Burnout to Breakthrough – Interview with Dr. Ben Stone

Benjamin Stone: If you’re unhappy, try making a change. Life’s too short to be in a job where you’re just miserable and you’re dreading going to work and then the people around you are unhappy. And it’s just, we’ve got options out there as physicians. A lot of professions can’t say that, especially now with telemedicine. And then with just, there is a whole door of options are out there if you go looking for them.

Welcome to Finance for Physicians, the show where we help physicians like you use money as a tool to live a great life. I’m your host, Daniel Wrenne, and I’ve spent the last decade advising physicians on their personal finances with the mission to help them understand that taking control of their finances now means creating a future where they can practice medicine where, when, and how long they want to.

Daniel Wrenne: Ben, how’s it going, buddy?

Benjamin Stone: I am doing great, Daniel. Thanks for having me on your on your podcast.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, we were just catching up. I think we have a lot of good stuff to talk about. Ben has a little bit of a unique experience. He went through some of the, I think, early career challenges in medicine.

Maybe you call it burnout or frustrations with the career or whatnot, but I think what’s super unique about his story and experience is he did some really big things to change it, which I think we’re super unique and they provided solid solutions—seem to work out really well. So I would love to minimum talk through that.

And I think people listen and I’ll gain a lot of motivation and confidence, ‘cause a lot of people—we talk to physicians all day long and there’s a lot of people struggling with that—call it work life balance, call it burnout, whatever you want to call it.

There’s a lot of names for it. But just frustrations with medicine. So maybe before we get into that, if you could tell us a little bit about you personally, professionally, and where you’re at.

Benjamin Stone: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s see, graduated in med school 2008, did a four year ER residency. Let’s see, I’m like 12, 13 years out of training.

I’m a little unique. I did a military scholarship with the Air Force, so I spent four years in the Air Force. There’s a lot of financial discussions about that and stuff, but basically they paid for my school. And overall, it was a good decision for me, but then I got out of the military, and I’ve been, working private practice since.

I’m Midwestern guy born and raised and I’ve got three kids and just doing, excuse me?

Daniel Wrenne: Kansas, right?

Benjamin Stone: Yeah. Kansas. I’m a University of Kansas guy. Jayhawks. If there’s any out there, go Jayhawks. Go Chiefs. Big Chiefs fans. Yeah. And I think I’m very much a typical doc for most people, just out in the grind, raising a family and working and trying to balance all that and the frustrations that can come along with that and the successes. But unfortunately a lot of frustration sometimes.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. So when do you think, so you transitioned into practice. You had the military buyback or whatever they call it, where you do the years of service there, right? And then did you transition into a private practice or academic? What kind of—

Benjamin Stone: No, I’m private practice. I’m not academic. Yeah, they call it the health profession scholarship.

It’s actually a really good deal if anyone’s interested. And I always tell people, first thing is don’t do it for the money. Do it if you’re interested in serving your country.

Daniel Wrenne: Don’t do anything solely for the money. Yeah, exactly.

Benjamin Stone: When you’re younger in your career, that’s something we can talk about, right? Sometimes you make decisions based on money, and as you get older, you realize, oh, wow.

But, yeah, for me, it was one of these things where I’d gotten into medical school, and I started getting stuff in the mail saying, “Hey, we’ll pay for your school,” and I was like, “Wow, this is a good deal.” So I ended up signing up, and yeah, it was a good experience.

I definitely had some frustrations along the way with certain things. But overall, yeah, they paid for my med school. I owed them four years, and while I was active duty, I was doing a lot of moonlighting and private practice stuff. And then, actually, where I’m at now, I started moonlighting here, and then as I got out of the military, I transitioned to the same hospital that I’m at.

Daniel Wrenne: And so when you transitioned your private practice gig or maybe even before that, my experience is there’s the residency lifestyle and then the in-practice lifestyle. And it’s typically different because income’s dramatically different. So some rare people seem to somehow continue to live like residents.

And that’s a different circumstance, but most people seem to have a pretty big lifestyle transition as they go into practice. And I know you had no debt. That’s a big deal too. Huge deal. No student loan debt, but what was the transition into making physician money? Like for you guys, did you have that lifestyle creep? What was the setup?

Benjamin Stone: I hear you’re saying, and so many of my colleagues, they do that, right? Because they’re making, a little bit of above minimum wage while we’re in residency. And this delayed kind of gratification and then we get out and we know we signed that contract and yeah. What do we do?

We buy a house we buy cars, and all of a sudden our costs skyrocket so I know that’s pretty typical for docs, but for me, since I did the military, so I transitioned into the military and I got paid well, but it wasn’t like I was making what I would on the private sector. So it was a forced four years of living like a resident, and so my lifestyle didn’t dramatically increase like a lot of docs because my income increased, but not like it did like now, so it was a forced slow rise in my spending.

That helped me, thank goodness, help smooth that out. So I didn’t have that huge jump in lifestyle inflation.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. And so at what point in the progression did you start to feel frustrations with the career? Was that just a slow progression? 

Benjamin Stone: Yeah, it was a bit of a slow progression. I call it burnout. I know there’s different words for it.

Daniel Wrenne: We’ll stick to that one. We’ll call it burnout. 

Benjamin Stone: That’s what I like to call it because I was burnout. You read about all of the telltale signs of burnout and I was exhibiting those.

But yeah, for me, it started, I think, initially because you get out of residency and residency is unique, right? You’re a bunch of people in the same situation, and it’s, I like to use the word, like kind of a band of brothers or a band of sisters. You’re in this difficult situation. You move through together, you get very close with these people, and you have outlets.

You’re in the same situation; you can vent to each other about attendings, certain calls, schedules, whatever it is. You go out and have fun, you go out and have drinks, and it’s just a good group of people in the end, and you’re all in the same kind of income bracket.

Then you get out, and I feel like you’re isolated, and a lot of us experience it. I know I did; I was like, this is not what I thought it was going to be. I think that’s where it started, this kind of slow progression of how this is, and it just started chewing away at me until I got to the point where I was flat-out burnout—just no empathy for patients. I was upset. I didn’t want to come to work. I dreaded coming to work. It was impacting all facets of my life, and it was just miserable.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, do you know what exactly caused it or do you have ideas of the main factors? 

Benjamin Stone: I do. I think it was two things. One is, I always believed that physicians, when we get out, we do the right thing. We’re altruistic; we’re trying to do the right thing. And I just had a lot of experiences where you realize that’s not the case, whether dealing with nurses, administrators, or other clinicians. I just got beat down by this because I guess maybe I was a little naive, I don’t know. But I always thought I’d be able to get out and practice the way I want.

It’s going to, I’m going to… we’re going to be able to, I’m going to do this the right way and do things how I envisioned it. Then you realize there are all these other factors playing in, and it’s not that simple to just do the right thing every time. Maybe it’s an insurance issue, maybe the call schedule isn’t right, or there’s someone who isn’t on call, so I can’t do that and I’ll have to transfer them. There are just so many different factors. That’s where I felt like I started getting beat down by the system and all the different facets of that. Docs know what I’m talking about. There are so many little things that add up.

The second thing was the financial aspect of it. Even though I had this slow progression of living like a resident while I was in the military and then I got out, what ended up happening… I remember this feeling. I remember just going to work feeling like all I was doing was paying off debt that I had.

Instead of accumulating and building wealth, I felt like all I’m doing is paying bills that I already have. I’ve already spent the money, and it’s going to that. It was a really crummy feeling for me because I did not like that. I felt… what am I doing? I’m already behind. It all contributed to this really nasty burnout.

Daniel Wrenne: The second part is like the finances are a lot of times the escape valve or the can help be the tool to get you out of things. But if you feel like you’re relying on the paycheck and all you’re doing is just status quo, that kills all the hope.

And it’s what’s the point of all this? Like I’m done. And then you’re like, but I can’t be done. Which is like slavery.

Benjamin Stone: Exactly. I’ve never thought of it that way, but I lost hope. I was like, what am I doing? And then I was tied to this job. And then when you’re tied to something, it just turns miserable.

Actually, I talk a lot about the golden handcuffs with certain jobs, which I saw in the military. I would see these people that were miserable. In the military, if you do 20 years, you can retire with benefits. In the military, I’d see these people, they’d been in for 10 years, and you’d hear them say, “Oh, 10 more years, 10 more years, so I can get out.”

I remember thinking, one, this person was miserable and vocal about it—they didn’t like their job. And two, 10 years is a long time. Are you going to be miserable in your life for 10 years? I had an eye-opener, thinking, man, the golden handcuffs are real. They can be just… they can drag you down if you aren’t careful.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, not only that. You got the slavery golden handcuffs thing going on, but also in a job, you feel like you’re not able to do the right thing, or at least what you thought was going to be the right thing for patients, which is like just compounds it even further. 

Benjamin Stone: Exactly. I think it was those two things where it just made me, I don’t know. It just was a cumulative thing where it just took its toll on me and you don’t realize it all at once. And now I go back and I’m like, “Wow, I was totally burned out.”

And I feel like I can see it in other docs in the hospital. You can feel it from people when they’re just running, like—

Daniel Wrenne: It bleeds out. It’s very— 

Benjamin Stone: Oh, yeah. 

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Did anybody call you out on it?

Benjamin Stone: So, I was having some problems. My medical director was great, very supportive. I was having problems because I was getting patient complaints  because I just had no empathy. Every person felt I lacked empathy, and I was miserable to be around at work.

Finally, my medical director, who was great, he basically said, “Listen, we’ve got a problem. I support you, but you gotta change this.” And let me basically have the space to figure it out. And he had to come back to me again. It wasn’t just one time. He had to come back to me again. But he stood by me, and I always appreciate that because my medical director is a doc and he’s a little older than me. He just understands what us docs go through, and he gave me support and allowed me the space to figure it out.

But he also said, “Listen, if you don’t do this, I can’t keep sticking my neck out for you. You’re going to have to… we’re going to have to say, I think you called it charm school. I’m gonna have to send you off to charm school, or you’re going to get reprimanded.”

Yeah. And that’s when I really realized I had to dig deep and figure some of it out.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. So what’d you do?

Benjamin Stone: A couple of things. So one is I had to come to grips with the reality of the situation, which is that medicine is a lot out of our hands as physicians anymore.

A lot of it is, we’re a cog in the wheel, and we’re well-paid cogs in the wheel, but still, we don’t get to make a lot of these decisions. The patients nowadays really control so much—patient satisfaction, and then all these metrics. I had to realize, and I say this in a good way, but I had to realize how to play the game.

I had to play the game. It wasn’t just about seeing someone and solving my problem. It was about taking care of what they need, what they had in their brain, what I needed to address from their standpoint, not just from my standpoint. And that took a whole different kind of approach for me. It’s hard sometimes for people who aren’t clinicians to understand because you go through medical school, you learn diseases.

You’re here to solve problems and stomp out diseases, but you realize that a lot of people… what they’re there for is they want someone who will address their issues. Maybe from our standpoint, we’re not worried about them as clinicians, but from their standpoint, they are. If you don’t address them, then they’re never going to be happy. I had to realize that I need to take into account more of what they wanted, even if it’s something small.

But anyways, when I came to that realization, I “learned how to play the game.”

Okay. And it was like, “Oh man,” and it just… the veil was lifted over me, and I was like, “Okay, that’s what this is.”

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Were there other things besides that? So new approach to working with patients?

Benjamin Stone: Yeah. So there were a few other things. Sorry, I got focused on that, but I also realized I had to find a little better balance in my life.

Daniel Wrenne: Was that when you say balance, do you mean hours-wise or like?

Benjamin Stone: Yes. It was hours. It was a few things. So, one, I realized that part of my problem was that I was spending too much time in the ER. I’m an ER doctor, so I realized that. I kept working in the ER, but I found a job in a clinic doing some workers comp stuff, and it was just a nice change of pace. So, it allowed me a little balance because, the way I describe it is, in the ER, if my stress level is an eight, I found this job in the clinic where I was doing workers comp stuff, and a lot of insurance stuff, my stress level is a two.

And so, it allowed me this balance of two different kinds of things where now I look forward to going back to the ER because it’s, oh, it’s something different. It brought back some of the joy in medicine.

So that was one thing. And then the other thing is I decided to pick up and go do some traveling for a year. I basically decided, man, I’m not getting any younger, life’s short, YOLO.

I know. I know. And I kind of, it’s such a cliche, but that’s really what happened. My wife and I were sitting there going, hey, what are we doing? Let’s go on a little adventure. It was just post-COVID. And so we basically found a way to go travel overseas, took our kids with us, did some world schooling, and we did a bunch of traveling for over a year. And not everyone can go to that extreme, but for me, it was fantastic because it really helped me to get a different experience and perspective on things. And yeah, it’s been one of the best decisions I ever made.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. So the balance thing, I’m curious about the balance thing. Did you reduce the number of shifts you were taking in the ER?

Benjamin Stone: I did.

Daniel Wrenne: Did you reduce the total number of hours worked in all your physician? Because I know you’re doing the other side job, but total hours down. 

Benjamin Stone: Yeah. So everything I realized, I’m just going to and a part of that was a mentality for me.

I had this, something clicked. I was always a, “Oh, I got a, I’m going to, 65, I’m going to retire, right? I’m going to hit the, I’m going to hit the finish line and be like, Oh, I’m done.” And I had this realization and I said what’s the rush here? Why do I need to burn myself out working so many hours a week, a month?

And I said, man, what if I maintain my health? And my joy for what I’m doing and what if I couldn’t work till, at 65, maybe I can just or maybe at 60, I can cut it down and then at 60, I’ve cut it down a little bit more than 70. And I thought, man, and I ran the numbers and I said, man, I could actually make more money and I don’t need to be in a rush.

And that kind of mentality flipped for me. And I was like, I’m not in this to just, just go. And then retire once I hit this imaginary finish line. And that kind of helped slow things down for me and say, okay, it’s more of a marathon than a sprint.

ADS BREAK

Daniel Wrenne: Let’s take a quick break to talk about our firm, Wrenne Financial Planning.

The goal of our podcast is to empower you to make better financial decisions, but sometimes the best financial decision you can make is to work with someone who understands your financial goals and has the expertise to keep you on track to reach them. That’s where Wrenne Financial Planning comes in. We are a full-service financial planning firm that works with over 400 physicians and their families across the country.

We charge a transparent monthly flat fee for our services and offer virtual meetings you can take from anywhere. Best of all, you’ll get to work with a team that specializes in working with physician families. So whether you’re starting out and wondering how you’ll balance your student loan payments and saving for a home, or you are an established physician trying to figure out how to pay for your kid’s college and how much you need to save to reach financial freedom, we can help.

I’ll put a link in the show notes to schedule a no-obligation meeting with one of our certified financial planners. Wrenne Financial Planning LLC is a registered investment advisor. For more information about our firm, please visit wrennefinancial.com. That’s W R E N N E financial. com.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. A lot of people think about balance and they think in the terms of today balance, like how many hours am I working versus not working, but there’s also the component of like, how many hours am I working now versus 20 years from now? And a lot of people get that imbalance. Yes. They were like, cra They’re like, you know the FIRE, have you ever heard of FIRE? 

Benjamin Stone: Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Daniel Wrenne: FIRE is like as concentrated as you can get. Yep. But it’s very unhealthy, in my opinion.

Benjamin Stone: And I love that people are able to do that, and I love reading about FIRE people that have done that. The financial independence.

Daniel Wrenne: If they can do it without working 90-hour weeks and losing their marriage and their family.

Benjamin Stone: I agree with you. For me, that’s not healthy because I needed to slow things down. I realized that if I could cut down 20 hours of work a month, then yes, that’s less money I’m going to make.

But in the long run, I’m going to be happier. If I can work longer my longevity longer because I’m not burnt out, I ran the numbers and said, I’m actually going to come out on top here and maintain my mental health. Overall, it was just, I looked at it and said, what am I doing? This is what I need to do.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, yeah. So how did you go from feeling like you were paying debts, just getting by in the job, to cutting your hours, making less, and thriving? Did you change your lifestyle or something?

Benjamin Stone: Yeah, a few things. We took a more experience-based approach. My wife and I, we realized that when we had this realization. I’ll use the example of our cars—we don’t need a new car. We got this thing paid off. Let’s drive this thing. I don’t need a fancy car. And so, stuff like that, you realize how much money that allows us to free up when we’re not paying for another new car.

It was small stuff like that. I think also, I had always been a pretty aggressive saver for retirement. I’ve always had an interest in finances and saving and realizing that I needed a way out at the end. So, I’ve always aggressively saved for retirement and just put money away. Seeing that money accumulate, you realize, okay, this is actually working, like this is actually happening. When you first start out and you’re putting money in, it just seems like… and then the snowball starts rolling, and you realize, oh, I am going to have money there at the end, and this process is going to work. That was definitely something.

Daniel Wrenne: So it was nothing really major lifestyle-wise. You didn’t sell everything you own, and I think that’s pretty normal. Most people’s lifestyles, our budgets, are a million little things. So a lot of times, it is just the little things collectively.

Everybody’s situation is different too. When you’re saving a lot, that’s one reason why I advocate for savings. Aside from just the retirement benefits, just having margin in your income is huge leverage for when the job starts to suck. If you’re used to spending 50% of your income, you can take a pay cut—no big deal. If you’re spending 90%, you have no options.

Benjamin Stone: Said. And that was my philosophy because I’d always been a. And I had never, and I’d never done Kaiser.

I didn’t, my military time was short. I wasn’t tied into any type of retirement plan that I couldn’t take with me. It was always money that was mine in my retirement plan through 401ks and Roth IRAs and HS, all the traditional stuff. It was nothing. I didn’t do anything special.

The hard work of saving and then the fact that I could take that with me. Like you said, it freed me up because I had this mentality of so I don’t like this if this job, if it starts to suck too much, then guess what? I can find another one. That’s the great thing about being a physician. There’s a lot of jobs out there and we’re in high demand.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, another thing I think I see a lot of times mistakes being made by physicians when they get into that state is they try to dig themselves out financially speaking, so they’ll say yes, they’re like work harder or take side gigs or get into real estate or FIRE.

FIRE is not bad. I’ve knocked on FIRE twice, so I got to give my disclaimer, but FIRE has its good uses, but FIRE done to solve burnout is no good because it compounds it cause you’re working even more. So when you add things onto your plate, it sounds like you subtracted things instead of added things. Yeah.

Benjamin Stone: And I see, man, I’ll tell you what, that is all over the place, right? The side gigs for physician. It’s crazy that we feel like we have good paying jobs and here we are. All of us are starting side gigs cause we need more. And it’s just and that’s only, to me, going to contribute to the burnout, like you said. It’s just going to compound it. 

Daniel Wrenne: I think people are seeking it because of the burnout, which is so interesting because they need something different. It’s like escape valve. It’s if I can get a side income that’s large enough, I can then reduce my, but it’s hard to, once you say yes to something, it’s hard to then—you got to say no at the same time. You can’t just say yes and then I’ll figure it out later. That’s the key. 

Benjamin Stone: No, absolutely. And I guess my always, and I respect that because, and one thing I’ve learned about traveling a bunch is that Americans, we’re hustlers.

We start businesses; we’re hustlers. You spend a lot of time in Europe, and people, there’s a different approach over there. And over here, we’re just, we’re hustlers. We’re always, that’s why we’re, God, we produce a lot, and we make a lot of new discoveries and a lot of new businesses. But at the same time, I feel like we burn ourselves out. And as physicians, I feel like we have, and I know some docs say, think, okay, I just need to get out of the clinical realm for burnout.

But my approach was I knew that the emergency room where I work was killing me. And so, I was able to leverage my medical license and my ability to practice medicine and find something that is still within the medical world, still pays me very well. But it was different, and it scratched that itch of getting something different. But I still was able to stay in the medical world.

Daniel Wrenne:  You didn’t have to go start a real estate business or something like that. 

Benjamin Stone: Exactly. Which, yeah, I applaud people that do that, but gosh, it’s like, yeah, it’s a huge step and then you’re going to have to learn all about real estate and then you’re studying for stuff. And why not? Why not?

I tell docs just, “Why don’t you find something? There are so many other side gigs out there that you can find, whether it’s, you know, doing something like workers’ comp or insurance stuff.” I know a lot of people are just going in a little different direction. There’s just a lot of stuff within the medical world that doesn’t take a drastic step and add a lot more on your plate.

Daniel Wrenne:  Yeah. And so y’all traveled a bunch for over a year or so and still maintained your deal?

Benjamin Stone: Yeah. So basically what I did was, yeah, we just need to change. We for variety of reasons and we basically what I was able to do was cut and I get further cut back on my clinical shifts, but I was able to work it so that I could consolidate them.

And what we were able to do is then go travel, took the kids. We did a—we call it world schooling. And so basically took them all over. All over the world, but we focused in Europe where it’s just, it’s so easy to travel over there and cheap to travel. And but yeah, and then what I would do, I maintain my practice back here.

Coming back and I would work a chunk, a big chunk for several weeks. And then, I was doing that and I was spending probably, 25% of my time working, but 75% of my time traveling and with my family. Yeah, it had its own struggles, but to be quite honest, it was fantastic.

It was well worth it and yeah, it definitely helped me out a ton and changed my life, my family’s lives, my kids, their perspective on things. We’ve only grown from it.

Daniel Wrenne:  Yeah, I would say that’s a very good cure to burnout if all else fails, go on a pretty sweet trip and reduce the amount of work you’re doing. That seems to.

Benjamin Stone: I totally agree. And it doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to be like, traveling overseas, world school and your kids. Some people just giving back. Take some time off and go do a medical mission and take some time off. Yeah. You can go surfing for a month, whatever it is, get away from the clinical realm and I think it helps put things in perspective.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, I think that’s good advice. Any other suggestions? I’m sure some people are listening and they’re in that. I think a lot of people get stuck in the burnout phases, whether it’s mild or whatever, but that seems like a difficult time, but any other suggestions or things that really helped you to get over the hump?

Because I think it takes courage to make that step, take the step away from the system. The system is very entrenching and you’re so used to saying yes all through and doing the right thing and getting an A plus on everything. And then all of a sudden you got to be like, I’m out which is hard.

I’m sure. But any other suggestions or pieces of advice you would give somebody that’s…

Benjamin Stone: I’ve got a family member who’s a radiologist, and he was in a private group and worked for 20-something years just grinding it out. The pandemic finally helped him.

A lot of the radiology stuff went online, and he finally said, “You know what? I’m done.” He was the senior man in the group, and he basically said, “I’m going to completely flip this around. I’m just going to do telemedicine. I’m going to work for a telemedicine group from home.” And the guy went from, and I’m very close with him and he’s a very close person in my life, but he went from being a miserable guy just because he was burned out and unhappy to now being the happiest dude. He loves it. He has control over his schedule. He does it all from home. He knows exactly what he’s getting paid exactly.

I always applauded that because this is another example of someone who said, “You know what? I’m not happy. I’m going to make a change.” You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes, and you don’t know if it’s going to work out. My advice to doctors is nothing in particular. It’s just, if you’re unhappy, try making a change. Life’s too short to be in a job where you’re just miserable, and you’re dreading going to work, and then the people around you are unhappy. We’ve got options out there as physicians. A lot of professions can’t say that, especially now with telemedicine.

There is a whole door of options out there if you go looking for them. You might have to take a drop in pay, you might have to modify your lifestyle a little bit, but I’ll tell you what, on the flip side, life is just so much better when you’re not miserable every day going into work.

Daniel Wrenne:  Yeah, it’s not worth it. Doesn’t matter how much money they’re paying you.

Benjamin Stone: That’s the thing, right? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re making a million dollars. If you’re miserable, what good does that do?

Daniel Wrenne: What’s the point? Yeah. And so now you’re working with a buddy of ours.

That’s how we got connected. Contract Diagnostics is one of our we’ll say partners, but Jon, a buddy of mine has a firm that does contract reviews and some of you listening, you’ve probably heard, we’ve had John on the podcast several times, but you’re working with Jon now at Contract Diagnostics.

Maybe we could talk a little bit about that role. That’s a new shift. That’s not I guess that does tie into medicine, but not exactly.

Benjamin Stone: Yeah, it’s interesting. Again this role is me trying to find something else that helps balance things out. So it’s not, I’m not overloaded on the clinical aspect of it, right?

I’m still getting to utilize my experience as a physician, but I’m doing something else, which to me helps again with my burnout and keeping me out of burnout because it’s something else to do. And yeah, basically Jon Appino, he basically started, I think about the same time you started your firm.

Yeah. Yeah, basically he started this company and basically specializes in review. Physician contracts. And Jon and I met through a friend. We actually didn’t talk business at all. The first few times I got together with him, we just had struck up a friendship. And he finally was like, Hey, I’d love to get you somehow working with us.

And, and so it evolved into this kind of role of where I’m passionate about it now. I’ve found this passion because us physicians, you’re in residency and I remember my attendings would say, Oh have a lawyer look at your contract, right? Have a lawyer look at someone needs to look at your contract.

A lawyer. And I never did, and none of us ever would, because, for a variety of reasons, and we all know as physicians why. One, it’s not easy, it’s extra work. Two, you’re like, it’s a contract. What wiggle room do we have? I just kept doing that. In regards to signing the contract, I would review it, but didn’t really know what I was doing.

And then, I had a couple of experiences. One is, I hired a buddy of mine who had a family member that was a lawyer. So, I paid him 300 bucks to review my contract. All he said was, “Oh, it’s a pretty standard contract.” No feedback, nothing.

I was like, okay, that was not money well spent. And I was just oh, and I was trying to do the right thing, and then it made me realize, okay, not all lawyers are the same. Jon and I got involved and I said, this is amazing. Where have you been all my life, Jon? I could have been having you. He makes it so easy. And then, as Jon brought me on, I started listening in on calls.

I’m like, man, they are really advocating for physicians because we as physicians just don’t know what we’re doing. Oftentimes, we don’t know where we can negotiate, where our leverage lies, and what’s important to us as physicians. How do we get that out there into the contract so that we’re happy? 

Jon and his team, man, it’s amazing what they do to help cover physicians. They make sure you’ve got the right amount of practice insurance, correct benefits, the termination clauses, and non-competes are a common thing. But he always says, every story is important, so your story is important and it matters.

What’s important to you? It’s amazing how you can leverage an extra day to do if you have a passion for education or podcast or something. It’s just amazing what’s out there and how they can help negotiate. I really feel like this will help in the long run and plus more money.

They have their own database and they keep track of fair market value for clinicians, states, and location-specific data according to specialties. He has numerous stories of docs getting more pay, significantly more pay, for less hours. Why isn’t everyone doing this? It’s a no-brainer.

Daniel Wrenne: It happens a lot. We see it and it’s shocking. It’s not, it is, but it’s not. When you think about it, the big giant hospital systems and you know how they are.

And then how some physicians of different personality types, especially like. Maybe the nicer types that, I mean, that’s just a recipe for getting taken advantage of.

Benjamin Stone: And I hesitate to use that word, but it really, that’s what it is. You’re taking advantage of it’s not because they are looking, you just don’t know what to negotiate.

As a clinician, you don’t know where your strength is, where your leverage is. And Jon and his team know exactly that. And it’s just, to me, it’s a no-brainer. They, we may they made it so easy now. And my thing is to get out there and advocate for all clinicians, any contract you sign, have it reviewed by a contract specialist.

And it’s amazing what they can negotiate for you. And so many stories of doctors getting six figures more and working, five plus days less a month because it’s just these stories are out there and they’re common. So I feel like for docs that are on the verge of burnout or they’re there.

One of the first things you should do is reach out and get your contract looked at and try to renegotiate it because hey, maybe making a hundred grand more and working, six less days of call a month is what you need to not be burned out anymore.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Cause they’re going—the way that their service works, they’re going to ask you the questions about like, how is life and you’re going to say it sucks right now.

And they’re going to be like, you’re burning out. So let’s try to get you less instead of status quo and try to get you more for the dollar or for the hour. 

Benjamin Stone: Yeah. Yeah. No it’s, yeah, I feel one of my things is before you start a side gig, have your contract renegotiated because that might be all you need rather than having a side gig that’s making you, 25, 50 grand more a year.

Go see if you can renegotiate your contract and get that 25 or 50 grand paid more just by renegotiating your contract and less days. So start there first and then if you’re still unhappy and you need, other outlets, then go start a side gig. Great. But start with looking at your contract.

Daniel Wrenne: Main gig. Let’s focus on that.

Benjamin Stone: Which is let’s be honest. That’s our bread and butter. I remember having that mentality like this is our bread and butter, right? We make good money doing this. Let’s focus on that. Let’s try to optimize, maximize what we’re making before we start getting into these complex side gigs.

Daniel Wrenne: Yep, I’m completely with you. Yeah.

Benjamin Stone: Yeah, I mean to me it’s a no-brainer, but no one’s kind of putting that out there. It’s all, ‘Oh hey, you can come be a real estate investor.’ And that’s great for people that are business savvy, you know, go for it. But, you know, for me it was like, ‘Man, let’s just optimize my day gig, and then in my spare time, I can go do something fun and not just work more.’

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, I’m glad you’re speaking up about it because there definitely, I’m a fan of the approach you’ve taken. And I think more people need to be. The other thing too, is we’ve got a shortage of doctors. So as a patient, I’m like, ‘Come on guys, you got to stay in it.’ Stay in the industry and help take care of me.

Benjamin Stone: Yeah. 

Daniel Wrenne: My parents and all that. 

Benjamin Stone: Absolutely. For so many different reasons, like for your personal, but for society, we need good docs out there. We do good work and we need people stay working and hopefully working or they’re not burnt out and they feel like they are compensated fairly and I feel like that is reasonable and that is attainable, sometimes you need to look at your contract and get things renegotiated and don’t you know, I was just talking to a doc on the phone. This guy was like a chair of cardiology.

This guy was awesome, right? He was a clearly doing very well. And he was like I don’t want to rock the boat, I sat here and thought that is the wrong mentality. Like you have leverage here. They’re coming after you makes like that. And we just physicians just don’t get that.

I feel like we’re we’re already making really good money. I don’t want to rock the boat. And it’s no, that is not the approach to take. It’s just like with professional athletes, they’re like, oh, I’m just going to take less money.

No, you’re negotiating. You’re trying to get the best contract you can get.

Daniel Wrenne: Right. Yeah. I have more confidence in the physician doing good things with the money than the hospital system. It’s either going to go to their profit or your compensation.

Benjamin Stone: Exactly. And the thing is, it’s not like we’re not doing it. We’re busting our butts. These doctors all, the hospital I’m working, I know they’re up there. Busting their butts, doing, working hard. So you’re worth it. You’re worth the money. Like it’s a no-brainer to me.

Daniel Wrenne: The other thing too, is you can negotiate, like you said earlier, negotiate less hours for the same pay.

Oh yeah. That’s, if you’re worried about more compensation and rocking the boat, then maybe negotiate less hours for the same pay. Exactly.

Benjamin Stone: Again, this is basic stuff, but a lot of docs just don’t—we just don’t think like that, we just take it. I think a lot of us bury our heads in the sand. And it’s not even that; it’ s just we’re busy. I know John talks a lot about how, and I’ve experienced this—you sign a contract and five years later, has there been any renegotiation? Has anyone come to you? Is anyone going to come to you and say, “We wanna renegotiate, pay you more, and work less?”

No, you’ve got to go to them. Doctors, we see it all the time at contract diagnostics. Docs will say, “Oh, it’s been five years, and no, my contract’s the same. It’s an evergreen contract.” Do not take that. Every two years, try to reach out and renegotiate.

Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I appreciate you coming on. Keep up the good work. Hopefully we’ll have to catch up again soon and see how things are going with—Contract Diagnosis. Great company. So I’m glad to hear you’re working with them. So I’m sure that’ll be a good thing for you. 

Benjamin Stone: It’s been fun. I like connecting with docs and I think now I have enough experience where I get to I can lean on that and say, yeah, I wish I would have done that.

Here’s one of the things I wish I would have done and I didn’t do. And yeah, it’s been nice and just advocating for physicians and you as well. Thank you for focusing on docs and understanding what they need to help them be successful and be able to actually retire.

And you, what you’re doing plays a huge impact in trying to keep doctors away from that burnout and just frustration, because when you feel like you’re financially, like we talked about, when you’re financially protected and taken care of, it helps give you a buffer confidence.

Daniel Wrenne: And it’s easier to say no. And yeah we’ll keep working at it. And good catching up with you.

Benjamin Stone: Yeah, you as well. Thank you so much for having me on. It’s a real pleasure.