August 13, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode of the MGMA Insights Podcast, Dr. Michael Neal, a practicing optometrist and founder of Build My Team. Dr. Neal shares his transformative approach to healthcare hiring while addressing critical challenges like staff turnover, burnout and creating a high-performing practice culture. Drawing from lessons learned in his own practice and insights from top service industries, he offers practical strategies for medical practice leaders to enhance their hiring process.
Key Takeaways:
- 03:20 Hiring Paradigm Shift: Move beyond resume-based hiring to assessment-driven candidate selection
- 10:42 Mindset Matters: Prioritize candidates with a genuine desire to serve and find fulfillment in healthcare
- 13:29 Transferable Hiring Strategies: Approach works across different healthcare specialties and practice types
- 17:09 Burnout Prevention: Strategically building the right team can dramatically reduce practice leader stress
- 18:01 Emotional Impact: Reduce Sunday night anxiety and Monday morning dread through strategic hiring
- 21:21 Team Performance: Replace low-performing team members to improve overall practice culture and retain top talent
Resources:
Visit the Build My Team website to learn more
Connect with Dr. Michael Neal on LinkedIn
Read Rocket Fuel: By Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters - Available on Amazon
Read Mindset: By Carol Dweck - Available on Amazon
Additional Resources:
Email us at dwilliams@mgma.com if you would like to appear on an episode. If you have a question about your practice that you would like us to answer, send an email to advisor@mgma.com. Don't forget to subscribe to our network wherever you get your podcasts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel Williams (00:02):
Well, hi, everyone. I am Daniel Williams,
senior editor at MGMA and hostof the MGMA Insights podcast.
And today we've got a guest whois going to be talking about
some of those most persistentpain points in healthcare:
hiring the right people. So ourguest today is Doctor. Michael
Neal.
(00:23):
He's a practicing optometristand founder of Build My Team.
And after struggling withturnover and hiring frustrations
in his own practice, Doctor.Mike created a new approach, one
that's now helping practicesacross the country build
stronger teams. So you and Iwere talking offline, Doctor.
Mike, but I just wanted to saywelcome to the show.
Dr. Michael Neal (00:44):
Thanks so much for having me, Daniel. I'm
excited.
Daniel Williams (00:47):
Yeah, it's so good to have you here. So like
many people that are inhealthcare, you have ventured
out to do other things as well.So let's just talk about that.
Let's go back a little bit andshare some highlights from your
origin story. Just getting toknow you better, whether that's
through your journey in healthcare or even getting out more as
(01:09):
an entrepreneur and a speakerand a coach as well.
So let's talk about that.
Dr. Michael Neal (01:16):
Well, thanks. So I started the Build My Team
journey simply because I was apracticing iDoc in a small group
practice in rural Pennsylvanialocated right next door to the
middle of nowhere. And we have,as far as the talent pool, it's
not a pool, it's a puddle. Itused to be six inches deep. Now
(01:38):
I think you'd be hard pressed toget it at three inches.
It's really, really tough. So Ididn't start out to create a
company out of this wholejourney. It was simply to find
great people. That's all. Greatpeople because our practice was
hiring, using resumes.
It was awful. We were gettingabsolutely horrible results and
(02:00):
we didn't know what the heck wecould do differently. So I took
a look at other companiesfiguring, hey, look, there's a
whole bunch of people out therethat are a lot smarter than I
am. What are they doing? Andcompanies like the Four Seasons,
Disney, Ritz Carlton, some ofthese big organizations that
(02:21):
just have amazing customerservice, you know, what are they
doing?
Because that's essentially whatwe're trying to do in health
care. Of course, we don't callthem customers, but, you know,
patients. We're trying to bendover backwards to help people
take care of people and do so ina way that they want to come
back. And so I looked at theirhiring models and they just
(02:42):
weren't doing it the same way aswe were. They would post jobs.
So they write a great jobdescription. They'd post jobs.
They would have all of theseapplicants apply, but they
wouldn't start off withinterviews right away. They'd
put them through an assessmentprocess. And I was like, what's
an assessment process?
(03:03):
Well, it turns out that you canpredict people's behavior based
upon how they answer theseassessments. And we ended up
creating an entire process to dothat and to get outstanding
results. We had to changeeverything that we were doing.
Daniel Williams (03:20):
Let's talk about that then. You mentioned
names like Disney and the FourSeasons and Ritz Carlton and
others like that. What were theydoing? What were their hiring
models? And can that be adaptedto medical practices?
Are they you talked about poolsand puddles to draw from, but
those are types oforganizations. But at the heart
(03:44):
of it, no matter what ourbusiness is, we're working with
people and people like to berespected and they like
frictionless contact anddifferent things of that nature.
So let's just talk about that.What did you draw from them that
you could then apply to youroptometry practice or to other
practices?
Dr. Michael Neal (04:02):
Oh, great question. Well, you hit the nail
on the head. They take care ofpeople and they take care of
people in unique and incredibleways. Guess what we do as
healthcare professionals? I gotnews for you, Dan.
Big surprise. Good thing we'reboth sitting down. We take care
of people. We do so in uniqueand incredible ways, right? It's
(04:22):
the same thing, even though youdon't think that it is.
And sometimes it's not, but itcould be. It's an aspirational
thing for us. Why is that docbuddy of yours got all five star
reviews in his practice and inanother practice for struggling,
that type of thing. So itbecomes very challenging, but it
(04:44):
can be done. And that's whatthey were doing.
They weren't making theirdecisions on resumes. That's the
key point. They would run peoplethrough the assessment process
that they had. They woulddetermine if they would be
fantastic at the job beforetalking with them, before
meeting them, before looking atresumes. And then when they were
done, they would look at theresume to determine if the
(05:05):
person had any relevantexperience, which a little
teaser here can be a massive redflag.
So we'll talk about that later.But that's how they would
approach it. And we wereapproaching it completely
opposite. Hey, you applied for ajob, you throw an absolutely
disastrous, awful resume infront of us. You're one of the
few people applied.
Why don't you come in for aninterview? Oh my goodness.
(05:30):
That's like sitting there andasking a patient, Hey, what's
wrong with you? Okay, well, knowwhat? We're going to skip all
the testing.
We're going to skip all the labwork. Here's your prescription.
Next. Nobody does that, right?You can't practice medicine that
way or healthcare at all.
So the reason we were doing itthat way is we didn't have a
better way. That's all it was.
Daniel Williams (05:51):
You make really good points there that, it does
seem like, as opposed to reallystrategically finding the people
that fit in with yourorganization, sometimes in
healthcare, it sounds like it'sjust we're desperate and we need
somebody. So, we're going totake somebody. Is that something
that you solve over and overagain? Because it does seem
(06:13):
like, particularly at the frontdesk, we will see it's a
turnstile. You know, there'sjust such turnover.
As we've talked about on thispodcast before, many people lose
front desk people to Starbucksand the local grocery store and
other people like, you know,organizations like that. And
then hopefully it just won'tcontinue that way. What do you
have? What are your thoughtsabout that?
Dr. Michael Neal (06:34):
Our approach is to find people based upon
their mindsets, their strengths,and their talents, how fast they
learn, what they're naturallybringing to the table. Okay? If
you zoom out from this and youlook at this at a 50,000 foot
view, you have a job. Itrequires a person to be really
good at certain things. Okay.
(06:55):
Let's just that'sstraightforward. We all know
that. Mhmm. Then let's go find aperson who's really good at
those certain things. Okay.
That's what we're all trying todo. What our approach does is we
will determine that incrediblyaccurately without asking them.
Hey, do you handle stress reallywell, Dan? Oh, absolutely,
(07:16):
Doctor. Mike.
Know, Even though I'm shakinglike a leaf right now and
sweating profusely, I amoutstanding at handling stress.
It's just hot in the room. Well,no, Dan, it's 67 degrees. You're
not telling me the truth. Andthat's a standard interview
nowadays.
So you know, we measure stress,we measure, sorry, we measure
(07:39):
the stress tolerance, we measurehow fast they learn. That's
another critical component. Ifyou're not going to learn fast
enough in healthcare, you're notgoing to work out. There's no
such thing as a healthcareposition that doesn't change,
that doesn't have some level ofroutine improvement to it. It's
the nature of the profession.
(08:01):
So things like that, for eachposition, and you mentioned
front desk earlier, your frontdesk is critical, absolutely
critical to a practice. You makebad impressions, you're going to
have all kinds of problems. Youmake great impressions. You're
going to have people that won'tstop promoting your practice.
Easiest, most binary way to growa practice that there is.
(08:23):
And so for each of thesepositions, we know exactly what
makes a terrific candidate. Weknow what these strengths and
talents are, and our entireprocess is essentially So when
these candidates apply, oursoftware will determine who's
best for these positions.
Daniel Williams (08:39):
You mentioned a term earlier, mindset. I think
her name is Carol Dweck wrotethe book Mindset. We talked
about it in our MGMA book clubprobably brought it up here in a
previous podcast. But in yourterms, what is the mindset
you're looking for when you arescreening people or interviewing
people for your practice or forother ones that you would
(09:02):
recommend there?
Dr. Michael Neal (09:04):
First of all, would love to meet her someday
because work is seminal. There'sa bunch of things we're looking
for, specifically a hardwiredrequirement to serve other
people. You want to help otherpeople. And everybody listening
to this is like, Who doesn'twant to help other people? Guess
(09:25):
what?
I got a news flash for you.Most. Okay. Most people don't
want to help other people.Right.
All right. Most people who areapplying for healthcare
positions, yeah, a lot of themdo, but a whole lot of other
people who are applying forhealthcare positions want an
incredibly stable paycheck. Theywant to work in air conditioning
and they want to work in aposition that's not going away
(09:48):
anytime soon. You don't believeme, roll back to COVID.
Daniel Williams (09:52):
Right.
Dr. Michael Neal (09:52):
Okay. The people that stayed, that was a
huge component to that. Airconditioning was a little bit of
an issue at the time with COVID,but let's skip that. Know, what
I'm saying is they want a cushjob. Not going to be standing
outside baking in the sun.
They're not going to be gettinggenerally screamed at on a
routine basis like they would inperhaps a call center or
something You like know, from amindset standpoint, we want
(10:14):
people who are helping folks.They enjoy that. They get up in
the morning to do such a, youknow, to have such a position.
And they're also looking forfulfillment. And this is
critical.
You would be shocked at how manypeople will take a slight pay
cut to go home with a huge smileon their face because they
(10:36):
helped a whole bunch of peopleat the end of the day. That's
one of the strategies we employ.
Daniel Williams (10:42):
That is amazing, and I love that, and I
totally agree with you ineverything you just said. So
let's talk about outcomes thenin looking at notes through your
organization, Build My Team.Let's just start there first.
Let's talk about Build My Team.What is it and what can you
(11:03):
share about that?
Dr. Michael Neal (11:04):
Sure. So we have a full service hiring
approach. And what we do for ourclients is it's a completely
done for you service. We focuson administrative clerical team
members, unfortunately, andeverybody have a deep sigh here.
We don't hire clinicians.
So that's the our tools can beused to help clarify which
(11:25):
clinician would work out bestfor your practice. But we
generally don't do that. Wefocus on the people that do the
work, the folks that are theheavy lifters in the practice,
the ones delivering the patientinteractions other than the
clinical care. And boy, oh boy,when you have a stupendous team,
I have to tell you, because Iwent through this, I went from
(11:46):
an awful team to a top tierteam. You go home as a doc or a
clinician with a smile on yourface.
You have energy for the kids.You have the ability to look
forward to the next day and notsee an oncoming freight train.
So what Build My Team does is wefind those team members in an
(12:06):
automated fashion for extremelyaffordable price that will
deliver those results.
Daniel Williams (12:11):
Okay. And then who are you primarily working
with? Are you staying in theoptometry world or give us a
demographic here of the kind oforganizations you work with.
Dr. Michael Neal (12:23):
Yeah, so I'm an optometrist. I started out
with eye care because we knewthat implicitly. What we found
out very quickly and ratherunintentionally is that a
private practice is a privatepractice. Yeah. It doesn't
matter what profession you'rein.
You can go all the way from eyesto toes and everything in
between. What we focus on isstaffing private practices with
(12:47):
A players, A and B plus players.So it doesn't matter what type
of private practice you're in,you still need front desk
coverage. You still need to getpaid. You still need people to
help the clinician clinicians,and I should say.
In eye care, you might have aretail component. In, let's say,
dentistry, you might have aslight retail component with
(13:10):
treatment coordinators, thingslike that. There's all kinds of
different options. And so wefound out in a real hurry that
what we're doing in eye careworks the same for other
healthcare practices. And nowwe're in over 10 different
healthcare practices, types ofhealthcare practices, I should
say, in over 40 states in thecountry.
Daniel Williams (13:30):
Wow. One of the things I see here is in your
notes is some things aretransferable across specialties,
but then some things need to betailored. Just talk about that.
What have you seen in workingwith practices over 40 different
states? So you've seen a littlebit of everything.
Dr. Michael Neal (13:51):
Oh, absolutely. I think there's two
ways to answer that question.One, I'm always careful about
experience. Okay. Dentistry inparticular got absolutely
murdered after COVID with peoplewith experience.
And the quick story there isfolks were mercenaries. We had
(14:11):
dental hygienists jumping frompractice to practice to practice
for a 25¢ an hour raise. Woah.It was everybody's worst
nightmare, essentially.Practices shut down.
They had all kinds of issues. Soyou can take that as a really
tough example. But as far as theother types of practices, what
(14:40):
we've basically seen is ingeneral, when you're hiring for
this approach, when you're usingthe strengths and talents, when
you're not focusing on resumes,you get a completely different
level of experience for theclinician and you don't have
those types of people causingproblems in your practice.
Daniel Williams (15:00):
I was trying to do the math in my head. Is $0.25
an hour, is that like $500 raiseor so? Something? I mean, is it
worth moving to what you know,the devil you know, to this
unknown quantity? Mean, we'regoing to mindset and psychology
Dr. Michael Neal (15:18):
of those aren't our people. Let's time
out on that one. Do not bringthose folks to the table. That's
what some practice were facing.And it was awful.
I mean, can you imagine thelevel of stress for the practice
owner on that? What do you do?
Daniel Williams (15:35):
Well, it just sounds like such a difficult
situation, and I wanna be reallycompassionate to people that
maybe even $500 more a year is adifference for you. But at the
same time, you've gotta berealistic about it doesn't look
good on your resume if you'rejust jumping around from job to
job, but also just the, I don'tknow, unless there's a real
(16:00):
opportunity that's beyond just$0.25 more an hour, there's got
to be something more there foryou.
Dr. Michael Neal (16:07):
Yeah. And what ended up happening is a lot of
those folks left the profession.I don't know that 25¢ an hour
was the core reason. I thinkdissatisfaction and sheer
unhappiness were probably morefoundational in that sense.
Daniel Williams (16:22):
Right. And I don't want to get fixated on the
dollar amount, but it just itplays into that bigger picture
of what's really important. Youknow, if you were talking about,
are you working in a culture?Are you working in an
environment where you go home atthe end of the day and you have
that energy to play with thekids or go to the gym or do
(16:43):
whatever is you're passionateabout? And I think that's so
important here.
One of the other questions Iwanted to talk to you about and
I talked to you about off line alittle bit, is the burnout that
we're seeing in healthcareacross the board, no matter
where you are. So talk aboutthat a little bit and how hiring
the right people in the rightjobs can help push that down a
(17:08):
bit.
Dr. Michael Neal (17:09):
I really can't stress this enough. That is the
one outcome from Build My Teamtaking over the hiring in our
practice that changedeverything, like the one lever
that moves everything. I wasgoing home at night, pulling my
hair out. As you can see, I dida great job if you're on video.
(17:30):
I was so depressed because Iwould I was whack a mole.
It was hiring whack a mole.You'd you'd come in. Anybody
who's who's running a practiceright now can understand this.
Sunday night was always tough.You go to bed nervous.
What am I waking up to Mondaymorning?
Daniel Williams (17:50):
Right.
Dr. Michael Neal (17:51):
You know, what text am I gonna get Monday
morning? I'm gonna walk in. Whatenvelope's gonna be on my desk?
And that's if you're lucky.You're lucky,
Daniel Williams (18:02):
you get then the respect little to give the
envelope. Right, right.
Dr. Michael Neal (18:06):
Right? I mean, nowadays, it's the front door.
They just walk out the frontdoor. So those were the things
that I was dealing with. And nowwith a team that is A player
level, B plus level, these aregreat folks who do great jobs.
You do not have to babysit them.If you're not a kindergarten
(18:30):
teacher, you're not a catherder, a professional cat
herder. You're none of thosethings. And it's a completely
different approach. So in termsof burnout and culture, to
specifically address those, Ifyou have a team where you are
the kindergarten teacher and thecat herder, you are looking down
the barrel of burnout.
It is unavoidable. I don't knowanybody who's been able to do
(18:53):
that for year after year and getup the next morning and be like,
let's go herd the cats again.It's not who we are in health
care. The other hand, on thecultural side, this is a bit of
a controversial opinion, andcoming at this out of the blue,
but if you want to change theculture of your practice, you
(19:15):
start off by letting the lowestperformers go. Okay, you're
going to have some highperformers in almost every
practice.
You're going to have the, like,you think of your team right
now, who would you be terrifiedto lose? Okay. That that's a
visceral reaction. Your yourbrain didn't tell you that. Your
gut did.
Daniel Williams (19:32):
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Neal (19:32):
So that person you want to keep. That's your
higher or highest performer. Seeabout number two. See about
number three. Where does ittrail off where you're like,
okay?
And then at the end of that listis the person or the people that
you're just terrified to let gobecause you're not sure if you
can replace them. That's whatBuild My Team's for. Right off
the bat, they're holding yourgrowth and your mental health
(19:56):
hostage. You don't realize itwhen you're in the thick of it,
but that's what's happening. AndI'm not saying it's intentional,
it's just I'm describing where aperson's at.
So when it comes to the conceptof the cultural side, yeah, you
most certainly let the people onthe bottom end go and you
(20:20):
replace them with the highperformers. What you're going to
be able to do then is have yourteam turn around and start
performing. You also stop thelow performers from repelling
the higher talent. And that iscritical because the higher
(20:41):
talent, they will do anything towork with A players. An A player
only wants to work with an Aplayer.
They'll tolerate a B player, butguess what? They're going to
quit their job because they haveC and D players on their teams.
They're carrying the weight ofthose people, everybody knows
it, so they end up leaving. Andyou can't replace an A player
who left because of thosereasons with another A player.
(21:03):
It's just going to happen again.
And that's where the revolvingdoor comes. So you focus on the
other end of the employee team,you focus on the people that
aren't performing well and getthose folks off the team and
replace them with somebodybetter.
Daniel Williams (21:18):
Okay.
Dr. Michael Neal (21:19):
And that's the why behind it.
Daniel Williams (21:21):
Sure. Now you mentioned earlier that you'd
love to meet Carol Dweck andtalk to her about mindset. Are
there any other experts in thisfield or books that cover this
field that you would want toshare as resources for any of
our listeners here that youthink are just really top of the
game here that you can learnfrom?
Dr. Michael Neal (21:44):
Well, I think Rocket Fuel, Geno Wickman,
that's an interesting book. Nowthat's more on the
entrepreneurial side. But guesswhat? If you're a practice
owner, you're an entrepreneur.
Daniel Williams (21:53):
And
Dr. Michael Neal (21:55):
that helped a lot for my journey because I'm
more on the visionary side and Ineeded help on the operational
side. And so many times theleaders in the practice are
tough, in a tough situationbecause they don't want to
relinquish any level of control.That was a terrific jump to help
(22:15):
me realize that without doingthat, I'm toast. It's a must do.
But you want to relinquish alevel of control to people who
are good at it.
Otherwise, we never hand thatstuff off, right? That's the
nature of it. So that was aninteresting book that really
helped me. And there's a wholebunch of them, of course.
Daniel Williams (22:32):
For sure. So a final question here then, I just
think it's so interesting. So inreading about you outside of
work, when you're not running anoptometry practice or you're not
running build my team or doingall these other things, you're a
marathoner. And if that's notenough for you, you're something
called an ultra runner. Soyou're going to have to tell our
(22:54):
listeners who may not know whatan ultra runner is.
That must be an extramarathoner. But tell us about
your outside endeavors.
Dr. Michael Neal (23:03):
Yeah. Boy, oh boy. I don't like talking about
myself from this sense,obviously. But ran the Boston
Marathon in April. That was areally fascinating experience.
Even if you don't run, it was awild experience. Boston went
(23:23):
absolutely bonkers for thatevent. Then as far as an ultra
run, I I my record is I ran alittle over 60 miles in twelve
hours.
Daniel Williams (23:33):
Wow.
Dr. Michael Neal (23:34):
Yep. And didn't die. Wow.
Daniel Williams (23:36):
You're here to prove that.
Dr. Michael Neal (23:38):
Yep. Didn't die. That's that's that was the
the goal at of that race wasrun, twelve hours as far as I
could and not die.
Daniel Williams (23:46):
Yeah. You know, there's the old what is the old
saying? Like, what is it about amountain? Why did you climb the
mountain? Because it's there orsomething along So those why
does someone run an ultramarathon or an ultra runner of
60 miles?
What is in your mindset thatwould drive you to do such a
(24:06):
thing?
Dr. Michael Neal (24:07):
Well, probably crazy right off the bat. I mean,
clinically, there are somepeople listening to this that
are like, Oh yeah, that box ischecked. No, I think like I
started running in 2022. I wassuper late to the party on that.
And the health benefits areincredible for me.
Just I have teenage kids,preteen and teenage boys, and
(24:32):
keeping up with them is everyday a level of challenge. This
allows me to do it. But I wantto see if I can do it. And this
kind of ties back to a littlebit of the practice owner side
of things. When you were a kid,did you think you could ever be
a doctor or be a senior personin in a practice?
(24:55):
No. For most people, but yet youdid. Right. Right. Did I ever
think that I could run amarathon?
No, I started out running fromthe couch to the fridge for the
ice cream and back again whenthe ice cream started to melt.
You know, that was it. That thatwas the start of my that was the
start of my running journey. Andso it it it really became
(25:15):
something that I completely andutterly fell in love with. I
don't know that I'm going to doanother race that that long.
I got some birthdays under mybelt and you're always concerned
about injuries and stuff likethat. But I did it.
Daniel Williams (25:28):
Yeah, it's it's so impressive. And so running 60
miles in twelve hours orwhatever the numbers are there,
what does the body feel like? Imean, did you feel like
afterwards? Did you have anyinjuries from it? Did you wear
out an entire pair of shoes andswitch shoes midway through?
Tell us So about
Dr. Michael Neal (25:49):
it was a slow and steady wins the race
approach. I beat a guy who's 24,which was really exciting for me
because I'm not 24. I'm not evena backwards 24. What did it feel
like? Was Past a certaindistance, it's all about what
you eat.
Nutrition wins the race. It'sremarkable. Imagine hot mash
(26:14):
well, warm mashed potatoessquished through a tube. That's
those were those were the thewinning solution.
Daniel Williams (26:22):
Oh, boy.
Dr. Michael Neal (26:23):
As far as hurt goes, yeah, there was some
ibuprofen involved, someibuprofen and acetaminophen at
the same time works wonderfully.Got up to the limits of what a
human should probably do duringthat period of time. Was just
mandatory. Had to.
Daniel Williams (26:38):
Right.
Dr. Michael Neal (26:38):
And my feet, that was a whole nother story.
Three shoe switches. I had ateam of people who were keeping
track of all that stuff becauseI don't know anybody, well,
professionals still have a brainthat works after a certain
number of miles. Mine was mush.I mean, I'm happy it didn't leak
(26:59):
out my ears, but it might have.
I wouldn't have known. So I hada team that was was keeping
track of this and they wouldtell me, sit down, we're
changing your shoes, you have toeat this and that. And sitting
down was magical, but I'mtelling you getting up was hard.
Daniel Williams (27:14):
That's what I would think. It's the
Dr. Michael Neal (27:15):
getting Everything's up seized up. Yeah.
Daniel Williams (27:18):
Yeah. Are you listening to stuff? Do you have
AirPods in and listening tomusic or motivational stuff? Or
you strictly no noise going onthere?
Dr. Michael Neal (27:28):
Some runners love music. I'm not one of them.
I don't. I've tried it. I listento music in every other aspect
of my life, but it's just not mefor running.
I don't know why. It's kind ofbizarre. No. But I spent a day
thinking until I was unable tothink. And then, I don't really
know what I did other than justplot along.
(27:49):
Okay. But you know what wasreally fun and was totally
motivating is whenever I wouldrun by somebody, I would tell
them they're doing great.
Daniel Williams (27:58):
That's awesome.
Dr. Michael Neal (27:59):
And it kept me going. It's it's like you're
doing awesome. And it just gaveme that little bit of extra
boost too. It was
Daniel Williams (28:05):
a lot Incredible. Alright. Last thing
I'll ask you then. You've got animage behind you. I don't think
that it's not a real brick wall,is it?
Is that one of those? You've gotyour build my team for people
who can't see it. But then onthe other side of you, you've
got think about thingsdifferently and the differently
is upside down. So you're owningthat. So talk about that.
(28:30):
This will take us out of thepodcast, but I would love to
hear what thinking differentlymeans to you, Doctor. Mike.
Dr. Michael Neal (28:36):
Well, in the sense of Build My Team, it's
straightforward. You're hiring,you're getting the same results
over and over again. Thedefinition of insanity, right?
It doesn't have to be We've thatcreated a new way to get these
team members. It's done for you.
You pay a small fee. It's handedoff. We get these outstanding
team members, in front of you tointerview. They we already know
(28:59):
they can do the job. He can goeeny, meeny, miny, moe and come
out 10 times better than whatyou're doing right now.
And it's inexpensive. I'm notover promising. This is what we
do. This is the only thing thatwe do. And so our challenge is
always to get practice owners,senior leaders to think about
(29:20):
things differently.
That's why it's there. And ifyou do that, the results that
I'm describing to you will come.If you continue down the path
that you're on, just know we'rehere when you're ready.
Daniel Williams (29:35):
All right. Well, Doctor. Mike, thank you so
much for joining us. I lovegetting to talk to you and learn
about your organization and yourmindset.
Dr. Michael Neal (29:42):
Thanks so much, Daniel. This is a lot of
Daniel Williams (29:45):
Yeah. So everybody, for more information
on Build My Team and Doctor.Mike's work, we'll include links
in the show notes. So untilthen, I just want to say thanks
again to all of you for beinglisteners to the MGMA Insights
podcast, and we'll see you nexttime. Thanks so much, everybody.
(30:05):
Thank you.
Well, hi, everyone. I am Daniel Williams,
senior editor at MGMA and hostof the MGMA Insights podcast.
And today we've got a guest whois going to be talking about
some of those most persistentpain points in healthcare:
hiring the right people. So ourguest today is Doctor. Michael
Neal.
(00:23):
He's a practicing optometristand founder of Build My Team.
And after struggling withturnover and hiring frustrations
in his own practice, Doctor.Mike created a new approach, one
that's now helping practicesacross the country build
stronger teams. So you and Iwere talking offline, Doctor.
Mike, but I just wanted to saywelcome to the show.
Dr. Michael Neal (00:44):
Thanks so much for having me, Daniel. I'm
excited.
Daniel Williams (00:47):
Yeah, it's so good to have you here. So like
many people that are inhealthcare, you have ventured
out to do other things as well.So let's just talk about that.
Let's go back a little bit andshare some highlights from your
origin story. Just getting toknow you better, whether that's
through your journey in healthcare or even getting out more as
(01:09):
an entrepreneur and a speakerand a coach as well.
So let's talk about that.
Dr. Michael Neal (01:16):
Well, thanks. So I started the Build My Team
journey simply because I was apracticing iDoc in a small group
practice in rural Pennsylvanialocated right next door to the
middle of nowhere. And we have,as far as the talent pool, it's
not a pool, it's a puddle. Itused to be six inches deep. Now
(01:38):
I think you'd be hard pressed toget it at three inches.
It's really, really tough. So Ididn't start out to create a
company out of this wholejourney. It was simply to find
great people. That's all. Greatpeople because our practice was
hiring, using resumes.
It was awful. We were gettingabsolutely horrible results and
(02:00):
we didn't know what the heck wecould do differently. So I took
a look at other companiesfiguring, hey, look, there's a
whole bunch of people out therethat are a lot smarter than I
am. What are they doing? Andcompanies like the Four Seasons,
Disney, Ritz Carlton, some ofthese big organizations that
(02:21):
just have amazing customerservice, you know, what are they
doing?
Because that's essentially whatwe're trying to do in health
care. Of course, we don't callthem customers, but, you know,
patients. We're trying to bendover backwards to help people
take care of people and do so ina way that they want to come
back. And so I looked at theirhiring models and they just
(02:42):
weren't doing it the same way aswe were. They would post jobs.
So they write a great jobdescription. They'd post jobs.
They would have all of theseapplicants apply, but they
wouldn't start off withinterviews right away. They'd
put them through an assessmentprocess. And I was like, what's
an assessment process?
(03:03):
Well, it turns out that you canpredict people's behavior based
upon how they answer theseassessments. And we ended up
creating an entire process to dothat and to get outstanding
results. We had to changeeverything that we were doing.
Daniel Williams (03:20):
Let's talk about that then. You mentioned
names like Disney and the FourSeasons and Ritz Carlton and
others like that. What were theydoing? What were their hiring
models? And can that be adaptedto medical practices?
Are they you talked about poolsand puddles to draw from, but
those are types oforganizations. But at the heart
(03:44):
of it, no matter what ourbusiness is, we're working with
people and people like to berespected and they like
frictionless contact anddifferent things of that nature.
So let's just talk about that.What did you draw from them that
you could then apply to youroptometry practice or to other
practices?
Dr. Michael Neal (04:02):
Oh, great question. Well, you hit the nail
on the head. They take care ofpeople and they take care of
people in unique and incredibleways. Guess what we do as
healthcare professionals? I gotnews for you, Dan.
Big surprise. Good thing we'reboth sitting down. We take care
of people. We do so in uniqueand incredible ways, right? It's
(04:22):
the same thing, even though youdon't think that it is.
And sometimes it's not, but itcould be. It's an aspirational
thing for us. Why is that docbuddy of yours got all five star
reviews in his practice and inanother practice for struggling,
that type of thing. So itbecomes very challenging, but it
(04:44):
can be done. And that's whatthey were doing.
They weren't making theirdecisions on resumes. That's the
key point. They would run peoplethrough the assessment process
that they had. They woulddetermine if they would be
fantastic at the job beforetalking with them, before
meeting them, before looking atresumes. And then when they were
done, they would look at theresume to determine if the
(05:05):
person had any relevantexperience, which a little
teaser here can be a massive redflag.
So we'll talk about that later.But that's how they would
approach it. And we wereapproaching it completely
opposite. Hey, you applied for ajob, you throw an absolutely
disastrous, awful resume infront of us. You're one of the
few people applied.
Why don't you come in for aninterview? Oh my goodness.
(05:30):
That's like sitting there andasking a patient, Hey, what's
wrong with you? Okay, well, knowwhat? We're going to skip all
the testing.
We're going to skip all the labwork. Here's your prescription.
Next. Nobody does that, right?You can't practice medicine that
way or healthcare at all.
So the reason we were doing itthat way is we didn't have a
better way. That's all it was.
Daniel Williams (05:51):
You make really good points there that, it does
seem like, as opposed to reallystrategically finding the people
that fit in with yourorganization, sometimes in
healthcare, it sounds like it'sjust we're desperate and we need
somebody. So, we're going totake somebody. Is that something
that you solve over and overagain? Because it does seem
(06:13):
like, particularly at the frontdesk, we will see it's a
turnstile. You know, there'sjust such turnover.
As we've talked about on thispodcast before, many people lose
front desk people to Starbucksand the local grocery store and
other people like, you know,organizations like that. And
then hopefully it just won'tcontinue that way. What do you
have? What are your thoughtsabout that?
Dr. Michael Neal (06:34):
Our approach is to find people based upon
their mindsets, their strengths,and their talents, how fast they
learn, what they're naturallybringing to the table. Okay? If
you zoom out from this and youlook at this at a 50,000 foot
view, you have a job. Itrequires a person to be really
good at certain things. Okay.
(06:55):
Let's just that'sstraightforward. We all know
that. Mhmm. Then let's go find aperson who's really good at
those certain things. Okay.
That's what we're all trying todo. What our approach does is we
will determine that incrediblyaccurately without asking them.
Hey, do you handle stress reallywell, Dan? Oh, absolutely,
(07:16):
Doctor. Mike.
Know, Even though I'm shakinglike a leaf right now and
sweating profusely, I amoutstanding at handling stress.
It's just hot in the room. Well,no, Dan, it's 67 degrees. You're
not telling me the truth. Andthat's a standard interview
nowadays.
So you know, we measure stress,we measure, sorry, we measure
(07:39):
the stress tolerance, we measurehow fast they learn. That's
another critical component. Ifyou're not going to learn fast
enough in healthcare, you're notgoing to work out. There's no
such thing as a healthcareposition that doesn't change,
that doesn't have some level ofroutine improvement to it. It's
the nature of the profession.
(08:01):
So things like that, for eachposition, and you mentioned
front desk earlier, your frontdesk is critical, absolutely
critical to a practice. You makebad impressions, you're going to
have all kinds of problems. Youmake great impressions. You're
going to have people that won'tstop promoting your practice.
Easiest, most binary way to growa practice that there is.
(08:23):
And so for each of thesepositions, we know exactly what
makes a terrific candidate. Weknow what these strengths and
talents are, and our entireprocess is essentially So when
these candidates apply, oursoftware will determine who's
best for these positions.
Daniel Williams (08:39):
You mentioned a term earlier, mindset. I think
her name is Carol Dweck wrotethe book Mindset. We talked
about it in our MGMA book clubprobably brought it up here in a
previous podcast. But in yourterms, what is the mindset
you're looking for when you arescreening people or interviewing
people for your practice or forother ones that you would
(09:02):
recommend there?
Dr. Michael Neal (09:04):
First of all, would love to meet her someday
because work is seminal. There'sa bunch of things we're looking
for, specifically a hardwiredrequirement to serve other
people. You want to help otherpeople. And everybody listening
to this is like, Who doesn'twant to help other people? Guess
(09:25):
what?
I got a news flash for you.Most. Okay. Most people don't
want to help other people.Right.
All right. Most people who areapplying for healthcare
positions, yeah, a lot of themdo, but a whole lot of other
people who are applying forhealthcare positions want an
incredibly stable paycheck. Theywant to work in air conditioning
and they want to work in aposition that's not going away
(09:48):
anytime soon. You don't believeme, roll back to COVID.
Daniel Williams (09:52):
Right.
Dr. Michael Neal (09:52):
Okay. The people that stayed, that was a
huge component to that. Airconditioning was a little bit of
an issue at the time with COVID,but let's skip that. Know, what
I'm saying is they want a cushjob. Not going to be standing
outside baking in the sun.
They're not going to be gettinggenerally screamed at on a
routine basis like they would inperhaps a call center or
something You like know, from amindset standpoint, we want
(10:14):
people who are helping folks.They enjoy that. They get up in
the morning to do such a, youknow, to have such a position.
And they're also looking forfulfillment. And this is
critical.
You would be shocked at how manypeople will take a slight pay
cut to go home with a huge smileon their face because they
(10:36):
helped a whole bunch of peopleat the end of the day. That's
one of the strategies we employ.
Daniel Williams (10:42):
That is amazing, and I love that, and I
totally agree with you ineverything you just said. So
let's talk about outcomes thenin looking at notes through your
organization, Build My Team.Let's just start there first.
Let's talk about Build My Team.What is it and what can you
(11:03):
share about that?
Dr. Michael Neal (11:04):
Sure. So we have a full service hiring
approach. And what we do for ourclients is it's a completely
done for you service. We focuson administrative clerical team
members, unfortunately, andeverybody have a deep sigh here.
We don't hire clinicians.
So that's the our tools can beused to help clarify which
(11:25):
clinician would work out bestfor your practice. But we
generally don't do that. Wefocus on the people that do the
work, the folks that are theheavy lifters in the practice,
the ones delivering the patientinteractions other than the
clinical care. And boy, oh boy,when you have a stupendous team,
I have to tell you, because Iwent through this, I went from
(11:46):
an awful team to a top tierteam. You go home as a doc or a
clinician with a smile on yourface.
You have energy for the kids.You have the ability to look
forward to the next day and notsee an oncoming freight train.
So what Build My Team does is wefind those team members in an
(12:06):
automated fashion for extremelyaffordable price that will
deliver those results.
Daniel Williams (12:11):
Okay. And then who are you primarily working
with? Are you staying in theoptometry world or give us a
demographic here of the kind oforganizations you work with.
Dr. Michael Neal (12:23):
Yeah, so I'm an optometrist. I started out
with eye care because we knewthat implicitly. What we found
out very quickly and ratherunintentionally is that a
private practice is a privatepractice. Yeah. It doesn't
matter what profession you'rein.
You can go all the way from eyesto toes and everything in
between. What we focus on isstaffing private practices with
(12:47):
A players, A and B plus players.So it doesn't matter what type
of private practice you're in,you still need front desk
coverage. You still need to getpaid. You still need people to
help the clinician clinicians,and I should say.
In eye care, you might have aretail component. In, let's say,
dentistry, you might have aslight retail component with
(13:10):
treatment coordinators, thingslike that. There's all kinds of
different options. And so wefound out in a real hurry that
what we're doing in eye careworks the same for other
healthcare practices. And nowwe're in over 10 different
healthcare practices, types ofhealthcare practices, I should
say, in over 40 states in thecountry.
Daniel Williams (13:30):
Wow. One of the things I see here is in your
notes is some things aretransferable across specialties,
but then some things need to betailored. Just talk about that.
What have you seen in workingwith practices over 40 different
states? So you've seen a littlebit of everything.
Dr. Michael Neal (13:51):
Oh, absolutely. I think there's two
ways to answer that question.One, I'm always careful about
experience. Okay. Dentistry inparticular got absolutely
murdered after COVID with peoplewith experience.
And the quick story there isfolks were mercenaries. We had
(14:11):
dental hygienists jumping frompractice to practice to practice
for a 25¢ an hour raise. Woah.It was everybody's worst
nightmare, essentially.Practices shut down.
They had all kinds of issues. Soyou can take that as a really
tough example. But as far as theother types of practices, what
(14:40):
we've basically seen is ingeneral, when you're hiring for
this approach, when you're usingthe strengths and talents, when
you're not focusing on resumes,you get a completely different
level of experience for theclinician and you don't have
those types of people causingproblems in your practice.
Daniel Williams (15:00):
I was trying to do the math in my head. Is $0.25
an hour, is that like $500 raiseor so? Something? I mean, is it
worth moving to what you know,the devil you know, to this
unknown quantity? Mean, we'regoing to mindset and psychology
Dr. Michael Neal (15:18):
of those aren't our people. Let's time
out on that one. Do not bringthose folks to the table. That's
what some practice were facing.And it was awful.
I mean, can you imagine thelevel of stress for the practice
owner on that? What do you do?
Daniel Williams (15:35):
Well, it just sounds like such a difficult
situation, and I wanna be reallycompassionate to people that
maybe even $500 more a year is adifference for you. But at the
same time, you've gotta berealistic about it doesn't look
good on your resume if you'rejust jumping around from job to
job, but also just the, I don'tknow, unless there's a real
(16:00):
opportunity that's beyond just$0.25 more an hour, there's got
to be something more there foryou.
Dr. Michael Neal (16:07):
Yeah. And what ended up happening is a lot of
those folks left the profession.I don't know that 25¢ an hour
was the core reason. I thinkdissatisfaction and sheer
unhappiness were probably morefoundational in that sense.
Daniel Williams (16:22):
Right. And I don't want to get fixated on the
dollar amount, but it just itplays into that bigger picture
of what's really important. Youknow, if you were talking about,
are you working in a culture?Are you working in an
environment where you go home atthe end of the day and you have
that energy to play with thekids or go to the gym or do
(16:43):
whatever is you're passionateabout? And I think that's so
important here.
One of the other questions Iwanted to talk to you about and
I talked to you about off line alittle bit, is the burnout that
we're seeing in healthcareacross the board, no matter
where you are. So talk aboutthat a little bit and how hiring
the right people in the rightjobs can help push that down a
(17:08):
bit.
Dr. Michael Neal (17:09):
I really can't stress this enough. That is the
one outcome from Build My Teamtaking over the hiring in our
practice that changedeverything, like the one lever
that moves everything. I wasgoing home at night, pulling my
hair out. As you can see, I dida great job if you're on video.
(17:30):
I was so depressed because Iwould I was whack a mole.
It was hiring whack a mole.You'd you'd come in. Anybody
who's who's running a practiceright now can understand this.
Sunday night was always tough.You go to bed nervous.
What am I waking up to Mondaymorning?
Daniel Williams (17:50):
Right.
Dr. Michael Neal (17:51):
You know, what text am I gonna get Monday
morning? I'm gonna walk in. Whatenvelope's gonna be on my desk?
And that's if you're lucky.You're lucky,
Daniel Williams (18:02):
you get then the respect little to give the
envelope. Right, right.
Dr. Michael Neal (18:06):
Right? I mean, nowadays, it's the front door.
They just walk out the frontdoor. So those were the things
that I was dealing with. And nowwith a team that is A player
level, B plus level, these aregreat folks who do great jobs.
You do not have to babysit them.If you're not a kindergarten
(18:30):
teacher, you're not a catherder, a professional cat
herder. You're none of thosethings. And it's a completely
different approach. So in termsof burnout and culture, to
specifically address those, Ifyou have a team where you are
the kindergarten teacher and thecat herder, you are looking down
the barrel of burnout.
It is unavoidable. I don't knowanybody who's been able to do
(18:53):
that for year after year and getup the next morning and be like,
let's go herd the cats again.It's not who we are in health
care. The other hand, on thecultural side, this is a bit of
a controversial opinion, andcoming at this out of the blue,
but if you want to change theculture of your practice, you
(19:15):
start off by letting the lowestperformers go. Okay, you're
going to have some highperformers in almost every
practice.
You're going to have the, like,you think of your team right
now, who would you be terrifiedto lose? Okay. That that's a
visceral reaction. Your yourbrain didn't tell you that. Your
gut did.
Daniel Williams (19:32):
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Neal (19:32):
So that person you want to keep. That's your
higher or highest performer. Seeabout number two. See about
number three. Where does ittrail off where you're like,
okay?
And then at the end of that listis the person or the people that
you're just terrified to let gobecause you're not sure if you
can replace them. That's whatBuild My Team's for. Right off
the bat, they're holding yourgrowth and your mental health
(19:56):
hostage. You don't realize itwhen you're in the thick of it,
but that's what's happening. AndI'm not saying it's intentional,
it's just I'm describing where aperson's at.
So when it comes to the conceptof the cultural side, yeah, you
most certainly let the people onthe bottom end go and you
(20:20):
replace them with the highperformers. What you're going to
be able to do then is have yourteam turn around and start
performing. You also stop thelow performers from repelling
the higher talent. And that iscritical because the higher
(20:41):
talent, they will do anything towork with A players. An A player
only wants to work with an Aplayer.
They'll tolerate a B player, butguess what? They're going to
quit their job because they haveC and D players on their teams.
They're carrying the weight ofthose people, everybody knows
it, so they end up leaving. Andyou can't replace an A player
who left because of thosereasons with another A player.
(21:03):
It's just going to happen again.
And that's where the revolvingdoor comes. So you focus on the
other end of the employee team,you focus on the people that
aren't performing well and getthose folks off the team and
replace them with somebodybetter.
Daniel Williams (21:18):
Okay.
Dr. Michael Neal (21:19):
And that's the why behind it.
Daniel Williams (21:21):
Sure. Now you mentioned earlier that you'd
love to meet Carol Dweck andtalk to her about mindset. Are
there any other experts in thisfield or books that cover this
field that you would want toshare as resources for any of
our listeners here that youthink are just really top of the
game here that you can learnfrom?
Dr. Michael Neal (21:44):
Well, I think Rocket Fuel, Geno Wickman,
that's an interesting book. Nowthat's more on the
entrepreneurial side. But guesswhat? If you're a practice
owner, you're an entrepreneur.
Daniel Williams (21:53):
And
Dr. Michael Neal (21:55):
that helped a lot for my journey because I'm
more on the visionary side and Ineeded help on the operational
side. And so many times theleaders in the practice are
tough, in a tough situationbecause they don't want to
relinquish any level of control.That was a terrific jump to help
(22:15):
me realize that without doingthat, I'm toast. It's a must do.
But you want to relinquish alevel of control to people who
are good at it.
Otherwise, we never hand thatstuff off, right? That's the
nature of it. So that was aninteresting book that really
helped me. And there's a wholebunch of them, of course.
Daniel Williams (22:32):
For sure. So a final question here then, I just
think it's so interesting. So inreading about you outside of
work, when you're not running anoptometry practice or you're not
running build my team or doingall these other things, you're a
marathoner. And if that's notenough for you, you're something
called an ultra runner. Soyou're going to have to tell our
(22:54):
listeners who may not know whatan ultra runner is.
That must be an extramarathoner. But tell us about
your outside endeavors.
Dr. Michael Neal (23:03):
Yeah. Boy, oh boy. I don't like talking about
myself from this sense,obviously. But ran the Boston
Marathon in April. That was areally fascinating experience.
Even if you don't run, it was awild experience. Boston went
(23:23):
absolutely bonkers for thatevent. Then as far as an ultra
run, I I my record is I ran alittle over 60 miles in twelve
hours.
Daniel Williams (23:33):
Wow.
Dr. Michael Neal (23:34):
Yep. And didn't die. Wow.
Daniel Williams (23:36):
You're here to prove that.
Dr. Michael Neal (23:38):
Yep. Didn't die. That's that's that was the
the goal at of that race wasrun, twelve hours as far as I
could and not die.
Daniel Williams (23:46):
Yeah. You know, there's the old what is the old
saying? Like, what is it about amountain? Why did you climb the
mountain? Because it's there orsomething along So those why
does someone run an ultramarathon or an ultra runner of
60 miles?
What is in your mindset thatwould drive you to do such a
(24:06):
thing?
Dr. Michael Neal (24:07):
Well, probably crazy right off the bat. I mean,
clinically, there are somepeople listening to this that
are like, Oh yeah, that box ischecked. No, I think like I
started running in 2022. I wassuper late to the party on that.
And the health benefits areincredible for me.
Just I have teenage kids,preteen and teenage boys, and
(24:32):
keeping up with them is everyday a level of challenge. This
allows me to do it. But I wantto see if I can do it. And this
kind of ties back to a littlebit of the practice owner side
of things. When you were a kid,did you think you could ever be
a doctor or be a senior personin in a practice?
(24:55):
No. For most people, but yet youdid. Right. Right. Did I ever
think that I could run amarathon?
No, I started out running fromthe couch to the fridge for the
ice cream and back again whenthe ice cream started to melt.
You know, that was it. That thatwas the start of my that was the
start of my running journey. Andso it it it really became
(25:15):
something that I completely andutterly fell in love with. I
don't know that I'm going to doanother race that that long.
I got some birthdays under mybelt and you're always concerned
about injuries and stuff likethat. But I did it.
Daniel Williams (25:28):
Yeah, it's it's so impressive. And so running 60
miles in twelve hours orwhatever the numbers are there,
what does the body feel like? Imean, did you feel like
afterwards? Did you have anyinjuries from it? Did you wear
out an entire pair of shoes andswitch shoes midway through?
Tell us So about
Dr. Michael Neal (25:49):
it was a slow and steady wins the race
approach. I beat a guy who's 24,which was really exciting for me
because I'm not 24. I'm not evena backwards 24. What did it feel
like? Was Past a certaindistance, it's all about what
you eat.
Nutrition wins the race. It'sremarkable. Imagine hot mash
(26:14):
well, warm mashed potatoessquished through a tube. That's
those were those were the thewinning solution.
Daniel Williams (26:22):
Oh, boy.
Dr. Michael Neal (26:23):
As far as hurt goes, yeah, there was some
ibuprofen involved, someibuprofen and acetaminophen at
the same time works wonderfully.Got up to the limits of what a
human should probably do duringthat period of time. Was just
mandatory. Had to.
Daniel Williams (26:38):
Right.
Dr. Michael Neal (26:38):
And my feet, that was a whole nother story.
Three shoe switches. I had ateam of people who were keeping
track of all that stuff becauseI don't know anybody, well,
professionals still have a brainthat works after a certain
number of miles. Mine was mush.I mean, I'm happy it didn't leak
(26:59):
out my ears, but it might have.
I wouldn't have known. So I hada team that was was keeping
track of this and they wouldtell me, sit down, we're
changing your shoes, you have toeat this and that. And sitting
down was magical, but I'mtelling you getting up was hard.
Daniel Williams (27:14):
That's what I would think. It's the
Dr. Michael Neal (27:15):
getting Everything's up seized up. Yeah.
Daniel Williams (27:18):
Yeah. Are you listening to stuff? Do you have
AirPods in and listening tomusic or motivational stuff? Or
you strictly no noise going onthere?
Dr. Michael Neal (27:28):
Some runners love music. I'm not one of them.
I don't. I've tried it. I listento music in every other aspect
of my life, but it's just not mefor running.
I don't know why. It's kind ofbizarre. No. But I spent a day
thinking until I was unable tothink. And then, I don't really
know what I did other than justplot along.
(27:49):
Okay. But you know what wasreally fun and was totally
motivating is whenever I wouldrun by somebody, I would tell
them they're doing great.
Daniel Williams (27:58):
That's awesome.
Dr. Michael Neal (27:59):
And it kept me going. It's it's like you're
doing awesome. And it just gaveme that little bit of extra
boost too. It was
Daniel Williams (28:05):
a lot Incredible. Alright. Last thing
I'll ask you then. You've got animage behind you. I don't think
that it's not a real brick wall,is it?
Is that one of those? You've gotyour build my team for people
who can't see it. But then onthe other side of you, you've
got think about thingsdifferently and the differently
is upside down. So you're owningthat. So talk about that.
(28:30):
This will take us out of thepodcast, but I would love to
hear what thinking differentlymeans to you, Doctor. Mike.
Dr. Michael Neal (28:36):
Well, in the sense of Build My Team, it's
straightforward. You're hiring,you're getting the same results
over and over again. Thedefinition of insanity, right?
It doesn't have to be We've thatcreated a new way to get these
team members. It's done for you.
You pay a small fee. It's handedoff. We get these outstanding
team members, in front of you tointerview. They we already know
(28:59):
they can do the job. He can goeeny, meeny, miny, moe and come
out 10 times better than whatyou're doing right now.
And it's inexpensive. I'm notover promising. This is what we
do. This is the only thing thatwe do. And so our challenge is
always to get practice owners,senior leaders to think about
(29:20):
things differently.
That's why it's there. And ifyou do that, the results that
I'm describing to you will come.If you continue down the path
that you're on, just know we'rehere when you're ready.
Daniel Williams (29:35):
All right. Well, Doctor. Mike, thank you so
much for joining us. I lovegetting to talk to you and learn
about your organization and yourmindset.
Dr. Michael Neal (29:42):
Thanks so much, Daniel. This is a lot of
Daniel Williams (29:45):
Yeah. So everybody, for more information
on Build My Team and Doctor.Mike's work, we'll include links
in the show notes. So untilthen, I just want to say thanks
again to all of you for beinglisteners to the MGMA Insights
podcast, and we'll see you nexttime. Thanks so much, everybody.
(30:05):
Thank you.
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