxes and different things like that. 9:49 I have the same experience. 9:50 We moved to San Diego, we built our house and, and that was like, wow, got my guaranteed salary. 9:57 And then I learnt early on that a guaranteed Salary meant that no matter how little or often more likely how much you work, 10:04 you're guaranteed to get the same salary. 10:07 So I was working at, I, was like, they put me with different hats. 10:12 We started our own extended, which became our urgent care. 10:15 I became the Urgent Care Director for our practice. 10:17 It was a group practice, made up of primary care physicians. 10:21 They didn't really believe in the hospital system back then.
Family Crisis and Leaving Clinical Practice 10:24 Just like yourself, admitting 12 patients a night. 10:27 Call was actually every third, every fourth night, running in the nursing homes. 10:32 So lots of different hats on in there. 10:36 I was feeling the effects of making a good income, but I thought I would be in a better financial position on there, and so I started dabbling in other 10:47 entrepreneurial activities. 10:48 But really what was the big turning point was when my son was diagnosed with autism. 10:54 Again, this is early on. 10:56 It definitely was not the in vogue condition that it seems to be these days. 11:02 I just knew that my sun was like certain noises were affecting him. 11:06 He's crying, he's running into our closet. 11:08 And I didn't know what to do about it. 11:11 He learned that he was on the spectrum and I basically told my CEO it's like, I don't know. 11:16 We really know what's going on, but I want to be more part of my son's life. 11:20 I wanted to go to his medical visits and his therapy visits. 11:25 And pretty much was told that I get it, you still have a full-time job. 11:31 So that really doesn't exist on there. 11:39 I made a decision that I always said yes to everything. 11:42 Yes, I'll be the urgent care director. 11:44 I guess I will be nursing home director, yes I take more call on the holidays. 11:49 But I was trying to please these people but my own family I felt was suffering and as being the son of a pediatrician I kind of learned first hand. 12:00 My dad passed away a few years ago but I never had that relationship because he was always gone and I didn't want to be the same thing to my, 12:09 uh, that I had experienced. 12:11 So I made the decision to eventually quit and I was a shareholder at the time. 12:18 It wasn't like you get two weeks and then give a notice. 12:21 I have to pay to get out of my position. 12:23 And then I just being the good soldier that am, I waited for them to find a replacement. 12:27 so it was good six or nine months before I actually Left. 12:31 I did, I worked part-time for an Indian health service for about a year, got paid some of my loans back. 12:38 Then I actually left medicine for. 12:40 Seven years. 12:41 And I still did get my license. 12:43 It did still volunteer work and school physicals and things like that. 12:47 But actually had left. 12:49 Because I wanted to have more flexibility that at the time I just didn't have. 12:56 So how did you sustain yourself during that time? 13:00 Most people coming out of medical school have so much debt and it just sounds like some intermittent jobs. 13:06 You worked for the Indian Health Services for some of the time, but a lot of people have a lots of costs and not much income. 13:13 And I know you You had already developed some entrepreneurial experience starting that business in internship and residency, 13:21 but how did you manage this time? 13:23 Because again, you have a family to take care of, a son with special needs, and you ultimately felt like the house of medicine had no place for you to 13:31 be just a regular full-time physician, so you had to come up with another strategy to sustain your family. 13:37 How did So I learned the lessons from the company that I'd started an engineer, the medical education company. 13:46 I got involved in kind of the.com boom. 13:48 You guys remember back then, but in the late nineties when play. 13:52 When companies like eBay and Yahoo and Google came out, I got involved in an incubator. 13:58 I was interested in medical education and got involve with connecting with some good entrepreneurs. 14:06 As some people, and hopefully my former CEO isn't listening to this, when some doctors were going to conferences for CME, 14:15 i was going internet business conferences. 14:20 I actually became a student from a very successful online entrepreneur who kind of taught me the ropes about building websites and creating products. 14:32 online, where I eventually, before I actually decided in 2003 to leave, I did have a plan. 14:39 I was creating guides and books. 14:42 A publishing company. 14:43 So we were creating eBooks and guides in lots of different markets. 14:47 started teaching other entrepreneurs how to make money online. 14:52 Cause it actually, and going back to this, was actually making more money doing that than I was as a physician. 15:00 I've talked about it in the past, so I'm kind of disclosing. 15:04 Brought in about a million dollars in 2003 outside of my practice. 15:09 That's not to my profit, that was the money that I brought in, but it allowed me to actually leave medicine. 15:16 A few years after that, I started a software company that a business partner that later sold, and that allowed to travel around the world. 15:26 And that's what led me to leave medicine for a period of time. 15:31 But I learned from the skills that I learnt as a physician, in terms of understanding people's needs, what they wanted. 15:40 And I learn that there are different ways that you can make money in life. 15:44 But what I can say is I still kept my license, partly because I wanted to keep my mom happy because of being the son of an immigrant. 15:53 She didn't really understand what it was doing and why I was traveling. 15:56 And she was thinking things are all right. 15:58 But there was still something when I in the business world that I wasn't missing in medicine. 16:03 When I sold my company and was looking for my next journey was I always wanted it to start my own practice. 16:10 but I wanted to do so in my terms. 16:12 If I talk about it in a book, there's a bit behind me called The Physician, where I go deep into my story about how I learned to love medicine again. 16:21 But I want you to in the way that I wanna practice. 16:23 And for me to practice wasn't for, the answer for was insurance-based medicine, because there are some things in insurance based medicine that kind of 16:33 restrict us. 16:34 We wanted to do, and I decided to start up my own practice. 16:37 We basically take cash based practices and that's led me on my journey to still be an entrepreneur, but still doing what I felt that God had put me in 16:47 this earth to become a physician to. 16:49 And that that what continuing to be on. 16:52 I really appreciate you sharing it. 16:53 There's a couple of really important points in what you just shared with us. 16:57 Number one, you needed to be a dad and a husband first.
Building Businesses and Returning to Medicine 17:01 And I think that's really Important. 17:03 Sometimes, I Think because we go to medical school and everything's so regimented and this many years doing this Many things. 17:09 It's hard to imagine escaping and doing something else or sometimes people feel like it is an escape like you have to escape. 17:17 And so that's one really important thing is don't let anybody take your power, take it back. 17:21 And then the second thing. 17:22 You had not only a medical skillset, but you developed a software skills set and a business skills that you knew how to interview and talk to people. 17:32 So you had some transferable skills and with a little bit of training, you were able to turn that into something that was marketable. 17:38 And I think that's actually another powerful story for fellow physicians who are listening to this. 17:43 You don't have to be beholden to one job or to, one practice structure. 17:48 There's so many different ways of practicing medicine. 17:50 And then I, think the third point I just want to reflect on, like you said, most people I talked to who were physicians, 17:56 so that is their purpose for life. 17:58 When they go to medical school, there's a real high purpose or a higher calling people, just like he said that God put me on the earth to do this thing, 18:05 to help other people. 18:07 But it doesn't have to be just done in one way. 18:09 And I think all those are really important points. 18:12 You've done a remarkable job of sustaining your family through businesses and writing a book and starting podcasts. 18:17 Then you still practice medicine, which is really interesting. 18:20 So my question for you is how did you find your way back to medicine? 18:24 Again, everybody should read the book, The Positioned Physician, and you can hear more details about the story. 18:29 But in brief terms, tell us how you found your back back medicine after this experience. 18:35 Yeah. 18:35 I just want to follow up that point because when my son had that diagnosis, it floored me. 18:41 He wasn't really talking and there's a lot of times where you can get angry, right? 18:44 Why did this happen? 18:46 Or why did God do this to me? 18:47 And whatever your faith is, you get an angry. 18:50 It's natural being this. 18:52 And looking back, I don't think I would be in this position where I am right now if it wasn' the diagnosis of my sun. 19:00 Because people say you want to do it because you wanted to make money. 19:03 Sure. 19:04 But it's really about like money allows you to. 19:06 It allowed me to explore. 19:07 And I don't think I would have just left medicine because it was making more money, it really was about giving me the freedom and allowed to connect with 19:18 my son and I have another son as well. 19:20 Just having the ability to like. 19:23 Wow. 19:23 I'm like the only dad that can pick up my son at school. 19:27 And I feel I have a stronger relationship. 19:32 Now my kids are older, so they don't really want to hang out with their dad now. 19:35 They're in their late 20s, right? 19:36 I am not as cool. 19:38 Being there and picking them up and just some of the experiences that I've been able to have with my family. 19:44 I didn't have myself with own parents, unfortunately. 19:49 When I was looking at my next journey, I told my company, this is in 2010, 2011, I just still enjoy medicine. 20:00 I still like taking care of patients. 20:02 They still, like the science behind medicine and I don't know if it's because we have this identity and we feel like it is the only thing that we can do. 20:15 Saying it's like you're a doctor, but you don't practice. 20:17 What happened? 20:17 Sometimes you get haters online. 20:19 They say, Oh, he was a doc. 20:20 You probably just couldn't make it. 20:21 And you just can't hack it right to doing, or there's something nefarious that happened. 20:25 Nothing else like that. 20:26 But I have a skillset that I had, and I spent all this time doing it, what, how can I use it? 20:32 And can they do it in a way where I can explore the things that they want to do? 20:36 and also can, I help write some of the wrongs that i'm currently seeing in medicine. 20:41 there, and I'm in a place where when I want to explore different things in business, currently with AI right now, there's a lot of things as physicians 20:49 that we can explore, but we just don't have the time to do so. 20:54 And so for like me, when i go to an AI conference, I might be just a handful of physicians in the room. 21:01 And I see this in telemedicine companies. 21:05 Why are non-physicians making these decisions who don't have the background or experience that we have in taking care of patients? 21:12 Why don' we more people who can make a difference in getting involved in business? 21:18 And that's where I saw it too, where it's like, I can use my experience and my knowledge to leverage that and to provide a better place in this world. 21:28 And I encourage more physicians to do that. 21:30 That's one of the reasons that we talk about with the doctor podcast network is every physician has a voice and in the world of social media, 21:40 where we get inundated and you said it in our last Interview in our podcast where you came on graciously to ours. 21:47 You discussed how social media was being influenced. 21:50 Our patients are being enforced by social Media and getting health advice from, you know, Non medical people I gave an example right now is in I practice. 22:01 I have patients who want to learn about peptides You want to learn about peptides and how to use it. 22:06 The thing is like, I play pickleball a lot. 22:08 My 27 year old pickle ball coach sells peptide online. 22:15 However, if I try to sell it, could get in trouble on there. 22:19 And the 27-year-old pickle-baller who's got a social media channel has a strong influence. 22:25 Why can't physicians be in that spot? 22:26 And they can. 22:28 And it's just making the time to do so and realize that you can have a bigger impact. 22:34 Oftentimes you don't realize the bigger that impact that can make. 22:37 And now these tools to get on there, they're economical or they are low cost, sometimes they even free and it doesn't take much effort to actually spread 22:46 the message and you realize you that influence much more than maybe just your practice. 22:52 I see people from around the world and tell me, I listened to your podcast or I saw it on the website and it allowed me to change this. 23:00 And I had a book on diabetes written and somebody in Ghana had read that book and they changed their habits and improved their life. 23:07 That's really meaningful impact on there. 23:10 All these tools are available to anyone to do. 23:12 You just need to make an effort to go out and do it. 23:16 One other term for that is to scale your impact. 23:18 And that's what you've done. 23:19 Again, you have this broad set of skills you gained as a physician. 23:23 I do think it's interesting after kind of staying away from some of the medical stuff for a little while, You found your way back. 23:30 Most people in medicine, I think they do in their heart of hearts, they really do want to help people. 23:36 people sometimes get so frustrated and so burned out with just trying to being a cog in the wheel or feel like you're just stuck doing the same thing. 23:42 And like, you said, insurance based medicine, we spend a lot of time prior authorizing insurance and documenting for insurance, 23:49 and doing everything so that the administrators who really are beholden also to the insurance companies, so everything kind of flows toward the payment structure. 23:57 So In some ways, you're really courageous. 23:59 You threw that out the window and said, nah, we're just going to still take care of medicine. 24:03 We're going still have an influence. 24:04 we are going try to have the ability to take of patients, but it's not going be informed by the insurance. 24:10 In so ways I feel like an insurance based system like we have is the tail wagging the dog. 24:14 So many decisions, sometimes they are really well informed and good and protective to patients and all that. 24:19 But sometimes it is purely financial or sometimes seems very arbitrary. 24:24 And so one of the things I wanted to ask, pick your brain about is as you talk about your approach, you dealt with an administrator that really wasn't
Physician Voice, Advocacy, and NPI Protection 24:33 able to really adapt to the needs you had in your family. 24:36 And then you also saw a need to be able wasn't beholden to some arbitrary or difficult insurance rules. 24:44 How did you find the courage to actually change? 24:46 A lot of people listening to this will say, okay, I've got to change something in my life, but I'm not sure I am too in debt, 24:52 or I don't have enough skill set. 24:54 I just have to just keep punching the clock and there's no end in sight. 24:57 And that's what that leads to burnout. 24:58 So I wanted to ask you, what's your approach that if somebody is going through something like that? 25:03 Yeah. 25:04 I guess for me it was some people that I've talked to, like I said, I was in retirement for quite a number of years. 25:10 To me, really, it wasn't a selfish one, to be honest with you, when I, was starting up my practice. 25:16 When I retired, got pretty boring. 25:18 And I got really lazy and my health suffered from it. 25:22 It gained weight and I'm a fan of hormone replacement. 25:27 And I was interested in doing that there's other aspects of medicine that I So just selflessly I was like, I want to build a practice where I would want 25:41 go to that practice. 25:42 I wanted to learn about these things. 25:43 So I started a weight loss hormone practice is because I wanting to do it. 25:47 And I had some of my friends who are entrepreneurs and they're kind of looking kind the same thing on it and I said, why don't I just start up my own practice 25:54 on there? 25:55 And had a lot of the naysayers, you can't do this in San Diego or in managed care health. 26:00 Right now other people are gonna go and do it and I said, I've got a business background. 26:04 I figured it out I found mentors who actually ran a similar type of practice in another state and they kind of shadowed them and he said You know what? 26:13 I'm pretty smart my friend. 26:15 She's a non-physician She was able to make it work and and then I can do It too. 26:19 So again, it's one of the things that you get as an entrepreneur. 26:22 We call it pig-headed perseverance You don't get it perseverance Yeah You don't know what you don' know, and sometimes you just say, 26:31 I'll just go ahead and do it. 26:32 And that's how my life has been. 26:34 I know as physicians and I coach physicians all the time, And sometimes they don''t like to hear it, but when you want to become a physician and you have 26:43 a set path to get to becoming a Physician, you're like, okay, if I want get to become a doctor, I need to do pre-med, and I needed to get, 26:50 to be well in school, do well on the MCATs, get good letters of recommendation, that'll get me into residency, then I'll need, 26:57 you know, or now I'm given to medical school and if I do in medical, school I can get into the residency that I want to, 27:03 so on and so forth. 27:05 When you're an entrepreneur, you could do anything on there and you can decide to work one day and decide be lazy and not do any thing on their, 27:14 and there's a lot of risk. 27:15 There's lot a risk starting a business on that. 27:18 And it's not in our nature to be risky as medicine, we're risk averse on them. 27:22 We like to follow paths. 27:24 So it definitely not for everybody and I don't tell everybody physicians that they need to being entrepreneur. 27:29 But if you have an outcome in mind, And I think it helps when you do find people who are already trailblazing that path, 27:37 finding mentors. 27:38 It doesn't make it a lot easier because they've already shown you that they got a path to your success. 27:43 And the one thing that I have always done is, and again, it gets me into some trouble sometimes, but I've always been on myself. 27:51 I always bet on my. 27:52 So I'm always said there is a solution and just like. 27:57 being a doctor, right? 27:59 You have a patient, they might have 20 different complaints. 28:02 They've got a lot of different problems, but I've always been, okay, let's step back, take a deep breath. 28:08 There is a solution. 28:09 What is the best path to that solution? 28:11 And if that's solution may not be treatment, maybe unfortunately they've a condition that is difficult and chronic, there is something. 28:18 And so what is that outcome? 28:20 What does that out come and can we find a path? 28:23 That's what I've always been my mantra in life is I always can bet on myself. 28:29 I like that bet On yourself because you're the only one for whom you have full control, you know what you can do and what skills you acquire and I Like 28:38 that one of the things that I think people get dismayed in medicine because they see all these negative things they insurance structure is messed up or 28:47 the funding structure for research seems to be biased or The decision makers in my organization are non-medical people and one of the things that I would 28:56 like to see and we'd see it from time to time but it seems To be more the exception than the rule is Doctors should be in the driver's seat on a lot of 29:04 these decisions about how do we treat people? 29:06 and what type of care people can receive and What hours we should be open and just so many things that I feel like you really should have physicians in 29:15 the driver's seat on most of these policy decisions, whether it be at your local institution or on a state or even a national level. 29:22 And my experience is that's more the exception of the rule. 29:24 A lot of times it's non-physicians who are doing it. 29:27 So one of the things that I've been admiring about your work is you've, been trying to amplify your voice through a podcast, 29:34 through your, work in social media and your clinic, you'd been writing books. 29:39 So how do you see that laying out? 29:41 How can we put physicians back in the driver's seat when it comes to trying, to oversee the healing or the healthcare within the United States of America 29:49 or within our local areas? 29:51 how can doctors return back into the drivers seat? 29:54 Yeah, I think it's just about finding your voice. 29:57 Like what do you want to do? 29:59 What problems do, you see in there? 30:02 And it may be in the form of a business. 30:04 Maybe you create a. 30:05 That solves a problem, that particular problem. 30:09 But maybe it something else, maybe. 30:10 It's going out and making a decision. 30:14 And then you wanna be at the point where you're like, no, not the only one with this, but who are the people, what is the path? 30:21 that would allow me to get connected with some of the influencers, you know, there. 30:29 And that's where it kind of starts. 30:31 Again, I'm a big fan of AI. 30:32 So sometimes you can use like chat GPT to kind like help you organize your thoughts. 30:37 But right now in my life, in the latter stages of my career. 30:41 One of the things that is a big thing that I am a proponent for is physician protection. 30:47 I've said this before in my podcast where I was in a situation where my MPI number was used without my knowledge. 30:55 So I had a really long journey to correct that. 30:58 And one of things in medicine we don't realize is that our MPIs number is public information. 31:06 And the reason why is because if you use things like Medicare and such, the NPI number is not really to help protect physicians, 31:13 it's to process claims quickly. 31:17 And my last part of my journey as physician is to helps with physician protection. 31:23 Just like as in, if had a problem with your credit card and there was a fraud on it, what would happen? 31:29 You'd probably get a text from your bank, an email, a phone call about it that would allow you to freeze your NPAI number. 31:36 There's no situation where a doctor is allowed to do that. 31:40 When my claims were used against my NPI, I didn't find out until like two years later in front of a Medicare adjudicator because there's not real-time information. 31:50 But let's say you're someone who's retired and you have like 70, 40 claims on your NBI. 31:55 I created a website called CheckYourNPI.org. 31:58 It'll allow you to actually see what's actually being put on your NPI number. 32:04 And the one thing I don't have is like real-time information, but imagine a world where there is something that's going on. 32:09 My case, it was from a company that used it, started billing me 15 months after I left the company, they started building my NBI number, 32:19 if I had a chance to like freeze my number on there, imagine how much money we could save on Medicare fund that that is already out there. 32:26 I said to myself, how do I influence those people? 32:28 Well, it was about speaking to medical societies, using my podcast as a voice. 32:34 And that's what I've been starting to do. 32:35 That's allowed me with the doctor podcast networks to sharing those experiences because I'm just one doctor. 32:43 I know a lot of other doctors who are in a long influential places. 32:46 Doctors who want medical boards, who were on associations, which I feel that having a podcast allows me to get in connection with those people to allow me, 32:56 to like, OK, I can get to speak in front of the AMA. 32:59 I could go ahead and speak on these things.
Resources, Coaching, and Closing Remarks 33:01 And that's where change can happen. 33:04 If you have something that is affecting you or can affect other physicians, And you have a solution to that. 33:10 You have the voice, you just need to know what you want to do. 33:14 And for me, that's kind of like the biggest impact on there. 33:16 So whatever it is on their you, have more leverage than you actually think. 33:21 But it all starts with just getting off your duff and actually going in and doing it. 33:25 That's great. 33:26 Well, You've created a lot of resources, like I say, a book and a podcast and website. 33:31 Would you mind telling listeners where they can find some of these resources if they want Yeah, let's go to bootstrapmd.com. 33:41 It's kind of my central place. 33:43 BootstripMD is my podcast. 33:45 You can see 300 plus episodes of our podcast, I like to talk a lot, Peter. 33:50 I don't know how I got 300 episodes. 33:52 We have coaching, individual coaching. 33:55 If you're looking to start your practice or start a business. 33:58 I do a coaching session with you. 34:00 Just kind of just like, what do you want to do? 34:02 What you can get accomplished? 34:03 I may not answer all of those questions, but I can at least point you in the right direction. 34:07 But it all starts at bootstrapmdb.com. 34:10 Best place to find me. 34:11 Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to visit and go over that. 34:15 Well you've had a really interesting career and I think everybody listening will take something from this. 34:21 Cause there is a way to amplify and scale your impact, whether it be through a podcast or a book or social media post or getting involved in a medical 34:29 organization or just getting in front of people and finding a problem and solving it. 34:32 None of us has the power to solve all the problems by ourselves, but together we have a tremendous voice and Mike Wooming is an excellent example of that so. 34:41 Again, Mike, thanks for taking the time and I appreciate you being a guest on the podcast. 34:45 Thank you, Peter. 34:46 It was my pleasure. 34:48 Thanks for tuning into the Doctors Making a Difference podcast and thank you for what you do to help your patients and your community. 34:54 Your work truly helps so many people. 34:56 We produce this content to have the tools you need to stay in medicine and to highlight the amazing work being done by physicians around the world. 35:03 Please note that while I am a physician and many of the guests on this program are also physicians or other professionals, 35:10 the discussions on the podcast do not represent my employer or any professional organizations to which I belong. 35:16 This podcast is for your information and entertainment only, and should not be taken as professional advice. 35:22 You should seek appropriate professional advise pertaining to your own situation. 35:26 Please check out more of our content on our website, DoctorsMakingADifference.com. 35:30 Also, please follow, like, or subscribe on your podcast player or YouTube channel, and give us a 5-star rating. 35:37 It really helps to spread the message. 35:39 Finally, if you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, Or if would like nominate someone else to a be guest, Please visit the website or email admin at Doctors 35:48 Making A Difference dot com. 35:49 See you next time. 35:54 Thanks for watching!
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