Doctor Money Matters

Doctor Money Matters is a physician hosted podcast discussing mostly financial topics important to health care professionals. Topics include real estate, retirement, stock market investing, cryptocurrency, financial planning, burnout, covid19, social media, etc.

Ep 62. Doctors and Social Media -- Dana Corriel, MD 07/30/2020

Ep 62. Doctors and Social Media -- Dana Corriel, MD On this episode we talk about social media with Dana Corriel MD, an internal medicine physician and creator of the SoMeDocs group. She recently left the practice of medicine to help physicians develop their online presence. Her goal is to help empower physicians reach their patients, a broader audience, and develop their brand and yet balance it with responsibilities as professionals, employees, etc. We talked about why she left medicine to pursue this opportunity. Dr. Corriel runs master classes for physicians interested in improving or developing their presence. I am going to be a teacher in one of the upcoming courses (in Aug 2020) for those who want to start a podcast. If you are interested, . Note this episode was recorded just prior to the Covid shutdowns in March 2020 and yet is timely because we just saw the power of physician social media this week when the journal of vascular surgery published and then retracted an article about social media posts of vascular surgery residents and fellows. That article was probably published to a very narrow audience, yet was able to be circulated widely because of twitter, facebook, instagram, etc. The article created a firestorm because of the techniques and judgements of its authors about the posts and calling pictures of female physicians in bathing suits potentially inappropriate but not the same of male physicians. Anyway there was a very quick and appropriate backlash which prompted retraction of the article and wide reassessment of gender biases in medicine in a way that traditional media could not have done. Please support our sponsor if you are in the market for disability insurance and especially if you are early in your career for the best rates. Please visit our website at for the catalog of all our prior episodes. Here is a link to the where you can find out more information about what Dr. Corriel is doing to help physicians with the sometimes confusing world of social media. You can follow our show on: Twitter Facebook: Instagram I encourage healthcare professionals to join our private facebook group, . If you enjoyed this episode please leave us positive review on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Any constructive criticism or topics for future shows can be directed to Please remember what you heard on this show is for your entertainment and education only. Please speak with the appropriate experts prior to making decisions regarding your own financial situation. Thanks for listening and and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/15409757

Ep 61. Gita Pensa, MD -- Malpractice litigation and its impact on the physician 07/16/2020

Ep 61. Gita Pensa, MD -- Malpractice litigation and its impact on the physician Welcome to the Doctor Money Matters Podcast. In this episode we talk with Gita Pensa MD, an emergency medicine physician and fellow podcaster who created an incredible podcast which is a must listen about lawsuits in medicine and the personal impact it had on her. Its a “Serial” type podcast which is extremely well done. I highly recommend it. Note this episode was recorded just prior to the Covid shutdowns in March 2020. Please support our sponsor if you are in the market for disability insurance and especially if you are early in your career for the best rates. In this episode we discuss why Dr. Pensa started the podcast. We talk about the impact the lawsuit had on her and she talks about how she felt initially and how even years later it has an impact, not just how long these suits can drag out, and having to relive it over and over again. We also talk about what physicians don’t know about if they are named in a malpractice lawsuit. We are never taught about how to feel if this happens. Residency programs and CME talks may discuss some of the legal issues, but they rarely address the personal impact on physicians. The simple threat of a lawsuit makes most physicians uncomfortable and for those who have gone through depositions/trials it can scar you for a long time. We discuss how it can impact your non professional life in addition to your worklife. We also discuss the role of physician experts in the malpractice world. She calls some of them “Testeliars” on her podcast. These are doctors who make a career out of malpractice testimony. Dr. Pensa suggests talks about her solutions to make it fair for all physicians. Finally we talk about what her future plans are and what creating this podcast has done for her, how its allowed her to reach other physicians who have then connected with her about their experiences and how that has helped her find new purpose. This is a jam packed episode. Gita’s podcast is available on all the major outlets. Please visit our website at You can follow our show on: Twitter Facebook: Instagram I encourage healthcare professionals to join our private facebook group, . If you enjoyed this episode please leave us positive review on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Any constructive criticism or topics for future shows can be directed to Please remember what you heard on this show is for your entertainment and education only. Please speak with the appropriate experts prior to making decisions regarding your own financial situation. Thanks for listening and and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/15231692

Ep. 60 -- Student loan basics with Ben White, MD 07/07/2020

Ep 59. Joel Greenwald, MD CFP -- Withdrawing assets in retirement 06/11/2020

Ep 59. Joel Greenwald, MD CFP -- Withdrawing assets in retirement Welcome to the Doctor Money Matters Podcast. It has certainly been an eventful spring between the Covid crisis and the national protests bringing more attention to the unequal treatment of African Americans by law enforcement, and also the financial market volatility. Our guest was Joel Greenwald, MD a physician turned financial planner in Minnesota who has a long term financial planning business managing mostly physicians money called Greenwald wealth management. We talk on this episode about the strategies of withdrawing assets once you retire. How do younger physicians get to the asset level we talk about? We also talk about the pros and cons of annuities. He doesn't recommend them for the asset accumulation phase but they can make sense in retirement and we talk about examples of annuities. He does not use them frequently and talks about the conflict of interests that some advisors have. We also talk about the bucket strategy and withdrawal from different types of accounts (tax free, tax deferred, taxable) Joel thinks that for most physicians working now, social security will still exist and you can get some income from that. However its going to be variable and should not be a significant part of your retirement strategy. We also discuss alternate strategies of withdrawal for FIRE and each talk about our thoughts on the 4% rule. Finally we talk about real estate investing and whether Dr. Greenwald’s clients are investing in it. I mentioned that social media is the new golf course/doctors lounge where some ideas that are pitched are not fully vetted and we should be somewhat skeptical about them. Click here for more info on Please support our sponsor if you are in the market for disability insurance and especially if you are nearing the end of residency/fellowship where you may still qualify for discounts that may not be available after training. Please visit our website at You can follow our show on: Twitter Facebook: Instagram I encourage healthcare professionals to join our private facebook group, . If you enjoyed this episode please leave us positive review on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Any constructive criticism or topics for future shows can be directed to Please remember what you heard on this show is for your entertainment and education only. Please speak with the appropriate experts prior to making decisions regarding your own financial situation. Thanks for listening and and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/14782085

Ep. 58 Real Estate Investing with Cory Fawcett, MD 05/18/2020

Ep 57. Introducing What's Up Docs? 03/06/2020

Ep 56. Karen Sibert, MD -- Good luck finding a doctor in 10 years. 01/22/2020

Ep 55. Ian Ippolito -- How to approach crowdfunded real estate investing 01/16/2020

Ep 54. Falgun Chokshi, MD --Artificial Intelligence in medicine 01/08/2020

Ep 53. Opportunity Zones -- Dan Gauthier 11/04/2019

Ep. 52 -- Surprise (Balance) Billing with Dr. Amy Cho 08/21/2019

Ep. 52 -- Surprise (Balance) Billing with Dr. Amy Cho On this episode, my guest is Amy Mecozzi Cho MD, an emergency medicine physician in MN who is passionate about making sure physicians voices are heard, particularly on the issue that is all over the news lately, Surprise (Balance) Billing. This is when the medical group providing the care charges the patient the balance between their fees and the (low) rates the insurance companies will pay. Obviously this is an unfortunate position for patients to be put in and physicians end up taking the financial and perception hits. As an emergency physician she is required to take care of anyone who comes into the emergency department by law, physician oath and ethics, regardless of ability to pay. However insurance companies do not have to follow the same rules and can refuse to negotiate adequate reimbursement because they know physicians are bound by these laws. It’s obviously an uneven playing field. These entities have also had the ear of lawmakers and are pushing solutions to Congress that would negatively impact us. We as physicians are generally too busy to fight this, but if we don’t the results will be a disaster for those involved in patient care. I encourage you to contact your congressional representative and senators and make your voice heard on this issue. The current solution in the Senate is the Benchmark solution and would lead us to the race to bottom described by Dr. Cho on the show. The New York (Independent Arbitration) solution is the one that we need to advocate for. It’s the only real way to reach fair outcomes. The fact that insurance companies are advocating for the benchmark solution should tell you as physicians how it will be for you. Here is an article that goes over the solutions in more detail: More episodes of this podcast are available at and , , , etc. All episodes are also now on (Audio only) and . You can follow me on: twitter Instagram Facebook Email me Please consider joining the . Please share this podcast with your colleagues and join our email list. Thanks for listening and on Apple Podcasts and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/10907249

Ep 51 -- Starting a DPC practice 08/15/2019

Ep 50. Dividend Investing with Nick McCullum 06/13/2019

Ep 50. Dividend Investing with Nick McCullum On this episode, my guest is Nick McCullum of SureDividend.com. We talk about dividend investing as a strategy. Everyone likes the idea of passive income and dividends are about as passive as it gets. Money comes in monthly, quarterly, or whatever frequency the company pays it out. Sure there are risks, but over the long term, dividend paying stocks have had lower volatility than the overall stock market. In this episode we go over the basic terminology (yield, growth rate, DRIPs, etc.) and pros and cons, and how you can use this strategy. I am not trying to convince you to use this strategy but it is a valid one, if you are looking for income especially in your retirement years. We have all heard stories about retirees who live off their dividend checks because they bought the stocks many years ago and reinvested them. The key with this type of strategy as with others is to try to do it as early in your investment life as possible and continue to contribute throughout. The power of compounding is amazing, but the numbers are minor in the first decade, solid in the second decade, and downright impressive in the third decade. By the fourth decade, they become ridiculous. Let me give you an example of this in action. If you invested 10k in Pepsi (A solid non tech American company) in Jun 2005 and held till Jun 2015 without any additional investment you would have had around $22.5 k (not accounting for taxes). With a monthly $100 additional contribution, your total would be around $42.4 (nearly double). If you would have put in the same 10k ,10 yrs before in Jun 1995, your total would be $68.3k (Nice, but not jaw dropping). With the additional monthly $100, it would have been $131K. Now instead of 1995, you put it in 1985, this is where it becomes amazing, your total would be over $700k, with the monthly $100, it would have been nearly $1.1M. And if you had the ability to buy in 1975, your 10k would be $2.6M, with the $100/mo additional it would be over $5M by Jun 2015. I used 2015 as an end point because it is in the approximate middle of this bull market and the ten year period prior included 3 years before the 2008 financial crisis rather than at the beginning when asset prices were low (ie if you used current trailing 10 yr returns). But the reality is over long terms, these trends appear to hold with some variance I am NOT a financial advisor and neither Nick or I are telling you to use this strategy for your investments. If you are interested in learning more there are many good resources including Nicks newsletter. If you do pursue this strategy, make sure you do so in a tax efficient manner. I do this by placing my highest dividend paying holdings in my tax deferred accounts (401k, IRA, roth IRA, etc) so they can grow unimpeded. This is the website to see stock performance with dividend reinvestments. You can find out more about Sure Dividend at their website. Twitter Seeking Alpha () More episodes of this podcast are available at and , , , etc. All episodes are also now on (Audio only) and . You can follow me on: twitter Instagram Facebook Please consider joining the . Please share this podcast with your colleagues and join our email list. Thanks for listening and and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/10139783

Ep 49. Dr. Disha MD -- The Frugal Physician 05/09/2019

Ep 49. Dr. Disha MD -- The Frugal Physician On this episode, my guest is Dr. Disha of The Frugal Physician blog. We talked about her journey from being in debt to quickly paying off loans as a primary care physician despite a few financial setbacks. Obviously it is easier to payback loans in a dual high income couple but for many of my listeners, there is only one earner or one high income earner in the family, so we talk about how she did this. Disha is an internal medicine physician who caught the financial independence bug after a couple of typical new grad mistakes. She went from a high end home on an island in the US to downsizing in order to get down her debt levels. She talks about the moment while she was on maternity leave when it dawned on her that she was worrying about finance rather than concentrating on her family, so she finally had to breakdown and use the B word (Budget). She used the debt snowball approach to line up her debts from smallest to largest in order to get the families finances under control. We talk actual dollar amounts so that you get a better idea of how she was able to reduce housing costs (not just mortgage vs rent, but also maintenance, renovating, etc) In 12 months of concentrated effort, she was able to knock of $150k off the debt. Impressive. Then we hit on where she is now and what her plans are once the debt is paid off. Disha also talked about what perceptions from family members and non physician friends about doctors finances and how she dealt with that. Finally we talk about her George Costanza moment when she walked into her boss’s office and quit her job and then had to go back because she realized she could not afford to do so. Dr. Disha has a great plan for her finances and will no doubt be successful. You can find out more about Disha and her blog at More episodes of this podcast are available at and , , , etc. All episodes are also now on (Audio only) and . You can follow me on: twitter Instagram Facebook Please consider joining the . Please share this podcast with your colleagues and join our email list. Thanks for listening and and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/9713456

Ep. 48 -- Rick Ferri, CFA 04/25/2019

Ep. 47 Ryan Inman, CFP 04/08/2019

Ep 46. Sarah Fallaw PhD -- The Next Millionaire Next Door 02/21/2019

Ep 45. Disability Insurance part 2(Q & A with a broker and lawyer) 02/14/2019

Ep. 44 Disability Insurance (Q&A with a disability lawyer and broker) 02/13/2019

Ep 43. Crushing student loan debt with Drs Renee and Nii Darko 01/31/2019

2019 Goals 01/21/2019

2019 Goals Im back. Sorry for the long gap between the last episodes and this one. Holidays and an extremely busy work schedule limited my ability to work on the podcast. I have a series of episodes ready to go and am excited to get back to it. While finance and money are the main topics, I would also like to continue to address other issues that impact health care professionals including the burnout epidemic that has become a major topic amongst all of us. My last episodes on private equity in medicine were very popular and well received. It is the continued erosion of physician ownership and employment that troubles me. (I don't blame anyone for taking a buyout if offered, I probably would go that route also, but the long term effects for the profession are probably not good.) When you are not an owner, you lose power, and when most of us are employees (myself included), we lose major negotiating power for healthcare policy decisions (You will hear about this in an episode with Dr. Marion Mass and an important organization she is a part of called Practicing Physicians of America. I would also like to continue to highlight entrepreneurship and independent practice owners as I truly believe that ownership allows for a more fulfilling career. So if you are or know of any independent practice owners that I should spotlight, please shoot me an email at , tweet me or FB message me. Every year starts out with optimism and that is one of humanities great traits, to look arbitrarily at a calendar and decide that January is when you make a change. I am, just like most of you a working healthcare professional who puts in too many hours at work, tries to spend time with his family, and tries to take care of patients. I hope this is the year you make a commitment to your financial wellness. So first basic goals I think everyone should try to get to as soon as they can this year. Fund your 401k, 403b (esp if you get a match) (I want to make a quick tribute to Jack Bogle, the father of the index fund who recently passed away. He did more than anyone to help the average investor protect themselves from Wall St. Billions of dollars in investor accounts are there because pioneered low cost investing) Fund your roth or reg IRA, (backdoor roth IRA for high income professionals) If you have a HSA, fund that Pay off high interest debt (if credit card or other very high interest, this may move up a few notches) Take a moment to invest in yourself. This can be health, education, or just something that makes you feel better. Life is too short (as we all know) to not enjoy the journey. Do something that makes you uncomfortable. For me that is going to include some public speaking. It’s not too tough to sit behind the microphone on this podcast (though it was very scary to put it out there), but speaking in front of a group is nerve racking. I’m always impressed with those who do it so well and make it look effortless. Finally I want to expand our investment mindset. While, I truly believe that equities and real estate should be core holdings (they are mine), I am always looking for other opportunities that are available (for diversification and non correlation) and educating myself and hopefully the audience about these. If you are interested in hearing about specific types please let me know and I can try to do shows about them. It has been a long bull market in most assets and no one knows where we are headed and I am certainly not a good forecaster. But there is a role for other investments and I do think that it’s always good to explore these. Last year I joined an investment group of physicians looking at early stage healthcare companies. I will probably be talking more about this in the future, so keep a look out for that. I want to thank all of you for listening to this podcast, sharing it with your colleagues, and your participation in the Doctor Money Matters FB group. While it may not be the biggest podcast or the biggest group, I hope they have been entertaining and useful, I hope we can continue to help educate and empower each other in our financial journeys. I am thinking of putting on a webinar to discuss investing, taxes, and other financial topics. If you are interested let me know by email. You can follow me on: twitter Instagram Facebook Please consider joining the . Please share this podcast with your colleagues and join our email list. Thanks for listening and and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/8331389

Ep 42. Kurt Schoppe, MD (part 2) Private Equity buying medical groups. What's the deal? 10/31/2018

Ep 42. Kurt Schoppe, MD (part 2) Private Equity buying medical groups. What's the deal? Part 2. Private Equity buying medical groups -- What’s the deal? Ep 42 is part 2 ( of the episode talking about private equity buying medical groups. There is an increasing amount of private equity purchasing/partnering of medical practices in the US. We are seeing in in a variety of fields such as radiology, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, dermatology, just to name a few. I wanted to explore why this is happening. My guest on this episode is Kurt Schoppe, MD a radiologist in Dallas, TX. Kurt is part of the American College of Radiology Economics committee and has experience in the private equity world. On these episodes we talk about: What is private equity? Why would they be interested in medical practices? Fragmentation of medical practices leads to market opportunities. They are good at logistics, operations and can increase efficiencies to improve returns. They can have access to capital to make discount purchases. They see healthcare as a more predictable way to make money. Why would a practice want to sell to these firms? FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) Other groups have done so we probably should also. Thinking that your group doesn’t have the expertise to handle a changing healthcare reimbursement model Money right now (particularly for senior partners) What are they looking for when deciding to buy a practice? What does this mean for medicine as a profession? What does this mean for younger physicians? Here is the article Dr. Schoppe referenced about corporate veterinary practices. More episodes of this podcast are available at and , , , etc. All episodes are also now on (Audio only) and . You can find Dr. Schoppe on twitter You can follow me on: twitter Instagram Facebook Please consider joining the . Please share this podcast with your colleagues and join our email list. Thanks for listening and and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/7371743

Ep 41. Kurt Schoppe, MD -- Private equity buying medical groups. What's the deal? (Part 1) 10/30/2018

Ep 41. Kurt Schoppe, MD -- Private equity buying medical groups. What's the deal? (Part 1) Welcome to the Doctor Money Matters Podcast. This is a podcast about financial topics related to the healthcare professional. I am your host Dr. Tarang Patel, a diagnostic radiologist in Arizona. The topic on this episode is the increasing amount of private equity purchasing/partnering of medical practices in the US. We are seeing in in a variety of fields such as radiology, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, dermatology, just to name a few. I wanted to explore why this is happening. My guest on this episode is Kurt Schoppe, MD a radiologist in Dallas, TX. Kurt is part of the American College of Radiology Economics committee and has experience in the private equity world. On this episode we talk about: What is private equity? Why would they be interested in medical practices? Fragmentation of medical practices leads to market opportunities. They are good at logistics, operations and can increase efficiencies to improve returns. They can have access to capital to make discount purchases. They see healthcare as a more predictable way to make money. Why would a practice want to sell to these firms? FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) Other groups have done so we probably should also. Thinking that your group doesn’t have the expertise to handle a changing healthcare reimbursement model Money right now (particularly for senior partners) What are they looking for when deciding to buy a practice? What does this mean for medicine as a profession? What does this mean for younger physicians? More episodes of this podcast are available at and , , , etc. All episodes are also now on (Audio only) and . You can find Dr. Schoppe on twitter You can follow me on: twitter Instagram Facebook Please consider joining the . Please share this podcast with your colleagues and join our email list. Thanks for listening and and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/7362590

Ep. 40. Leslie Kane, MA -- Medscape Physician Salary and Net Worth Surveys. 10/18/2018

Ep 39. Robert Felberg, MD -- Negotiation skills for Physicians 09/28/2018

Ep 38. Doc G (part 2) Getting to 5X income as an internist in a competitive market 09/13/2018

Ep. 37 Doc G -- Getting to 5X income as a primary care physician (part 1) 09/12/2018

Ep. 36 Westby Fisher, MD -- MOC? More like WTF (part 2) 08/22/2018

Ep. 36 Westby Fisher, MD -- MOC? More like WTF (part 2) WTF is up MOC? (Part 2) If you have not listened to part 1, please do so first. How many of you listening write checks to your specialty board for the privilege of Maintenance of Certification? I will pay over $3k over a 10 yr period plus a ton of paperwork to my board so they can sign off on my certification. Most of you listeners do so as well. We do this because its just another of the burdensome regulations that physicians have to do to maintain licensure and certification and also most insurance companies expect it in order for us to bill our services. Most of us have never questioned the step even though we hate the fees and paperwork. My next guest Dr. Westby Fisher looked into the board certification MOC for internal medicine and went down the proverbial rabbit hole and discovered or should I say uncovered a story that seems to have very little to do with physician certification or patient care. This is a long episode that I split into 2 parts. Please listen to this episode first and then part 2. I would say you will be shocked but with the way things have been headed in healthcare, you probably won’t be. Thanks Dr. Fisher for all your work to help physicians become aware of the MOC process. I encourage those listening to contribute to the go fund me page and help fund this fight. Lets stop this physician learned helplessness and take our profession back. In my opinion, the whole MOC process is like a bad actively managed mutual fund. I see no value in the additional layer of management forced upon us and its costing our time and $$ while I don’t see evidence of improved performance over time. I expect better than this from the “academic leaders” of our respective fields. What do you think? Let’s continue the discussion over at the (you need to request membership). You can follow Dr. Fisher’s blog at where he goes into depth on these topics. You can also follow him on twitter and help fund this fight Follow me: Twitter Instagram Facebook /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/6951510

Ep 35. Westby Fisher, MD -- WTF is up with MOC (part 1) 08/21/2018

Ep 35. Westby Fisher, MD -- WTF is up with MOC (part 1) WTF is up MOC? How many of you listening write checks to your specialty board for the privilege of Maintenance of Certification? I will pay over $3k over a 10 yr period plus a ton of paperwork to my board so they can sign off on my certification. Most of you listeners do so as well. We do this because its just another of the burdensome regulations that physicians have to do to maintain licensure and certification and also most insurance companies expect it in order for us to bill our services. Most of us have never questioned the step even though we hate the fees and paperwork. My next guest Dr. Westby Fisher looked into the board certification MOC for internal medicine and went down the proverbial rabbit hole and discovered or should I say uncovered a story that seems to have very little to do with physician certification or patient care. This is a long episode that I split into 2 parts. Please listen to this episode first and then part 2. I would say you will be shocked but with the way things have been headed in healthcare, you probably won’t be. Thanks Dr. Fisher for all your work to help physicians become aware of the MOC process. I encourage those listening to contribute to the go fund me page and help fund this fight. Lets stop this physician learned helplessness and take our profession back. In my opinion, the whole MOC process is like a bad actively managed mutual fund. I see no value in the additional layer of management forced upon us and its costing our time and $$ while I don’t see evidence of improved performance over time. I expect better than this from the “academic leaders” of our respective fields. What do you think? Let’s continue the discussion over at the (you need to request membership). You can follow Dr. Fisher’s blog at where he goes into depth on these topics. You can also follow him on twitter and help fund this fight Follow me: Twitter Instagram Facebook /episode/index/show/doctormoneymatters/id/6950268

Doctor Money Matters -- random thoughts 07/18/2018

Doctor Money Matters

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