092 - 4 Self-Care Things Physicians MUST Do to Decrease Stress and Practice Powerfully

Are you feeling the weight of constant stress as a physician? Wondering how to manage your practice, personal life, and still have time for self-care? In this special episode of The Independent Physician's Blueprint, Coach JPMD shares critical advice on how physicians can thrive in stressful times.

Coach JPMD opens up about his personal decision to pause regular podcasting due to personal challenges and stresses the importance of reflection, even for high-achieving physicians. He highlights four essential steps every physician should take to powerfully navigate stress—whether it's managing business pressures like Medicare cuts, ensuring financial stability with a backup plan, or safeguarding your own health amidst the chaos.

 In this episode, you will learn:

• How to recognize environmental stresses and adjust your workload accordingly.
• Strategies to handle financial pressures like Medicare cuts while running a practice.
• The importance of having personal and business backup plans to thrive under uncertainty.
• Why prioritizing your health is essential for long-term success and well-being as a physician.

Tune in now to this pivotal episode and discover how you can reduce stress while maintaining your practice. Plus, catch an exciting announcement about the future of The Independent Physician's Blueprint!

You can support us by purchasing supplements from our new supplement store.  Shop online at www.dssorders.com/coachjpmd and use Registration Code: JP3903. Use Coupon WELCOME to save 10% on your first order.

Discover how medical graduates, junior doctors, and young physicians can navigate residency training programs, surgical residency, and locum tenens to increase income, enjoy independent practice, decrease stress, achieve financial freedom, and retire early, while maintaining patient satisfaction and exploring physician side gigs to tackle medical school loans.

Transcript

Coach JPMD (00:00.256)
Welcome to another episode of the Independent Physician's Blueprint where we help physicians decrease stress and increase income or generate income in this crazy world that we're living in. And yes, it is crazy, especially in Florida. So I want to go over four things that I think physicians under stress must do to practice powerfully and care for their families, their selves and others.

And so this episode is going to be a special episode because I'm going to make an announcement. So stick to the end and you'll hear that announcement. Welcome back to another episode where I help younger physicians decrease stress and increase income by transitioning from corporate to independent practices, even without any business experience. So I've recorded over 90 episodes of the podcast and realized that there are certain times during this past three years that

I needed to actually take a pause and reflect on things that are going on in my life. And I wanted to do something a little different and tell physicians, our physician listeners, the things that I think we should do as physicians, especially in times of stress. So I wanted to announce that I'm going to be pausing recording any new episodes for several months. Some personal things have come up.

that are pushing me to do this. And what I've realized over the years is that I need to listen to myself, my family, my consultants, and to be able to do things powerfully.

especially when we are under so much stress in this world. And one of the things I wanted to reflect on out of the four things is number one, that we as physicians need to pay attention to our environment, to our environmental stresses. Right now we are just finishing up, not finishing up, I can't even say finishing up because we're still recovering from Hurricane Eileen in Florida. And then Milton came along and pretty much devastated the Tampa Bay region.

Coach JPMD (02:09.419)
And I'm actually recording this episode with the use of a generator, which I purchased a couple of years ago as a backup to,

to things and we don't have a whole house generator, but we do have a small standby generator and it's been 48 hours and we've had no power. And so if you haven't realized this yet, I actually did not record any episodes this week. So I'm hoping to release this episode today. So I think one of the things that we need to realize as physicians that we need to pay attention to our environment and understand that we have our limitations. so recording a podcast twice a week during these tough times is a little difficult. So that's number one.

Number two, understand the business constraints and stresses that can occur while practicing medicine. So right now we're under the throws of V28, that Medicare Advantage plans are really feeling the pressure of reimbursement with Medicare cutting our reimbursement. Almost 10 % this year and I think there's another.

2 to 5 % cut schedule for the next several years under the Medicare Advantage program. And as many of you know, that's my main business. That's what we do in our practice in Hernando County. And that's also what I did to help other physicians understand managed care and creating the learnaboutmedicareadvantage.com course on Medicare Advantage plans and how physicians can generate wealth.

using Medicare Advantage plans. So we are having to focus our attention on reimbursement, managing our patients better, and all of that comes with a lot of stress. So I think number two, understanding the business stresses and constraints while doing other things that really interest you, like the podcast, can be difficult. that's number two. Number three,

Coach JPMD (04:05.876)
As you heard, I just told you that I have a backup generator. So we as physicians need to have backup plans, both personally, financially, and business-ly, if I can coin a new word. So having an emergency fund, making sure you have three to six months of your expenses stocked away in a bank account or a CD or somewhere where you can't easily touch it. But

have easy access to it allows you to be able to withstand the financial pressures, having a backup plan on the business side as well. Looking at other lines of business, looking at doing things that may interest you. I actually recently launched a online dispensary because a lot of my patients, I shouldn't say dispensary, but a supplement store. And I'll share that supplement store at the end of this episode, but that's something I've been doing personally.

or personally and business-ly to help with revenue and generation. And I wanted to share that with my audience and share it with my patients because a lot of my patients have been asking how they can obtain supplements that are not available in some of the local pharmacies and the local.

health food store. So I set up a dispensary that has my favorite vitamins that I take, things that I take on a daily basis. So that's my personal backup, personal business backup plan. And number four, the fourth thing that you can do, fourth thing that you can do to help decrease your stress, that I think we need to do as physicians, especially when we're caring for our patients, and that is to not neglect our own health. As doctors, many of us have

have had patients that have been non-compliant with certain things, but I think it's extremely important for physicians to understand the preventative care things that they should be doing at their age group and their age group to...

Coach JPMD (06:05.286)
keep them healthy, to keep them strong for their patients. So that's the fourth thing that I will be doing and taking care of myself. And I'll share more of that maybe in future episodes. But in meantime, I wanted to bring those things to your attention. Because I am going to be pausing the regular recording of episodes twice a week.

I will have one episode released every week because we have a couple of guest episodes that are already in the pipeline and that are recorded. next week is going to be a great episode on a locum tenens. And I think if you're looking for side gigs, that's going to be an episode that you don't want to miss. We have a couple of scheduled guests as well. We're going to keep those on the schedule. And after those are done, we're going to be releasing replays of fan favorite episodes.

So things that you may not have heard before and I want to be able to bring them to your attention so that you can learn things that you might not have learned before. And that's of course there are other episodes that you can listen to as well. We've got over 90 episodes released over the past three years. And I know that you can at least learn one thing from one of those episodes. So check a look at the titles and you'll be I'm sure.

able to find an episode that you might relate to and I need to speak a little bit slower. And I want to thank you for your support. And don't forget to leave us a review and tell your friends about this podcast because we at the Independent Physicians Blueprint want to help physicians understand how to live their lives, the best lives, caring for patients, caring for themselves. So stay tuned. We'll be back in a couple of... weeks, maybe a couple of months, but definitely we'll be back. And I want to continue sharing my stories and sharing stories of business leaders out there that can help you live powerfully. thanks again for listening to the independent physicians blueprint and we'll see you soon. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you'd like to hear more, subscribe, follow your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss an episode.