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Are you interested in creating ownership in eye care? Are you thinking of starting a private practice? Dr. Monica Johnsonbaugh shares her journey in eye care and best practices for ownership.

For highlights of the transcription of this interview, see below.

Introduction:

Dr. Darryl Glover: Today I’m super excited because I have an amazing guest that has really had an amazing journey through eye care. And I feel connected to her because we’ve had similar mentors and I just love watching her, I love seeing all the success that she has. And today we’re going to break that down. Friends and family, I like to welcome my colleague, a true superstar in the eye care industry, Dr. Monica, Johnsonbaugh. How are you doing today, Monica?

Dr. Monica Johnsonbaugh: Great. Thank you so much, Darryl. So good to be here and I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me tonight. 

Dr. Darryl Glover:  Well, I appreciate you just having this conversation with me. You know, for those out there that may be wondering, how did this podcast take place? Well, let me kind of paint the picture of what happened. I was at Optometry’s Meeting and Monica and I crossed paths and she stopped and of course, you know I got this big smile and I’m always loud and I tend to have people come and have a conversation with me and she came over and said that she loved the podcast and you know she complimented the podcast.  She told me how much she loved Jenn and me and then I reverse the conversation on her and I said, I would love for you to be a guest on the podcast. 

Dr. Monica Johnsonbaugh: Thank you. Can you imagine that? So listen to what I’m on my walks along the Lake and here are some of my colleagues and a lot of my friends who have been on your show, so it’s truly an honor to be among them. Thank you. It was meant to be. 

Dr. Darryl Glover: It was truly meant to be. Well, before we get started, I love for you just to tell us, you know, who you are, where you’re from, let’s get to know you a little bit better if you don’t mind. 

Dr. Monica Johnsonbaugh: Yeah, for sure. So I am from Indiana where I grew up in northwest Indiana and I went to IU for optometry school. I currently practice in gross point, Michigan. That’s where I’ve landed. My journey’s gone a few places. In the meantime, I’m practicing in a suburb outside of Detroit, just about 15 minutes outside of Detroit. And I am married to my awesome husband and practice manager, Andrew, and we have two daughters. Emma and Claire, there are 7 and 11 and they keep life interesting and full and yeah, that’s who I am and where I am. I love it. I love it. 

Dr. Darryl Glover: We’re gonna have to really get into this because I hear a lot going on, so that means it’s great time management and we need to break it down today because I know there’s a lot of colleagues out there that, you know, really want to be able to create ownership and eye care. And you know, this podcast today is really about your journey and eye care, which is a journey to ownership. But before we get into that, let’s talk about how you got into eye care. I mean, what was that thing that sparked your interest? What was the why? If you don’t mind sharing that tonight.

Dr. Monica Johnsonbaugh: Yeah, no, I’d love to. So my why is that I am a very high myope. I started wearing glasses and kindergarten and contact lenses in fourth grade and everything we learned in school about how young myopes when you put them into contact lenses, they come out of their shell was absolutely neat. I just remember my physical world got larger and magnified and it was just this amazing moment when I first started wearing contacts and I ultimately wanted to do that for others as I got older. I definitely wanted to do medical. There was a period of time when I realized I was good with business, so I picked up a business minor as an undergrad just in case I changed my mind. But ultimately I stuck with optometry and business obviously paid off too. So yeah, that was why I was really just going to see my eye doctor every year wearing glasses and contacts and the impact it made on my life and I just wanted to be able to do that for other people. 

Dr. Darryl Glover: Fantastic. You mentioned business. I want to give your school a shoutout, Indiana University, they have an MBA program certificate. And I think that is phenomenal. It’s something that, you know, us as eye care professionals. We don’t always have all the answers when it comes to business. You know, I think COVID really showed its face in regards to that. So I want to give a shoutout to Dr. Peabody and the team over at Indiana University that has been doing an incredible job with having these students have this opportunity that their fingertips. So when they get out of school, they can really hit the ground running and create not just a great practice, you know, from seeing patients day in and day out, but also having a good business mentality and mindset to be able to understand the complete picture of how to run a practice. It’s huge, it’s amazing!

Mentorship:

Dr. Monica Johnsonbaugh: She came to speak to my class and made a massive impact on me. She talked about, of course, contact lenses and innovations and contact lenses, which I loved. And then she talked about how she has her own practice and she travels and speaks. And I sat there and thought, I want to do that one day. Well, ironically, they placed me in her specific office. And so I worked alongside her every day. She would travel one week on, work with patients the next week, and I would hold down the fort and be there full time. And ultimately, when I decided to move to Michigan a few years after working with her, she then recommended that I actually start speaking for B & L. I had already dabbled a bit and spoke on the pharma side for Alcon, for a while, and I absolutely love speaking, I was fitting a ton of B & L lenses and making big waves with the practice with my patient base that I had taken over there.

So she asked me to start speaking for them and I did speaker training and I was speaking for them ever since. And not just getting me involved in speaking and the impact that made all my life, but she just watching her watching how she talked to reps and watching how she handled things with patients or difficult conversations with salespeople and opticians and technicians. And I just learned so much just by being in her presence. But she was just a huge, huge cheerleader for me. When I moved to Michigan, then when I decided I wanted to open my own private practice when everybody else was telling me it was way too risky and not to do it, she was like, you can definitely do this. That’s what it takes. So she was a huge, huge, huge part of where I am today. 

Dr. Darryl Glover: Yeah, absolutely. Go on LinkedIn. You know, LinkedIn is the best platform ever. You can cut out all the BS and see exactly what someone does. And what I always tell them is to start looking for the people that align with where their expertise or specialty is. Start adding those people online. But not only add them online but engage with them online, following their path, and make comments. So when they have something that pops at the top of mind, you may be the first person that they think of. You want to create value and make a truly mutually beneficial relationship because you have slowly started to build that relationship over time.

Creating Ownership in Eye Care:

Dr. Monica Johnsonbaugh: So as I mentioned, I worked for an ophthalmology group immediately upon graduation. That was actually my goal. I debated on if I wanted to do a residency or not and I decided to work for an ophthalmology group. It was basically like a two-and-a-half-year residency as much as I learned being alongside that amazing group of Ophthalmologists and other Optometrists as well. And then when I moved to Indianapolis, I joined a private optometry group and learned a bunch in that setting too. I learned more about how to maximize each patient experience, how to focus on medical, as far as driving medical percentages, annual supply sales, and really capturing those numbers. During that time, Drs. Scott Allison and Scott Hasty were incredible mentors during that time and I loved working with them.

Then when I moved to Michigan and I really was afraid that I was taking a step backward because I took a retail lease just in order to get up to Michigan. It’s really all I could find when I was looking at moving. And I was just like, oh no, is this like a step backward? So once I moved up there, I quickly realized that I am 100% the same doctor. I am just in a different setting and I am a little bit limited on what I have available to do in practice, so I had to refer out for more things than I used to, but I could still make sure I was taking care of people’s eyes.

I opened very modestly. I did not go out and get a massive loan. I wanted to make sure that I was doing something that I could afford to do, and that I could make sure that I was taking the right steps to do that. I also kept my retail lease, I still have that now as like a backup situation. You never know. I still work through occasionally when I need to fill coverage there. So it’s really just about hustling. Like, I wasn’t afraid to work hard. I wore and still wear so many hats as many business owners do. And it was just ultimately what I wanted. I heard someone say once that entrepreneurs were the only people that will work 80 hours a week, so they don’t have to work 40 hours a week. That 100% describes what I do because I love doing everything that I’m doing and I’m probably working way more than I was when I was just an employee doctor somewhere else.