Doctors and Such

I work with a lot of doctors around the country and there is one thing in common with most all of them… they don’t understand how money can work for them. Face it, most doctors became doctors simply because they wanted to help other people get better, enhance their performance and be healthier, right?

Well I want to share with you that helping others and understanding how money works for you are not independently exclusive from each other. Fact is, as Rabbi Daniel Lapin puts it, “The more money you make the more people you can help.”

Think about it this way for a moment: You’re on a mission trip and men, women and children are lined up just for the opportunity to get to see you. You see hundreds of patients in a very short period of time that day and many of them experience a miracle of health because of the time they were able to spend with you. Now, what did it take for you to be in that position to help so many people… skill? Yes of course it took skill. It also took time and your desire but without money it wouldn’t have ever happened either.

It took money for your air fare. And it took money to pay for your food and your lodging while you are there. Plus it will take money to get you home again. It may be your money or another’s but it still takes money all the same.

You see helping others and money are linked together. So you can help a few people with the money you have or you can help more people if you have more money. The “helping other people factor” doesn’t change. It is the “money factor” that needs to change so that you can help more people. That is the determining or limiting factor.

Working with so many doctors in all parts of the country I have uncovered a very disturbing fact. Most doctors really do want to help more people. That is not the disturbing fact. The disturbing fact is that many doctors have limited themselves to how many people they can help because of the poor financial choices they have made. And worse than that is that they often don’t realize what their limiting factor is. How I know this to be true is by observing the services which doctors currently provide to the clientele they can attract. From inferior facilities and undesirable office conditions, to meager or poorly trained staff members, unsuitable equipment, less doctor ingenuity or even substandard doctor competency due to lack of vacation time necessary for relaxing and recuperating from the duties of being the professional. All or some of these manifestations are fairly common today in a world where money is not given the necessary attention that it requires in order to provide for the doctor who is rendering vital services to his or her community.

What is the answer? What can be done to remedy this dis-ease? And why haven’t our colleges addressed this financial factor which limits so many doctors from doing so much more for humanity? The reason is simple.

Schools have become addicted to government handouts called student loans and grants and the regulations which come with that kind of money has crippled them from being able to afford the privilege of leveraging the money they do like an honest banker would. The end result is that they have been reduced to the level of the typical “run-of-the-mill” government agency which can’t produce anything but can only pass on what they have taken from somebody else. More than one college CPA has verified this fact with the author and that leaves a very bleak situation for the future of our colleges and profession. Wouldn’t BJ’s entrepreneurial spirit be crushed to see the financial chaos in our schools today? If the schools would once again court their alumni for the needed funds to run their affairs, and learn to manage those funds like any honest banker would, there would be no lack of funding for our colleges. And the best benefit of all would be that doctors would then learn how money can work and help more people in the long run too.

But the process must start at the top because that is where the process broke down in the first place. We know that all healing comes from the top down. You as the doctor, you as the key person in your business, must start the healing process. One doctor at a time much like you adjust one patient at a time, until all the world knows and understands about your special contribution to worldwide health. So it will take one doctor at a time learning to take care of his/her own financial resources like an honest banker would, showing the world how many more people you can help because you have become more self-reliant and less dependent with your own money.

That is because your economic environment is not controlled by what others think, say or do. It is controlled by you! And if you don’t know where you are going how in the world are you ever going to get there? But first you might want to know what is out there that is worth getting to. That is where most doctors don’t have a clue. But don’t feel mad, bad or sad about it because that’s where almost everybody is today. That is why I wrote the book Prescription For Wealth. An easy guide that will show you what is available and what you can do to get it.

Don’t be like 90% of America today who will need to work beyond the age of 80[i] before you can do what you really want to do in life. Start today and make your life more profitable and more enjoyable and you’ll help more people along the way because you did so.

By Tomas McFie

[i] Employee Benefit Research Institute