This is the 2^nd installment of my “Telemedicine from…” articles. The first one is HERE that goes over doing telemedicine visits while in Costa Rica if you want to read that.

So yea, I am in St. Lucia right now and LOVING IT! The great thing is that I am able to continue working to an extent, so I don’t get super behind at my men’s health clinic. I don’t have PTO being a business owner, so when I go on vacation the business just doesn’t “shut down.” That is one of the draw backs of being self-employed, but the upside is SIGNIFICANTLY better than being an employed nurse practitioner. I couldn’t imagine working for someone else ever again, but I digress.

I am overlooking the Caribbean Sea, sipping on a Pina Colada, and typing this out. I saw 8 men’s health follow ups which only took me 3 hours this morning, but now my practice is not behind in my absence! Sure, we had to schedule out a couple new patients, but that is not a big deal. I could have seen the new patients via telemedicine, but I prefer to see my men’s health patients in person for their first visit, plus I didn’t want to deal with new patient visits while on vacation. Follow ups are simple…

Also, my 1099 nurse practitioners are picking up the slack. Being the business owner PLUS having a couple employees = the ultimate freedom my friends. It truly does. I can leave for 2 weeks, and the business continues functioning. While I don’t have PTO, I am still making money. We generated $2,800 in revenue yesterday and I didn’t have to lift a finger. That is power of leveraging employees. Plus, it is really the only way you can SCALE your business (more on scaling businesses another time, but how about a course on how to grow your practice to the next level?).

I wanted to briefly touch on having employees as this experience has really put the power of delegating work to others into more perspective. I started this practice myself a little over 3 years ago now. It was tough. It was a hustle. There were countless nights of lost sleep. There were times I wanted to throw the towel in and just go back to working for others because I was TIRED. But you know what? I am so happy I kept pushing forward. After about a year, the practice began to produce REAL money. After 3 years, it is on auto pilot and only requires 4-8 hours of my time a week.

I am very happy that I took the next step in growing a business by hiring others to help over the past 2 years. It seriously was the BEST decision I ever made in my business. If you are on the fence about hiring someone to help you in your practice, DO IT! You will not regret it. Plus, it is the only way you can truly grow/scale a practice. Remember, if you are the only one seeing patients, then your business is DEPENDENT on your involvement. Your business is predominately ACTIVE INCOME. You are working FOR your business… Your business is not working FOR YOU. If you want a passive to partially passive income stream, then you need to begin considering hiring others to help in your business. It is the path to financial freedom and is VERY easy to do for the astute nurse practitioner entrepreneur.

Additionally, as a business owner you can deduct certain travel expenses! I ensured that I had some CME to do while I was here so I could write off a portion of the travel expenses. As a business owner, it is always wise to have some sort of business activity or CME to do on every vacation you go on. The tax savings are tremendous. If you can hire family and can show their involvement was necessary, then its even better! More on that in the upcoming Tax course…

I will be here for 10 days and am not concerned in the slightest about lost income. When you are a wage slave, you only have a certain amount of PTO and that is it. If you are living above your means and rely on that paycheck to cover your expenses, then you MUST have PTO or work to do. This is why I keep hammering these 2 points into The Elite NP content. If you want to live a financially free and abundant life, then you need to own a business and live below your means. The combination is POWERFUL! If you are reading this now and this message is resonating with you, then get off your ass and take action to make the positive change in your life. EVERYONE can lower their living expenses. EVERY nurse practitioner can start their own practice or scale their current practice. The only thing holding you back is your fear and limiting beliefs! Once you get over that, the ski’s the limit!

If you want to build a location INDEPENDENT life, then seriously consider opening a telemedicine practice or do online coaching/consulting. I am literally 3,400 miles away from my men’s heath practice but yet I was still able to see patients without issue. Telemedicine is the future of practice. Be SURE you have a form of it integrated into your practice! Especially if you want to travel and live life to the fullest.

This will be a short article this week as I have some much needed and deserved rest and relaxation to catch up on and have a snorkeling trip I got to get to in about an hour! I hope everyone enjoyed the first episode of the new podcast The Elite Nurse Practitioner Show last week. Stay tuned this Thursday for Episode 2 and The Wound and Foot Care Clinic course release in the next week or two!

With love,

Justin Allan