Ready to negotiate your worth as a physician? Dr. Mona Bakshi-Kamath joins Dr. Lee Sharma to share expert strategies for securing fair reimbursement, structuring patient-centered schedules, and achieving work-life balance—without compromising care.
Navigating the business side of medicine can be daunting, especially for women physicians who often face unique challenges in negotiation. In this episode, Dr. Lee Sharma sits down with Dr. Mona Bakshi-Kamath, to discuss how she mastered the art of negotiation to secure fair reimbursement and create a patient-centered practice.
Dr. Kamath shares her journey of diving deep into billing and reimbursement, advocating for equitable pay, and restructuring her schedule to prioritize both patient care and personal well-being. From leveraging data to negotiate with hospital administrators to setting boundaries that enhance quality of life, her insights are a roadmap for physicians looking to thrive in today’s healthcare landscape. This episode is a must-listen for medical students, residents, and practicing physicians seeking to advocate for themselves and their patients.
Three Actionable Takeaways:
About the Show:
Behind every procedure, every patient encounter, lies an untold story of conflict and negotiation. Scalpel and Sword, hosted by Dr. Lee Sharma—physician, mediator, and guide—invites listeners into the unseen battles and breakthroughs of modern medicine. With real conversations, human stories, and practical tools, this podcast empowers physicians to reclaim their voices, sharpen their skills, and wield their healing power with both precision and purpose.
About the Guest:
Dr. Mona Kamath is a family medicine physician at East Alabama Medical Center in Valley, Alabama. With a background in Locum Tenens and experience at West Point Military Academy, she brings a wealth of knowledge in primary care and reimbursement strategies. Inspired by her father’s lessons in negotiation, Dr. Kamath is passionate about mentoring women physicians to advocate for fair pay and balanced lives.
Website: https://www.eastalabamahealth.org/provider/mona-bakshi-kamath-m-d-internal-medicine
About the Host:
Dr. Lee Sharma – An obstetrician in Auburn, AL with a Master’s degree in Conflict Resolution, and has over 30 years of experience in the medical field. She graduated from University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1993. A physician passionate about helping colleagues address conflicts and thrive in medicine through practical strategies and open conversations.
Connect with Dr. Lee Sharma:
Email: scalpelandsword@gmail.com
Website: https://www.eastalabamahealth.org/provider/lee-sharma-md-obstetrics
Speaker: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword, our podcast looking at conflict in medicine. And I'm so excited today to have as my guest, Dr. Mona Kamath. Mona is one of my dear friends. I can't get away without saying that. She actually grew up in California. She went to undergraduate at the University of California in Riverside.
She went to medical school at the American University of the Caribbean. After this, she did a residency in family medicine at St. John's Medical Center in St. Clair Shores in Detroit, Michigan. After that she did work with some locum tens. I think one of my favorite things in her bio that I did not know till today is that she worked at West Point Military Academy Base in West Point New York.
I just think that you must have amazing stories from that. And she's currently working in Valley, Alabama with East Island Medical Center, practicing family medicine. I. It is a joy, and a delight to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Mona, thank you for being here. thank you for inviting me and having me join you on this.
And I was just mentioning earlier that I just [00:01:00] hope that I can give you something that's worth of some
Speaker: value and content, know you will. I have no doubt. I'm just so happy you're here. One of the stories I was sharing with Mona before we started recording was I have this really strong memory of sitting around with our group of girlfriends.
We have this really awesome group of women that, all of us are in medicine in some way, shape, or form, but we get together to hang out and talk and support. And we were at a local, lovely restaurant called Botanic last August. And one of the things that came up was one of the colleagues was having to negotiate her contract with the hospital, and Mona immediately jumped in.
Talking to her about her billing practices and this doctor was concerned that she wasn't getting appropriate reimbursement for her services. And we, Mona gave her really solid construction advice about how to make sure that she was getting reimbursed appropriately. And I went home and I told my husband, it's [00:02:00] dude, if I ever have a question about billing, I'm going to Mona, because she is on it.
How did you get so literate? This process of
Speaker 2: billing and reimbursement? I think for me medicine is so many different areas and I didn't realize until, starting medicine and starting, I started in locum 10, which billing was not so much of an issue. It was done for me, but private practice, but more as I became a hospital employee when through East Alabama 2017.
Each, it's so each state is different. How they reimburse each insurance, whether it's Medicare or commercial. And when we're trying to figure out how to navigate all of this, and at the end of the day, provide care and get reimbursed, fairly I came into a lot of I, I felt like I came into a lot of.
Confusion. And so I think the best way for me to sort that out was to figure out how is the hospital getting paid and then what does that mean for me? So as a hospital employee, there's RVs, but then there's a work RVU, and they calculate everything from overhead to r. [00:03:00] Our pay that we get through insurances to them and through the rest of the office.
So that's under that one building and to them. So I thought how am I going to do this? So I have other colleagues who are also employed, family physicians in other states, and I realized at least initially, each state pays differently and it's based on a lot of the insurances. So some states are more advantage, more of an advantage because there's a higher payout.
And I, that's how I. As I was talking to family members and I was talking to other colleagues, so their states had higher payouts and some states did not, and so I thought. Is am I in the right place? Should I st, should I still work here? And I think that's where, I started looking to figure out how is that going to come out for me and how you know, and is that going to affect how I see patients?
Am I gonna have to speed up and then is that gonna impact my quality of care? And that time that I spend with them in this population, I joined my father-in-law who's a gastroenterologist and doesn't internal medicine. The population's older, I would say at least 50. Not more 65. And I can't do the, I can't do a quick visit and I don't want to, I feel like it's gonna compromise their care.
It's gonna compromise me to be able to do [00:04:00] everything I need to do for them. So I went, I, once I joined, I. Although I became a hospital employee in 2017, I joined a, we joined a bigger group in 2021, which is now still under East Alabama, but it's called Valley Area Primary Care. And our medical director is Dr.
Dave Fagan. And when I first joined, he said, why don't you come with me? We spoke with the CFO. There was a big algorithm that he laid out on, dry erase board saying, this is how we kind of calculate work RVs. And so I could keep up with that because I had already started doing that research.
So I thought this is, and so at the end of the day when we have monthly meetings with our staff what I should say with our providers, and that includes MDs dos and nurse practitioners. So I thought at the end of the day, we get a certain salary and it's based on all that, how do we know, start shooting in the dark, how do we know?
How
Speaker 3: many people to
Speaker 2: see every day. What is your goal? Just to at least make the salary and then a little bit more if you want it, or to not shortcut that. And is this something you're willing to do and are okay with that? And that's how it started. So based on that and the value that's placed for every office visit, knowing that my majority of my patients might be older, there's a different level.
And if this, if this podcast is more dedicated physicians, there's. Two, one threes, two one [00:05:00] fours in pri primary care, primarily if you're older right. It's gonna take a little longer. And that criteria has changed over the years, and so majority it was two one fours. And then our value unit also changed in 2021 and it was higher, so it
Speaker 3: helped out our
Speaker 2: primary care.
So with that I did, I crunched the numbers before a meeting, after we met with our, their kind of our CFO at that time. And I said, if you need a minimum amount just to make that. A salary. This is how you need, this is how many patients need to be seen based on if the majority of your patients are gonna be 2 1 4.
And it was nice to see that we don't have to see over a hundred patients. Really. You could get, you could, see a little bit if just to make that salary, then it was up to each individual. And so that helped a lot so that I didn't have to, I think with with, with our software systems, it takes so much time, it delays us, to be able to get through that visit and document everything.
And I know that's all changed. Ai, which I'm trying to use and figure out a little bit for our practice to hopefully start using that next week. Oh, cool. How to, yeah. Yeah. So we're using the hospital based ai. I tried out last week, it didn't work for [00:06:00] me, but a lot of employees are using it and it's working, and so I'm gonna try that out again this weekend.
And then that way I can get everything that I say in my note along with the patient. So you're gonna have a little bit more of a comprehensive note and some of the. Assessment plan and our, recommendations are gonna be laid out and that will help us get through the note and see more.
And what I've also realized, at least for primary care, there's a big push for, I. Preventive health visits, and I would agree. And I think after Covid things changed a lot. We're just seeing a lot more people unhealthy. And I think then we were doing all those preventive health measures, cancer screenings, vaccinations, discussions goals, getting your goals for blood pressure and diabetes and all of that, and closing gaps in care.
So I think that just became even more of a, a. More of a priority for insurances, Medicare and commercial, and therefore our hospital, they want us to do all of this for our patients. Yeah. So when we do that. It takes more time. And I thought, let me try it out and try some, a different method. [00:07:00] Let me make sure with each of my patients I schedule that, but also have a routine visit.
Because in, in preventive healthcare, if you discuss a problem, then the patient gets billed. And I didn't want surprises for the patients either. Especially the older patients. They don't, even the younger ones, they're like, this is my wellness visit. I don't wanna pay anything. And I said, that's fine, I, but if you wanna discuss, I'm gonna give space for you.
So then I gave a trial run to see am I going to make enough that the hospital wants me to make for them in terms of their RVU for my salary? And I tried out in the last quarter and what I do is, and then I don't use that same spot to do two visits. I used two spots. So you're gonna see less than a day.
And I didn't lose anything. In fact, this in the last quarter, this is the most I've made in the past couple years. Wow. I was surprised because they want us to do this. We're closing the gaps. I space it out so that, especially my older, my Medicare patients now with commercial, it doesn't take me that long, so I don't need to do that.
But I make it two [00:08:00] visits and the patients are always gonna want they, most of the time, they want me to take care of their other issues. And it didn't compromise that, and I finally got to spend that time with the patient. They can discuss anything they want with me. My medical assistant, who's also an LPN, she doesn't have that much load.
She can do those questions that are needed initially, and she has that time and space afterwards to do calling patients back. And I didn't compromise. Care for the patient and the hospital is happy that we're closing these gaps, getting preventive health measures. I think even this year, Medicare is even giving more than that and more incentives.
So I, I gave it about three months try and I made more than I in these three months that I have in the past, I don't know how many years. It's probably the most I've ever brought in terms of RVs. Wow. Without and without compromising
Speaker: care and seamless patients. Yeah, I think it's cool [00:09:00] that the impetus for this was when you were sitting down and working with a hospital about.
The number of patients you were going to see and what was going to meet those benchmarks was the impetus for you to take this deep dive and actually look at what this reimbursement was gonna and not even just reimbursement, but you actually took that extra step as part of negotiating, working with the hospital of how many patients is this, what does my day look like?
You actually made it very practical and I think that's one of the biggest things that people. When they're walking into negotiation and especially women, we don't always walk in there with that armamentarium of knowing exactly, this is the reimbursement, this is what I need. But you said something also really cool as you were talking about all this, which was, it wasn't even just a negotiation about you.
It was a negotiation about what that day was gonna look like for your patient. You kept that a priority in the negotiation, and I think that's such a [00:10:00] great perspective. 'cause a lot of times when we talk about negotiating, we talk about things it, it can feel or come across as being very selfish or very one sided.
I'm negotiating for me, but as doctors, we're never just negotiating for us, right? We're always negotiating for the patient too. Those two are absolutely connected, so I love the fact that you made that. Part of your deep dive, what is
Speaker 2: that experience gonna be like for the patient? Now there I have dealt with our administrative for other job duties.
I had, I was a medical director at the nursing home. It was taking too much time out and I couldn't balance all of that. But I really think, is this all worth. What I don't think I've, I don't know if I might've mentioned this to you before, but because there's a difference in payments in different states and crossing over to the border to another state, just in Georgia the reimbursements higher, and I had to then decide in 2000, I think it was between 2017 when I had to renegotiate my contract.
I brought that up to the table because I was able to do that math. And I had talked to my colleagues who are also hospital employees, and I said, look I just, I [00:11:00] couldn't reconcile within myself to not bring this up to them, so when I worked with admin, I work right at the border of Alabama and Georgia.
And if I crossed one mile over, I would be in Georgia. The pay was gonna be so much different with the same number of people. So that meant to me, I could see less and just be able to have that quality of life just to be able to be home with the kids, take care of my own health, and I brought that to the table.
I said I do wanna let you know that it will be hard to stay here if. Knowing I go one mile further, which isn't much of a difference at all. And I can still live in my same community, in the same house. My kids can go to the same school and I will have a different reimbursement. So they took that into account and I think for all the next hirees, they changed the pay rates that fall.
Wow. Yeah. Wow. Mona. I was shocked because we had some new docs when I went into our [00:12:00] new area and vi the Valley area primary care when I joined that bigger group. And, it's, nobody talks about salary, but it was quite transparent how much primary care in general would get and salary every, it was supposed to be,
Speaker 3: fair.
Speaker 2: And it was much more. But it was the same pay that they had for me before I even joined them. But I said, I cannot, I don't think I can stay here. And I was ready to, and I was ready to walk. So I knew, yeah. I think at that point I had already, realized my work just a, as a fair pay rate.
I wasn't getting paid fairly, and I couldn't do that anymore. So I was ready to walk and I was just, and I
Speaker 3: was only gonna go a
Speaker 2: mile down. And so they changed that. They changed it for me, but then they changed it across the board. For entering. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. I was shocked because I thought it was only me that they changed it for, but then I think the, when I went into the negotiation or when I went into the talk with the CFO, he said, this is what we're
Speaker: gonna give as the base
Speaker 2: salary. Wow. You
Speaker: know, and. One of the things that you mentioned before [00:13:00] we started recording, and I wanted to make sure I came back to this because I thought this was just amazing.
So often as physicians and especially as women, I. We're not really given tools to negotiate. We're not taught how to do that. Unfortunately, sometimes we are eager to please we want to acquiesce. We don't really want to, even though we have priorities and things that we really feel like we need and would be beneficial to us and we also deserve, I think that's a word sometimes we don't always use.
You grew up with a father who taught you how
Speaker 2: to negotiate, right? He is. He's a engineer by by trade. He does food engineering. But his math skills are amazing and I have such a math geek, like I'm lucky Uhhuh, because that stuff was so easy. But when we had to win an argument with him.
Or convince them that we, to allow us to do what we wanted to do we had to leave emotions out of it. And so I had to be very, we had to do the research, we had to calculate it out. And what he, one of the important things he said, he's you may get my [00:14:00] permission, but you don't always have to have my approval.
And so that stayed within me. I, a lot of times, like you're saying, we're always trying so eager to please and to, get approval not only just from our colleagues, our patients, and everyone else. And it can be just our, either it's a, it's our race or a gender. It could be a mix of all that, or upbringing, whatever it was.
But he had said that to us year, like decades ago. And so I had learned through him how to win an argument and to get things done. So that's what I brought to the table because. It was black and white and they knew it. And so I wasn't gonna lose anything because I wasn't gonna lose my house, or the kids are still gonna be in school.
I would just go somewhere else. And I was okay with that. At that point. And but they came back and they understood and they realized, they even said, yes, we know that there's that discrepancy. And I had done that research before I went in, and so they realized it, but they were okay then to make those changes.
But then I realized. I had to realize I don't always have to, and that's a hard thing to feel like you don't have to please and you don't have to keep proving [00:15:00] yourself over or get somebody else's approval all the time. It's okay if somebody doesn't like you all the time. And that's tough sometimes, right?
Because then in certain and certain employed physicians, they have all those ratings from the patients as well. So I. I, we're in an underserved area as it is. Our clinic this year also got, I guess one of those ratings that it was a, one of those clinics that got the star ratings from the community.
So I think we were lucky that's, we're already there. We didn't have much competition. So they're happy that we're there, but we still need to provide good care. And I think if we can work out more time for them, they're older and real. You know how. Help them do that with us. Also, getting that reimbursement for all that time we've done over and over.
I think they finally realized primary care does a lot of things behind the scenes. We're not using the fancy equipment all the time and but there's a lot of organization for home health or hospice or coordinating the care or looking at patients who are discharged from the hospital. So because I've changed my schedule to give a buffer and give enough time.
Anytime somebody's [00:16:00] discharged from the hospital, it comes into my system and you can see I can see them within a week without, with ease. Wow. Wow. And that's a hu that's a bigger pay rate too. They want you to do that so that the patients don't get back in the hospital. Then I see when they get discharged and we have a system in our office to contact them, make sure everything's fine.
It's a medications that usually change and they're a lot of time older and they get very confused. So if I get them within the week, I have them bring their medicine, I give myself enough time, and then it helps to decrease that. Readmission. And when I went into negotiations, I think I had to be smart about it to say it's for patient care.
If I focused on me to say it's just for me, I don't think that would be important enough for them, that for them it's the bottom line. It's still a business. So if they feel like it's patient, centered and it helps the hospital in terms of reimbursements. That's really what I knew was gonna be able to help.
I, so I
Speaker: had to
Speaker 2: Keep all of
Speaker: that in my and that, so one of seemed to [00:17:00] work when you are a master negotiator. I don't know if you realize how good you are at this, but lemme just go ahead and tell you're amazing. One of the biggest pitfalls people fall into with conflict resolution or negotiation is the concept that there has to be compromise.
That everybody has to agree across the board and. I love it that you did not fall into that. It's and you, when you talked about how your dad said, I may allow something and not agree with you. The hospital doesn't necessarily have to agree with what you're asking for when you justify, I can go a mile across the border and I can make 30% more than what I'm making with you right now.
You don't, they don't have to agree with what you are asking for. To know that what you're asking for is not only legitimate, you have a viable option. You can walk right, and you can walk without losing your quality of life or the quality of your family's life, right? And when you lay that out, and also too, I love the fact that your dad talked about doing that without emotion.
You're not pounding your fist on a table. You don't have to. Oh no. Your words and your numbers. Numbers are powerful in any kind of [00:18:00] negotiation, but your numbers spoke for themselves. I think the other thing you did that was so smart in that negotiation is that you presented this. Very rightly so is this is not just about me, this is about the patient.
This is about the things that we're providing to keep the patients outta the hospital, which means that's going to be less of a ding for you guys that the way you presented this to them was you don't have to agree with me, but you do have to understand that my position is powerful, and it's not just powerful for me, it's for the patients I speak for and I treat.
You. Literally gave them no reason to say no to you. You walked into that negotiation and there was no way they could legitimately say no to you. Now, they could have said no to you, but there would be no legitimate reason why. The only reason why they would've said no is they just didn't wanna pay you.
And at that point, they would've had to copy to that. But when you walked in there with all of this data very clear, and the reasons you were asking for [00:19:00] what you were asking, and being able to do that without any kind of, emotional investment from that standpoint, from where you were coming from.
You are at that point, you've already won the negotiation. You have already won, and sometimes you're gonna walk outta those things, especially as a physician negotiating an employment contract. You wanna be the winner. This is not about making everybody happy, and I loved it that you went into it with that in mind.
And I think that's such a huge lesson. Again, doctors are not taught to negotiate and there's a large percentage of us that are people pleasers that you know. I just, I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk into a room and I'm gonna feel the vibe and I'm gonna want you to be happy with me when I walk out of it.
And that's. Not really important 'cause my quality of life has nothing to do with your happiness or mine. It has to do with my quality of life is mine and if I'm responsible for that, then I'm going to negotiate in that way. You did that and that is so huge. That is the kind of thing that, I.
You have a daughter who's thinking about going into [00:20:00] medicine, so this is gonna be the kind of thing that she's looking at. She's looking to you now as a role model, and because she has you as a role model, she is always gonna have the power and ability to negotiate for herself. What an incredible
Speaker 2: gift to give your child.
I feel the same way in terms of, whether it would be my son or daughter, but for some reason I also feel that pull to help us female physicians. I feel like sometimes there can be a mentoring and I feel like still our field, there can be more. When I, when we walk into some of our organizations, there's, there can sometimes still be, I don't know if it's changing now, but the mentoring was always, a
Speaker 3: lot of times it
Speaker 2: was a male mentoring.
Another male, but I do appreciate. Dave Fagan pulling me to go in with the CFO because I was, you know what? I was helping out my father-in-law in our previous clinic and I was, help. I did a lot of I did a lot during Covid how to organize that for us and we had talked about it when we weren't in the same building, but I do appreciate him doing and pulling me in with him, which was great.
And [00:21:00] he does give a little, he gives that mentorship, so I do. I can do the math part of it. And he does a lot of the other stuff too. So I do give him credit for, having me come up with him. And then that way you can just lay it out. And I said we can see this many patients. And now with each year when things change, I.
We have the, we have the step, we have the hospital. Admins come and say These are the changes, and that keeps going into calculations. We have right now, I have, there's a nurse practitioner just started. She's got two little
Speaker 3: ones, both under
Speaker 2: the age of three. And I'm like, I know she's tired.
And I said, this is what I've done. She said, she's maybe you just cracked the code. I said, look, I haven't seen admin upset with my numbers of patients that I'm seeing. I still see a decent amount. And they haven't been upset with my rvu 'cause it's more than it was before. No one has said anything in any negative way.
She said, maybe you just cracked it. So I see her making that change for herself. So that she can get in time and enjoy that her family. I think that's where we help each other out. The more we learn, then we [00:22:00] just keep passing it forward. And like maybe that'll, who knows what'll happen when our following generations are gonna go.
And I don't know how much that'll change, but I think the more you learn about the all aspects of it, then you have more in hand. I did step down from that a directorship because. I also felt like they, they were two directorship duties and I wasn't getting paid for two different types of duties.
And our hospital Thrive, the year I was director, we were recognized in Newsweek as one of the top nursing homes. And I thought that would have enough for them to give me that fair pay. And the, and they did not want to find another director and they kept trying to string me along. And because I at Empath.
I do feel a lot, I don't bring that to the table, but I do feel a lot for patients. I didn't wanna let them down, so then I finally had to and said, I will see patients, but I will no longer do the directorship, because now they, they incorporated a SN unit in there. It was too much and it agreed that the next director should get paid more, but they wouldn't be. I said, I will stay [00:23:00] on for the next couple months for you while you find somebody you want. They found somebody. But they didn't like him, so they just wanted me to stay on. So I said I need that pay and I need some back pay if you want me to stay another month.
And they wouldn't do it, so I just ended it then, so that, so I did end it. They didn't, they didn't agree to all my, terms, which was fine, but then I left. And
Speaker: I'm happy for it, and I'm fine. Yeah. You knew enough about your priorities and enough about what you, but knowing what you're worth, you knew what you were worth.
You knew what your time was worth. You knew what you were willing to give to that responsibility, and it was not going to be commensurate with what you were putting into it, and you recognized that and you walked away from it. That in and of itself again, is a very successful negotiation.
Because you said, this is what I'll accept, and you've set that line and it's I'm not going to accept anything but this. I love it. I, and I think it's so great that Dr. Fagan was a great mentor to you and encouraged you. And I feel like I've definitely had that with some male physicians. I, the only reason I'm in robotics is because of Rishi Raja because he called me and said, Hey, this is coming and I want you in it.
And if it wasn't for [00:24:00] him, I wouldn't have been, at the start of robotics, east Alabama. Okay. I do think that, and I agree with you on this, that sometimes because medicine as we were coming up, was a much more male dominated entity. Most of those mentors that were gonna go out of their way to find us were men.
And I think about my dad, who was a physician, he was always very into mentorship, but he had a daughter. I think men who have. Daughters, female relatives. Sometimes they got a leg up on being a mentor to other women because they were doing it in the home. But now that we are getting into that point where we are in our careers, we've had life experiences that we have successfully negotiated and structured our lives, that we have balance and we have appropriate reimbursement that we do wanna mentor other younger women.
We do want to have them. Benefit from your experience. It's one of the things I'm hoping will come from this podcast is that there's going to be medical students and residents are gonna listen to this and go, oh wow, look what Dr. Kamath [00:25:00] did. Look how she negotiated all of this. I can do that too. And so you are actively mentoring people just by being here today, which I so greatly appreciate.
I think going forward in terms of negotiating, is there anything else that you would, if you were going to share this, you were talking to a younger resident, a younger physician going out into practice, what other tips would you give them in terms of if they're negotiating contracts and trying to structure that life so it actually reflects the effort they're putting into it and what
Speaker 2: they want from a quality of life?
I honestly feel like the younger generation is probably better at going into things. With the goal of a better work life balance. And I think that shift happened after I left residency. It was more, you just gotta do it. You just gotta do it. They've done it work so many hours and you, this is just part of it.
And I see the difference where they do advocate for themselves more. So I think coming into it, they already. Have that, but I think as I'm getting [00:26:00] older what is the goal? Anyway? There's so many balances. It's your work, it's your health, it's your family. Could be spirituality.
You just, you need to figure out what your goals are. And then how that fits in. And then you can figure out how the day will work for you and patient wise and schedule. And I think hospitals are probably gonna be able to be much more they'll end up being more flexible, I think years to come, because I think this population, you and I have talked about it, I think they already go into probably thinking of the, me advocating for themselves a much more than we did, for sure.
We just. Good and bad but they're advocate. Yeah. I would say before, before you, sign anything, what is, try to vision, what is your goal? And for me, the goal is. What is my today? What is to my tomorrow? How is my after work life? How am I gonna be able to get out?
And is this enough? Is this enough for my means? And more than that, am I gonna enjoy life? You just figure out what your goals are and is that gonna meet it? So before you go in, before you go into any contract, just thinking what are your goals in terms of what you need financially for the type of lifestyle?
Is that gonna meet it? And [00:27:00] then sometimes I go in. Thinking, what is the minimum? I wanna work to be able to have that life and enjoy what I do, instead of saying I wanna make so much, what is the minimum I really have to do just to be able to do this so that I have more for life outside of work instead of it being the only focus. And balancing. So I would say go and thinking what are your goals first, work, life, possibly family, anything else. And see if that contract is going to work for you. And is that schedule gonna work? And ask to see if there, if they could be flexible because I
Speaker: think
Speaker 2: they will
Speaker: move towards that.
That's my gut. Absolutely. I love how you, I love how you structure that in terms of, this is a, it's a micro kind of day-to-day thing, and then a macro in terms of what's the minimum I'm gonna work, what was my next level, what's the, okay, this is about the maximum that I can have and have quality of life.
So you've really got that structured in such a way that it's not even. Again, it's not a target. It's not, I wanna make X. It's not that at all, right? [00:28:00] It is. This is a minimum. This is a maximum and this is what my day looks like. Because ultimately that's what's important. What is my day to day life gonna look like?
I can negotiate a lot of money, but if I'm miserable in my day-to-day job and if I'm having to see X number of patients and I'm getting home at seven o'clock at night and I haven't done my notes yet, is that really justifying. What I'm having to, what I'm doing or what I'm getting financially. I love how you visualize that and you emphasize visualizing that you can actually feel how that's gonna feel.
What's my, what's that day gonna feel
Speaker 2: like? I think that's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. That took some time more this past year but I've gotta say this is. This is I the best I've felt in a really long time. I think I had that balance. I was just telling you before, I, my hair was wet. 'cause I, every Saturday morning I hit the gym.
I wanted a trainer. I wanted to feel good. I have time for the kids today. My daughter has prom next week, so we're just after this. We're gonna go to the Taylor, get her dress. My notes are done. I've been struggling for years. And the notes are done and good things are about to come. I'm always going to keep [00:29:00] learning.
AI is now available for us. I'm gonna practice that. This weekend and I'm gonna get it done and do it next week. Awesome. Just I, you just have to keep learning all that. So I feel like if we have each other to kinda say who knows how to do it, pull the strengths from everybody.
I'm always willing to learn. And if someone can do it better than me, I will
Speaker: learn from you. You are. You are so amazing. You have such a beautiful, humble, but yet very strong and very informed and knowledgeable presence and I just love that and I love that you are giving this information to our listeners 'cause it's really gonna help them.
So Mona, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being able to share your wisdom with the listeners and I think that's gonna help 'em a lot. And I hope that you will, and not just mentor Monie, but I know you're gonna mentor a lot of other people as well. 'cause I think, 'cause this is the thing that happens, and I will say this, that as your daughter gets into school and beyond and she says, oh, my mom would know this.
You're gonna start getting calls from her friends and it's Hey Dr. Mona, what did you [00:30:00] do with, how'd you do with, and then all of a sudden you're gonna have this whole new group of women. That you're gonna get to mentor because of her and I can definitely see you being a blessing to a lot
Speaker 2: of them as well.
Thanks. You have too, Lee. You're always advocating for us and I think we need to keep doing that for each other. In, in medicine there's not as much of a, glass ceiling anymore. We're it. Then we have to figure out what's best for us. So then, that mentor is. I think the mentors are each other now at this point, right?
Yes. So thank you. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for doing this to help everyone else, and hopefully
Speaker: this will help others down the road, but I have no doubt that it will. Thank you so much Dr. Moi. Thank you for being on the podcast and thank listeners for being at the scalpel and sword today.
We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye. Thanks. Bye-bye.
Speaker 3: You did great.