How This Triple-Boarded Physician Found His Calling and Launched Multiple Companies with Jonathan Baktari, MD

2023-08-19 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDg7V2sIPvo Transcript YouTube English auto-captions. [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] welcome to another edition of bootstrump MD this is the podcast for healthcare and physician entrepreneurs I really have a treat on the show and someone I've been looking forward to speaking for for some time we connect his people reached out to me a few months ago we were finally able to make it work and I think you really enjoy hearing this gentleman's story he's the CEO of e-national testing E7 health and U.S drug test centers he has over 20 years of clinical administrative and entrepreneurial experience he has been a triple board certified physician specializing in Internal Medicine pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine he's a preeminent National Business thought leader uh his work has been featured in The Washington Post USA Today Forbes Barons mini National Publications he also has an opinion writer for the hill and the Toronto Star you may have heard from him from his highly graded podcast boktari MD and he's been a guest on several podcasts including now priorities to have him on hours he's the formerly the medical director of the Valley Health System Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and The Culinary Health Fund also serves at a clinical faculty for several medical schools including University of Nevada and Toro University just a wide range of experience and I'm happy to be able to dig into his brain and get some wisdom from him today uh please welcome to the prayer of Dr Jonathan bakhtari Jonathan how are you doing wonderful Mike thanks so much for having me what a big honor thanks well we were talking earlier um and we had some commonality is you know we're one of the places where you uh trained was at Ohio State I was born in a at Columbus Ohio my dad was a pediatrician uh one of the first Jobs been immigrated to to the States but my first memory was years old being all wrong around these people and and my mom later telling me I was at the Horseshoe so if you know anything about Ohio State Ohio State College Football goes one-on-one with each other but I did have to reveal to him later I got my mph at the University of Michigan so I'm kind of a Trader on both sides but I appreciate you uh being on the show today oh yeah despite that I'm as I'm really happy to be here okay well you know I think this is the first time I don't have too many triple bordered Physicians come on to the the show uh let alone someone who becomes the CEO of their own companies so I I want to kind of dig into it right now tell me about your your entrepreneurial Journey uh and tell it tell me how you got to the place where you are today yeah it's an interesting path because um I came out pretty much like everyone else went to you know in medical school residency fellowship and got out started joining a group and start teaching did some clinical faculty and you know eventually became a senior partner in the group uh but right about that time I started to look for other experiences I could have just to just broaden my my perspective so I got on committees and Hospital committees and administrative stuff and then slowly one door opened another and uh I I was offered other opportunities I I became chief of medicine I was about medical director of an ICU and it just seemed like every time I did something you know one door would open another so um you know I'd like to think it was an epiphany where one morning I woke up and said let's go in this direction but it was a very [Music] um I don't want to say non-planned but it was it was a slow growing one door opening another kind of process and then before I knew it um I was offered positions that's Hospital administrators working for insurance companies and then we sort of I sat down and looked at all that experience and when this opportunity came to open up E7 Health our first company I just really jumped on it because no one else was doing it it was an opportunity to to almost create a specialty in medicine that didn't exist I mean on some level nobody was really doing everything we were um and the challenge was would it work because no one had really done it no one had taken adult vaccinations I mean now that covet happened people get adult vaccinations but to say hey we're going to open up a company that focuses on adult vaccinations and everything around it uh mainly because I think a lot of other parts of medicine had abandoned adult vaccinations Primary Care is to stop caring adult vaccines and that's really how the pharmacies got involved because everyone else had abandoned it uh you know the old old days you could get a happy shot or the shingle shot from your primary care or what or even some some you know pneumonia shot or uh even potentially some travel shots but it had all stopped and part of it I think was due to reimbursements and other things so we just realized that it was a void I think the statistic that really hit me over the head is um I think part of the CDC there's about 50 000 vaccine preventable deaths in the United States annually give or take ten thousand twenty thousand this way that way and that seemed an enormous task to address and the primary care doctors were not giving vaccines and and we're leaving it up to you know pharmacies to do it and which I'm glad they're doing it but they're also selling diapers and Frito Lays and you know it's not their Core Business yeah and so it's not like they were they were taking it over and and doing everything and you know pharmacists traditionally aren't trained to touch patients give shots it's you can see how tortured the process is so it just seemed like there should be a clinical answer to this problem as a doctor I wasn't used to asking for help especially when it came to subjects outside of medicine but then I found physiciancoaches.com in an instant I found hundreds of experts to help me in all aspects of life on areas I was afraid to ask dealing with burnout starting a side gig money management even help with my marriage and the best part nearly all experts are Physicians themselves after reading their profile in a quick chat I knew I found the right Mentor for me at physiciancoaches.com help from professional colleagues is just a click away [Music] I definitely wanted to talk about E7 health and your company I but I'm going to put you back into the position of actually accepting that uh position and moving to another company um recently uh I do coaching and I I consult with doctors and there's one doctor uh I had spoken to yesterday she was being frustrated because she was she worked in the hospital she's a hospitalist and she wants to she always gets asked to go and join all these different meanings in the hopes of you know being recognized being more value to her hospital and ultimately of course an increase in her salary what was the impetus for you to join all of these different committees were you looking to increase your own salary were you just curious and just want to be more involved or was it a stepping stone to might maybe something greater like being a part of your own company or starting your own company that's a great question I I don't think anyone's ever asked me that question um in playing it back I I think I was just frustrated because if you get through Medical School residency Fellowship then study for three boards and you kind of keep thinking that it's going to continue and then you realize oh that's it and I think when someone's been on this constant path of growth and the next thing I I just think I I wasn't ready to say there's no more next thing I didn't know what the next thing was I but I I knew I had to explore my growth yeah you know once once you're seeing 20 patients a day and and you got that routine down you're like okay so I do this for the next 30 40 years and that's it so it just seemed like the the the the the program of growth shouldn't stop and I think I just initially did it because I knew nothing about administrative medicine so I didn't know and some of the jobs I took I didn't like I realized what I didn't like like oh some of the jobs I took I really liked and you weren't going to figure that out until you tried it you know I I've been essentially employed as a hospital administrator and gotten paid by a hospital I've been employed by you know an insurance company and gotten paid from an insurance company uh I mean the teaching was voluntary clinical staff but I got to teach in a medical school and teach second year medical students in third and fourth year medical students so all of that helped you understand what where you wanted to go um I think it's easy to say you would wind up where you wind up anyway without those experiences I but I'm I would might argue that those experiences helped shape your future decisions if that makes sense it does make sense also so in my journey you know I was working as a primary care doctor I started a software company on the side it did well enough that allowed me to to leave uh my position it was a process of about four to six months but it was a difficult conversation I had with my wife at the time we know Physicians we where we make a high net salary we have all the 401ks and health insurances and things like that what was the discussion with with you or or with your family about making that transition was it difficult did you kind of transition did you have other jobs to kind of uh replace the income that you may be losing what was what was it like for you back then I think the realization was not income the realization was you didn't have any time freedom in the sense that you could make your schedule I remember a friend who was a really dear friend of mine but he was not in medicine he was in um real estate uh he was an attorney but also it was a real estate guy and we became really good friends and you know one day he called me up and said hey uh something amazing happened I've got this thing in London next week and you want to go I forgot the exact thing but this is a long time ago and he said yeah well why don't we hop on a plane next week and and and go and I'm like well you know I can't really go I'm on call I'm a part of a group it's like well I thought you were a senior partner and I thought this and then you you kind of realize your your you may be financially well off but you don't have what you you don't have time freedom to pick and choose not necessarily vacations but let's say you want to get involved in an organization maybe you want to do volunteer work maybe you want to help you know your patients some other way there's no flexibility once you're in the thick of things to do anything but you know your regular schedule often you know 50 60 hours a week and I think it dawned on me that I didn't have the freedoms that I wanted not to you know play golf or putts around but just to explore other things and he he and other people made me realize um that it wasn't a matter of money it was a matter if there were other things you wanted to do to help your patients even you know are you free to explore those opportunities let's say you want to teach more let's say you know there was a period where I taught the entire second year med school curriculum in pulmonary and critical kid I really enjoyed that I'm like I you know but my my clinical responsibilities really hampered how much of that I could do and so what you realize is when you're in that situation for put the money aside are you free to if you find something in medicine that you like are you free to explore it more or do it more I mean there's more than one way to help patients right I mean you can help patients by you know getting into a private industry and developing drugs and programs and you know education and there's so many ways and if you're if you're just tied into one thing that's great if if you're 100 satisfied with that but let's say you want to do more than that traditional clinical medicine once you're in that final track of being a partner or now these days being an employee you don't have that flexibility that's a long-winded answer but I hope that makes sense it definitely does and you know the the the the phrase the golden handcuffs is true is they get you am I saying you know there's people who are be working for somebody else but they have that security and I hear from doctors and they're making a lot of celery but they're they also have a lifestyle that they need to uh continue and then they really don't find a way out of it um much to their own right and and you know let's say something happens to you and and you you can't work for a year or two or you know let's say some family emergency happens and you gotta you know leave for three months or six months to take care of someone who's ill or what you can't even do that in in many situations so so true so you're in this business it's a startup described to me that first year I wasn't free the first year uh you know I think doctors always think that because they've survived medical school and residency that everything else must be just like it's like nothing burger right right because we studied for boys and we stayed up all night and there's a pack that we have to do that yeah we went through organic chemistry and we went through this and we went through that and so I I think the realization that being a CEO even on a small level or being a leader um they're not soft skills they're they're not they're technical skills you need to acquire you know I think a lot of doctors think because let's say they're well liked and people respect them that naturally they'll be a good CEO and a leader and an analogy I always use is you know if I put someone in the cockpit of a 747 at 30 000 feet and says Land This Plane uh just because you're well liked and people respect you you're not gonna land the plane right but I think there's a fallacy there that we naturally well well of course we would be a good leader so I realized all the skills I needed to acquire and some by doing the School of Hard Knocks luckily I I had a bunch of mentors that I could go to and it's probably the one trade you learn in training you know when you're a resident or when you're an intern you shut up and listen to the resident or when you're a resident you shut up and listen to the fellow and when you're a fellow you shut up and listen to the attending and I think those skill sets helped me you know pick up some of these other skills where once I met someone who had those other skills don't be the smartest guy in the room shut up I mean if you if you respect the person and you think they have it and and you don't have to make all the mistakes you can have these other people Mentor you so in retrospect yes some I had to make myself and others I was fortunate enough there were people who had done business and entrepreneurial stuff that um put training wheels on me but that's the toughest part I think the best part is not thinking you know running a company uh and managing people is a soft skill that if you're a nice guy and people respect you you're going to be a success of that yeah and it is humbling because as Physicians we're often the decision makers in what we do right that stops with us and being in that position where you know I've had mentors very successful in business multi-millionaires and some of them never went to colleges some barely made it through high school but they just became successful at whatever they they do and I think part of it is kind of humbling yourself and understand hey there's different ways to make a living uh and it doesn't necessarily have to be the past that we typically as doctors are go to college get good grades get into become a lawyer or doctor whatever so there are different ways as doing it so it sounds like you learned a lot from that experience so tell me about your first company uh E7 Health what is it all about we talked about vaccinations but let's let's get into it yeah what I realized back then is there was multiple books of business if you want to call them that that adult vaccinations are involved uh I didn't realize that when I was practicing but uh there was about four or five areas of Medicine that vaccinations are involved the well just no random I mean we're just doing random order uh for example Travel Medicine there are people that practice tribal medicine but that's the thing where adult vaccinations as well as counseling and prescriptions are involved and it's um most people don't realize but per CDC guidelines if you go to almost any country in any developing nation in the world whether it's Central America South America Africa Asia you you need to see a Travel Medicine experts and potentially for the most part get a bunch of vaccines and prescriptions and counselors so that that already existed um then there is employee health services so I think uh as Physicians we're all aware of an employee health nurse in a hospital where you know you go in and get your vaccines and to start work and every year get a TB shot and a blob and a physical potentially uh what people don't know is hospitals can afford to have an employee health nurse but every other facility doesn't so they actually need an outsourced employee health department even like Med Spas for example even in the med Spas all those Mas need yearly TVs if you want to comply with OSHA they all need yearly TB skin tests they need the flu shot they you when they start work you need technically to find out whether they've had MMR and varicella and of course a lot of small practices don't comply with OSHA but technically there they should but certainly surge surgery centers Home Health agencies all of these people need an outsourced employee health department and there is nobody in the country that's doing that as their main gig and and right everyone you the people who comply and get that stuff get it from urgent cares and people who are doing it as a side thing and of course they don't do it well and they don't have any technology so that was employed student health okay University of Michigan Ohio State they have a student health department but for every Ohio State and for every University of Michigan there's about 20 to 30 Allied Health Schools that have no Student Health Department Capital all the farmers pharmacy tech respiratory therapy schools most nursing schools I mean these are all Allied Health schools that are all over major cities that don't have a student health department no one's taking care of these people and somehow they get by by not either not complying or sending their students to four or five different places with no technology no software um so that was another one so you have employee health you have student health your uh Travel Medicine and another broad category where vaccines were involved is uh STDs we give a lot of STD vaccines so uh if people don't traditionally think about it and lastly General Health vaccines for people people who need pneumonia shot they need the flu shot they need the shingle shot they need a tetanus shot updated so when you combine General Health vaccine now covet for example when you could take General Health vaccines you take Travel Medicine employee health student health and then all the services that are tied in so when a student comes in for student vaccines they also need a physical they need a quantifier on they may need titers uh some employee health services you know we do Department of Defense physicals for military contractors they need they need travel vaccines they need physicals audiometric testing Vision it's all so when you put it all together it's a it's a massive industry that nobody does as their main thing what we did is we refused to do primary care or urgent care or Ahmed we refer all those people out so if you come to E7 health and you have a sore throat or a tummy ache we don't see you because we're only focused on this and then we became a software development company and write it started writing our own technology because there was nothing off the rack that that did what we did and lastly the bulk of we did wasn't covered by insurance so traditionally Travel Medicine is very difficult to get covered by Insurance student health and employee health are traditionally not covered by Insurance that's why hospitals have their own employee health nurse because it's not something that's covered the hospital picks up to have so employee health and student health and Travel Medicine and and some General Wellness vaccines of course are covered but when you put it in a bucket 80 90 of what we do or is not covered by insurance so what we did is we came up with a strategy where um anyone who came to see us we gave him a receipt that had all the ICD-10 codes and and so if they had a Mercedes plan that covered some of the stuff that could submit it anyway and but for the most part so what happened though is once people once Allied Health Schools figured out we exist once military contractors found out we exist uh they can't even imagine going anywhere you know it's funny I always tease like we never lose a client one because we have great service and and my staff is amazing I have to tell you and our software is we got an award for the best Healthcare technology software in 2019 but but I think other things they've got to know where to go if if they left us they'd have to hire five different companies a flu shot company somewhere to get their physicals maybe you know get their vaccine somewhere else and they wouldn't have our technology so we know that it works because it's a Blue Ocean strategy if I can use that that book there's really if you left us where would you go but we don't look at it that way of course we we we are always striving to improve quality uh and service um we literally have I think uh a 4.9 out of 5 Google review I don't I don't know of any clinic in the country that we have like a thousand reviews on Google and we have 10 000 reviews on our website and mainly it's a testimony to migrates that which are the best in the world but also it's a testimony to the fact that they can't even believe that this actually exists I I love it because um you know you if your business fulfills uh you know is really the secret sauce for any business you know is you provide a service that people need to get regularly and nobody is really doing it well when I started my clinics it didn't involve into med Spas but at the beginning what we were doing is we were doing Dot commercial driver physicals because the primary care doctors were stopped doing it it was a cash thing and they had to get it or they would be out of work if they didn't get it and they would have to come every one or every two years and so with vaccines it's there they need to get it and you're already providing a service that kind of consolidates everything so how many locations do you have it sounds like by the way we do the DOT physicals and and we developed a DOT drug testing program which evolved into one of our sister companies U.S drug test centers that does DOT drug systems I think nationally uh I'm sorry what was your question well how many locations so so we have two locations in southern Nevada but the issue has been we have spent the last five years doing software development so if if and when we open more locations it's scalable we have our own electronic health records our own scheduling software our practice management we don't even have a medical records department everything we do for a patient is automatically pushed to their portal and our goal was not to open up more locations but to write technology and software so if we opened up other locations it would be like a McDonald's where all the software and Technology would be ready to go we even have an online university to train the front office staff the back office staff the PA nurse practitioner the marketing person that the director of the clip so we've been writing a university to support them and we even have like phone scripts built in so if somebody calls and they need a Travel Medicine console even if you hire a new person they can at least and they can input the data so it was all made to be uniform and scalable so and we have a Google ads campaign that we could turn on for any city um you know if we open up a location in Memphis tomorrow uh it's all ready to go so I think we spent the last five or six years and we're getting near the end of it of developing technology that would make any location scalable this that that sounds great you know I recently spoke to um a colleague of mine who sold his uh chain of uh aesthetic practices for you know multi-million dollars and I asked him why did you have such a high evaluation and he says you know really the what it was was they didn't they didn't brand themselves as we own you know these little Med spas around the state they Brandon themselves as a tech company because they have the software in place that if someone came in they can just replicate it so it sounds like you're spot on on the right path and then you mentioned your other two companies we could talk about it briefly it sounds like it's leveraging what you're already doing correct exactly you hit the nail on the head so if you look at E7 Health there's seven books of business and one of them became drug testing because we were doing Dot we do physicals because a lot of the physicals we do involve vaccines so immigration physicals involved vaccines military uh contractor physicals involved vaccines so uh and then so a lot of the physicals we did involve drug testing so if a student came in and they were applying starting nursing school but they needed a drug test so we developed a drug testing department and wrote technology and software for that now drug testing is not something we we need to confine to Brick and Mortar locations because we we have partners that have national locations across the country so anything that we could take from E7 health and make it national without our own brick and mortar locations meaning leveraging our networks from our partners we did so U.S Direct test centers is then as a nationwide drug testing company uh we have literally clients in every city every state uh small medium-sized with maybe over 10 000 clients and growing uh and they use our company to do their drug testing we manage their drug testing program we write policies procedures we do random dot consortiums so we manage all of that and that's a standalone sister company that actually grew out of e-7 health and of course what you see in the background e-national testing so basically in any city state you want a cholesterol test you want an STD panel you want a men's health package and Allergy package basically we made an amazon-esque so you just go three clicks away we have licensed positions in all 50 states that sign off on it and follow up on it so it um it is a really cool product I'm really proud of that we're just rolled out in the last few months you know someone listening to this is like wow you know this doctor's doing some amazing things he's writing multiple companies can you describe like what a typical day is for you and trying to manage all these companies and employees and dealing with different contracts how does all that work it I I would say the first few years it's different than now as as you become more mature uh you're really relying on your senior staff and how much how lucky you are to find those people and cultivate and mentor uh them so I love to take some credit for it but I have some amazing amazing senior staff some of you know that were in contact with you I mean I just showed up here I mean and that I mean that's my level of involvement and it's it's an it's a testimony to their dedication so I always I'm reminded to be grateful and reward and thank them and Mentor them and collaborate with them my job as CEO is really to improve the lives of everyone in my organization I really wake up every morning like what can I do to make their lives easier what can I do to move the ball forward for them and if I wake up every morning I just thought what do I gotta do because making more money and having the business growth is important simultaneously and I think they're not mutually exclusive if you're helping your people grow financially professionally I I think it will Circle back and you will have uh you know business growth as a byproduct Jonathan this has been great I I definitely learned a lot we're definitely going to need to get you back on another program and help uh you know share more of your wisdom but I guess my last question for you is you know position who's listening to this right now uh they've got an idea for a business or maybe they have a side gig right now and they want to turn it into a full-fledged uh business what are maybe some words of advice you could give to someone maybe they're working right now full-time in another job but they just don't really see maybe the path to do it any any words that you could share uh yeah that does sound like a whole new podcast but uh or episode but I I think the main thing is psychologically to see if you're comfortable you know leaving the clinical track a lot of positions myself including my colleagues being a doctor and seeing patients is part of their self-identification and yes Finance is also part of it but part of it is also I'm not sure they could see themselves you know leaving clinical medicine in terms of who they are so if if you can't see that you're gonna have a hard time kind of really pivoting if that's what you want because listen seeing patients is an honor privilege uh I'm I'm I'm I'm so lucky to have that experience and I really admire people who do that day in day out so but if you are at the point or for whatever reason you do want to make changes you just have to understand are you okay you know and being in your shoes and not seeing patients and you have you have to truthfully ask yourself that question if you weren't you know when you go to a party or whatever and people say what do you do and you say well I'm a CEO or I have a software company like you that's a whole lot different than saying yeah I've got to practice here's my office and emotionally psychologically it's um I always say when you're a doctor you metaphorically you're like Superman you have the cape on and then when you get out of the clinical role you're like Clark Kent and um like like you're just oh you're just some guy walking down the street whereas I think a lot of people have a lot of Pride that they see patients and uh we're rightfully so so I I think that's the first hurdle to get over so true and it's something that we don't often think about because we're you know our identity is often so wrapped up in her career but but it is so it is something that uh you know I struggle with occasionally too you know and some other colleagues who left the bedside you struggle with as well but uh great great point that you make uh for someone who is wants to know more about you what's the best place to reach out my website bactariamd.com b-a-k-t-a-r-i-m-d.com also on YouTube and all the podcast platform our podcast baktari MD uh we do a lot an episode a week um and of course LinkedIn so Buckcherry MD uh Jonathan bakeri MD and Linkedin if you want to ask me a question or anything like that uh or if you just want to see the body of work we do I would say bacteri MD website is a goodwear good place to go Jonathan thanks it was a pleasure thank you for sharing your your your wisdom uh with us today I I know we're gonna need to have you come on back and uh continue success with you and your multiple companies thanks so much for having me it was a lot of fun thank you and thanks everybody for listening if you have an idea for a business you're not sure where where to go um hopefully you were inspired by uh Dr bakhtari's uh um his his journey and how he got there but if you have something that you feel that is of uh you're doing a greater good that something is beyond yourself entrepreneurship may be the path for you but don't just think about it just don't you know decide to do it someday and never go away it's all about not more than just ideas it's the implementation doing something every single day that gets you close to your goals and keep moving you forward thank you [Music]