About Me
I am a physician in central Texas that specializes in Internal Medicine who started my own practice in 2018 (part time then full time Feb 2019). I have a beautiful wife, two kids, and we had a dog named Duke
Childhood
Money has always been an important topic in my family, especially since there was often a struggle to make ends meet when I was young. Though I wouldn’t wish poverty on anyone, this time in my life required that I keep a budget and prioritize spending at a much younger age than many of my peers. As I became older throughout high school and college, I took jobs to help support the family and have a little spending cash for myself. Working throughout my young adulthood in addition to obtaining scholarships allowed me to graduate from college debt free.
Medical School
I graduated from San Antonio medical school in 2013 with a little over $100,000 in debt, my first debt that I had ever taken on. There was also an expensive learning experience along the way as I moved all my belongings into my parents house after college but before medical school. One night their house was struck by lightning burning all of my and their items that were in the house for a total loss. Luckily no one was hurt, and they had insurance for the house, but I did not have insurance for any of my belongings yielding a total loss for me financially just months before starting medical school.
Residency
During residency at Baylor in Houston I wanted to take control of my personal finances and created a budget to get out of debt as quickly as possible. I was able to moonlight and paid down by debt to approximately $84,000. This blog started as a way to document my journey to financial independence as an attending and posts about investing, personal finance, and retirement savings along the way during residency and my early attending years.
Hospitalist
My first job was a hospitalist right after graduating residency. I learned a lot about the practice of medicine, and met some wonderful doctors along the way. Within a year of graduating residency, I paid off all my student debt. Like many doctors, when it came time for partnership, I felt screwed that my group upped the buy in from $20,000 to $80,000 with worse terms, so I quit.
Started My Own Practice
June- 2018
In 2018 I decied to start my private practice part time. I was a hospitalist every other week, and on my “off weeks” I worked in my private practice. My first space was 800 squre feet and we were drawing blood in the hallway since we didn’t have a room for phlebotomy. I was profitable within 3 months of opening my clinic.
Feb-2019
I stopped doing locums and started my practice full time. I was all in and decided to grow the best I could. I first started our with Practice Fusion and Kareo as my PM portion of my billing software.
November-2019
I posted on the Baylor College of Medicine facebook group that I was looking for someone to partner with me since I was already so busy that I was booked out over a month in the future. Gail (an internal medicine doctor I went to residency with) responded that she was interested in joining me. We had one meeting in Austin at dimassi’s mediterranean grill and she went back to dallas that evening. The next week she put her house on the market, quit her job, and a month later moved to Austin to join me.
July-2020
I bought my medical office building and moved into the new space. I went from 800 square feet to 3,300 square feet. I had two exam rooms, now we have 8 plus a space for the lab. The pandemic was rough but I spent the next few years growing as big as I could until I maxed out the sapce. Throughout 2020-2022 we hired on 3 midlevel providers for my group. We switched EMRs from Practice Fusion to AdvancedMD.
April 2023
We had a doctor lined up to work for our second office location and we rented a new space for him. Within a month of joining, he pulled out citing a sick family member and having to move to the pacific northwest. This left me with a vacent space for about a year until I could fill it with another doctor. I have since come to learn that the doctor who pulled out of his contract working with us, joined our competitor 2 miles away and still works for them to this day. Over the next year we would have numerous doctors verbally agree then back out before signing, stating that they were worried about joining “a start up.”
April 2024
We FINALLY hired a doctor to work at our second office and he started! Finally we were not just paying rent for nothing.
May 2024
We opened our Third Loction with another doctor! Here comes rapid growth mode!
July 2024
We now were averating more than $10,000 in income every single day we were open. I viewed this as a huge milestone.
September 2024
Averaging more than 150 patients per day consistently for the first time.
Thank you all for following along. I vlog a lot about my journey on youtube. Consider subscribing or checking out my channel.