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Posts tagged ‘Healthcare’

Spencer Goodman, MBA MSF ~ Patient Advocate & Accounting Specialist, Rand Eye Institute (Deerfield Beach, FL)

(Please note: Spencer’s Biography is below his interview)

IN THE SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW

BSO: Tell us about the inception of Rand Eye Institute where you are Patient Advocate and Accounting Dept. Specialist for the past 14 years  

SG:

The Rand Eye Institute was formed back in 1978 by founder Dr. William J. Rand, who was the protégé of the late Dr. Gerard out of Baylor Texas.

I decided that I needed a fresh new start away from the city, so I called my aunt who happened to be the administrator of the organization and she told me to come on down.

At the time, I was living with my brother in Queens, NY and I thought whole heartedly that I wanted to be a lawyer and wanted the extra time to study for the LSAT away from everything and make some extra cash on the side.

Fast forward Feb. 2006, I took the LSAT, but decided against law school.

I started to work in the accounting dept. at the office working with claims and billing and really enjoyed it. I never knew how insurance worked coming from an internship/analyst role for a real estate company. It would take some time getting used to. Everyone was great. My team, sweet as sugar, taught me the ins and outs of medical billing.

I worked in the dept. for several months, when I was needed to help with patients.

I didn’t know the first thing about taking care of people from a medical standpoint or using diagnostic equipment to help the doctors further asses the patients. Luckily, I caught on very quickly.  One machine after another, I started to learn and it became second nature to me. I developed better interpersonal skills than what I already had working as a telemarketer back from 2001-2002 for MBNA.

I would like to thank my mentor Josh C. Folds (aka the social banker) for starting me on the path of developing those skills.

Those skills would become even more fine-tuned, laser focused at Rand. You need to have great communication skills when working with people, you just have to. People want to know that everything is going to be alright and we, as an organization, treat each and every patient with care, respect, dignity and honor.

Over the 14 years, I grew as a person, learning new management skills, managing  several technicians, identifying the needs and wants of the patients and doctors, respectively.

I cherish working with people, whether it is in the medical field as an advocate for the patient or client, and for the higher ups as well. I want to take this to the next level whether I stay in healthcare or pursue financial services; during the time I have been working there, I obtained my MBA and MSc in finance to get a better understanding of the business side.

 

BSO: There is no typical day in the world of patient advocacy, especially in the Ophthalmology sector and with the elder population. Share with us your a.m. to p.m. schedule, routine.

SG:

There is no typical day working in medicine. You  see different faces every day, some people are happy, some sad or angry and you need to understand each and everyone one of them, understand them and have the utmost compassion for each and every client and colleague alike.

 

BSO: What are your ‘can’t live without’ apps?

SG:

I like Linkedin because I like to network or facebook, even though I don’t post.  I like to catch up with frineds that have moved away or still live up north.

 

BSO: What are your proudest achievements, professional & personal?

SG:

Wow, interesting question.

Hmmm, well for one, my mother always told me, when you stop learning you’re dead. So obtaining two masters degrees is a big achievement for me.  I also won an award for being with the organization for ten years. Additionally, I have developed some great relationships with people I have and currently work with.

Of course, I cannot forget about the patients. It makes me feel good that I know I am helping them. There have been numerous times that they have thanked me up and down and even requested me to help them out while being seen in the office. It feels good to know that I am making a big difference in people’s lives.

 

BSO: What are your favorite news feeds?

SG:

I really try and stay from the news, but I will catch up on current events, especially with what is going on now.

I look at the financials every day. The VIX, Dow, Nasdaq, Russell 2000 and follow futures on the app CME group, which I was told about by my prof at U of Miami,  Dr. Tie Su, CFA

 

BSO: What are your most rewarding charitable involvements?

SG:

In recent times, I have donated clothing to goodwill, donated money in my mother’s name (she passed away in 2001). My cousin, Dr. David Rand, who is not only my first cousin but a best friend, is a major influence on my life.

I strive to be better as a person, grow with Judaism. I want to be the best person I can be.

 

BSO: You have a Master’s in Finance from University of Miami. You are very passionate about the investment sector. Between your decade plus years as a healthcare professional and your finance credentials, Who has influenced your career the most and what is your future career path, in light of Covid19’s impact on your work ?

SG:

Many people have been a major influence on me.

Josh Folds, who taught me to sell, get out of my comfort zone and shyness.

Miguel Orta,Esqu. taught me while I was pursuing my MBA.

Dr. Tie Su, CFA, Dr. Indraneel Chakraborty both taught investments. I fell in love with options, derivatives, futures, etc.

Dr. Alok Kumar taught me behavioral finance. Understanding how the market moves and how people make choices in investing is very important.

There are so many others. I apologize If I am leaving anyone out. Everyone who I have come in contact with me has had some positive influence on my life.

 

BSO: What is your advice for anyone interested in a career in healthcare /patient advocacy?

SG:

Medicine is a wonderful field, whether pusuing the MD, DDS, RN, technician or any list of personnel who work in hospitals or private offices are pivotal to the frame work of the medical office.

Just to know, after the day is done, when you are laying in bed, looking up, you know that you are making an impact on someone’s life. The patient might not initially know it, but you do.

I am proud that I have been in this field for so long, It has helped me be the person I am today.

I want to thank my Aunt and Uncle, cousins and other family memebers for allowing me the opportunity to make a difference in other people’s lives.

Spencer Goodman’s Biography

For 14 plus years, I have been in Florida, working in the healthcare industry.

I feel well accomplished in my role in the patient advocacy field. I have grown to admire, understand and cherish how many many healthcare professionals put their lives on the line every day to help people. 

During this time, I decided to go one step further with my education, coming from a liberal arts background.  I wanted to step up my game. Through my MBA courses, I have learned about the global perspective of business. 

We live a globalized world and it is even more important to take into effect how culture plays a role in conducting business, whether it is financial, healthcare, education, etc. From global marketing, management and all the way to human resources, I have developed a wealth of knowledge that would guide a company in times of prosperous outcomes to what we are currently experiencing. 

In my current role, I manage several technicians for a small medical practice. Leadership is always an important aspect of business. People rely on leadership skills to get through hard and good times alike. I have the fortitude, compassion and knowledge for consulting healthcare professionals all the way to financial professionals. Additionally, with my MSc in Finance, I want to take the next step in my career, using my wisdom from life, school and work and help the next company reach its goals.

Category:

Accounting, Finance, Healthcare, Non-Profit, Patient support

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Penelope Tiam-Fook, Founder of Tiam Wellness (formerly Embrace Organica)

(BSO’s Interview with Penelope is 👇👇👇 her bio)

Penelope Tiam-Fook’s Biography

Penelope Tiam-Fook

 

Hello, I’m Penelope Tiam-Fook. I am a Holistic Wellness Coach and Functional Lifestyle Practitioner, and the founder of Tiam Wellness, formerly known as Embrace Organica.

What led me to become a wellness coach was my struggle to get my hormones back into balance after my pregnancy, dealing with adrenal fatigue and burnout from lack of sleep, and managing a demanding career while being a new mom that required a lot of travel.

I was exhausted and stressed-out with no recovery in site. My symptoms such as blinding headaches, surviving on coffee, and being unable to lose weight to feel like myself again really took a toll on the quality of my life.

I remember feeling underappreciated for the work I accomplished at the office, guilty that someone else was raising my child while I traveled for work, and exhausted to really enjoy motherhood as I envisioned.

Then, I discovered wellness coaching, a 360 perspective of living a better life, and studied functional nutrition from the viewpoint that what you put into your body affects how your body functions.  It was during my journey of awakening to these two approaches to health and wellness that I decided to try a holistic approach to turn my symptoms around. To my surprise, it worked!

My symptoms disappeared, and I started losing that stubborn weight around my midsection and thighs. I began to feel like myself again.

I realized then that lifestyle wellness coaching was my life’s calling, and now I specialize in helping women go from being stressed out, exhausted, and unhappy with their weight to feeling like themselves again. If you’re interested in learning how I work with women to help them love their body and lives again, I would love to schedule a time to speak with you about how I can help you achieve your own wellness goals.

 

IN THE SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW

BSO: Tell us about the inception of your business.

PF:

I have always been interested health and wellness.

Growing up, I wanted to be a doctor. I remember my mom taking me, when I was a little girl, to visit a friend or family member who was in hospital. I remembered thinking how rewarding it would be to help someone get better to regain their independence. That dream got diverted in college when physics became my roadblock. I worked my way through undergraduate and graduate school, got married, then divorced while working in administrative healthcare-related jobs. Later, I worked for a national non-profit as an advocate and program director for moms and babies.

It wasn’t until a couple years after my daughter was born, that I found myself struggling with major burnout, traveling a lot for work, and dealing with postpartum recovery that wasn’t going so well. Thanks to following my intuition, I left the nonprofit world to become a stay at home mom for a while. It was during that time at home, caring for my daughter who had some health challenges at the time, that I became determined to find non-medicated ways to heal my body and rebalance my hormones. That one decision began  my journey as a holistic wellness coach and functional lifestyle practitioner.

 

BSO: There is no typical day in the life of an entrepreneur. Share with us your a.m. to p.m.

PF:

I believe that it’s important to live what you preach at a foundational level.

In the mornings, I like to start my day with morning prayer. Some days, I may have 5 minutes to do so, but I average 15 minutes as this centers my thoughts for the day. I do either yoga or active and restorative stretching. This helps with pain management to minimize muscles spasms, particularly in my neck and shoulders. I drink a glass of warm lemon water or celery juice. If school is in session, I make my daughter breakfast, then prepare and pack her meals for school. Once she is off to school, I will eat breakfast. If I have time to workout in the morning, I’ll do that first then eat breakfast within 45 minutes of that workout. The rest of my day starts from there.

My evening routine varies depending on what’s on the schedule. I prefer to have dinner between 5 and 6 pm, but that is often not realistic in my home due to our schedules. So, we strive for 7 pm. If the weather is nice, my family and I will take a walk with our dog. Sometimes, we may watch a movie together if time permits. Often, however, we relax for at least 30 minutes before prepping for the next day.

 

BSO: What are your ‘can’t live without’ software applications?

PF:

Microsoft Word, Keep and Memo for notes, Google calendar and Gmail, Practice Better

 

BSO: What was the best advice you received when you started your business?

PF:

Be true to your story; find your voice, and genuinely be of service to your tribe while maintaining boundaries around the rest of your life.

 

BSO: What has been your strategy for building awareness of your business?

PF:

I’ve learned that getting to know your audience and who they are is key to how you run your business.

I’ve began with local networking, then I began testing out my market using a FB page when that was a new thing to do. When live video came on the scene on FB, I began doing live video to build the know, like and trust factor with my followers. I’m a behind-the-scenes type of person, so that was a major challenge for me. Early on, I also had practice clients so that I could build confidence in my coaching and practitioner skills. In the past year or two, as I refine my niche and who I want to serve, I’ve been testing my audience on Instagram. When school starts back for my daughter, I will visit some local business groups get to know more women locally, make connections as I’d like to do some workshops, and build a word-of-mouth referral network locally. I think this will also help with my online presence as I would like to have a virtual practice as well.

 

BSO: What are your proudest achievements, professional & personal?

PF:

In my personal life, that would be becoming a mom. Bringing another human being into this world…what an amazing thing to do! There is no manual. I am in awe of God’s work and the fact that He blessed me to be a parent. It’s not an easy job, but one that is very worth it.

Professionally, that may be a tough question as my career has mainly been working as part of teams. From a big picture perspective, I would say its having had the opportunity to work with a variety of moms and dads, community organizations, NICUs, and business owners who care about the health of moms and babies, to protect programs and implement awareness campaigns to help parents-to-be have healthier babies, and moms to safely make it through their pregnancies. I, myself, went into preterm labor in my third trimester and had to be on bedrest for the duration of my pregnancy. At the time, I went from what felt like 100 to 0 miles per hour, so to speak, and that sort of change has a major affect on how you live your life every day, your social life, how you contribute to your family and society.

 

BSO: What are you currently reading?

PF:

I can’t seem to read one book at a time. Haha! I am currently reading, I, Eliza Hamilton by Susan Holloway Scott, and The Greenprint: Plant-based Diet, Best Body, Better World by Marco Borges

 

BSO: What are your most rewarding charitable involvements?

PF:

I’ve volunteered for a few different nonprofits and worked for a national nonprofit.

It was during my nonprofit career that I started a program called the NICU Holiday Donation Drive. This program was created for a few different reasons, one of them being that the staff at my office wanted a way to show that we cared about our community and were not just about raising money for the cause. We had a very good relationship with the NICU nurses and director and so I reached out to them to present my idea. Once they approved, I began working internally with staff, and board members to launch the program. We even had grandmothers making santa stockings to put the items collected into the stockings. Then on Christmas day, each family who had a baby in the NICU would be presented with a stocking, or if discharged in the month of December during the Christmas holiday. Every stocking presented was presented a surprise gift. It was our way of saying, “We see you. We empathized with what you’re going through, and we want you to know we care”. It was a small way of giving a family hope.

 

BSO: Who has influenced your career the most?

PF:

My parents always encouraged and reminded my siblings and I to choose a field of work that we are truly interested in, where we could mature and excel. They encouraged us to make a difference and to ignore the naysayers.

 

BSO: What is your advice for starting a business?

PF:

Taking the leap is not for the light-hearted person.

On your journey, you will encounter failure and mistakes.

Let that be your norm, not the exception.

Let go of comparison as it is the thief of joy. When you focus on your competition or what someone else is doing, you slow yourself down and can lose the energy and passion you brought to your business.

Mind your words and what you say about yourself to yourself, as well as what you to say and how you treat others and your customers. And remember, your business will change because of the lessons learned along the way. Change can be good if you let it so don’t sweat the small stuff.

 

Category:

Healthcare, Wellness

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Andreas Dietzel, Healthcare & Life Sciences Lead, Americas

ANDREAS DIETZEL’S BIO

Andreas Dietzel
Andreas Dietzel works for Innovation Norway, a branch of the Norwegian government that supports start-up companies. Andreas works in Boston, MA where he assists Norwegian healthcare and life sciences companies in their U.S. market entry efforts. Andreas has prior experience from management consulting, an M.Sc. in Molecular Genetics from the University of Oslo and a Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurial Management from Boston University’s School of Management.

Innovation Norway promotes nationwide industrial development profitable to both the business economy and Norways national economy, and helps release the potential of different districts and regions by contributing towards innovation, internationalisation and promotion.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW

1. What prompted you to pursue entrepreneurship and, specifically, to join Innovation Norway?

Andreas: It happened almost by chance. I had finished my M.Sc. degree in Molecular Genetics, and the only thing I knew was that I did not want to pursue a career in research. A friend of mine suggested I sign up for the Norwegian Entrepreneurship Program which is a collaboration between the University of Oslo and Boston University’s School of Management to train Norwegians in entrepreneurship. For lack of any better ideas, I signed up. Through the program in Boston I soon discovered an interest for business and entrepreneurship that I did not know I had. The idea of sales was a non-subject among molecular geneticists.

Through a recommendation from a professor at BU’s School of Management I ended up in an internship at Scientia Advisors, a life sciences management consulting firm in Boston where I was hired full time. I worked there for almost two years before I got an offer from Innovation Norway, where they had a position that fit my profile with a mix of technical and business experience in the life sciences. Being from Norway it sounded very interesting to me to get to work with Norwegian clients.

Innovation Norway is a government agency that aids and promotes Norwegian start-up companies, and in my case helps Norwegian healthcare and life sciences companies enter the U.S. market.

 

2. There is no typical day in the life of an entrepreneur. Please share with us a sample of your day, start to finish.

Andreas: Since I work with entrepreneurs and I am not one myself, my day is probably more typical than it would be if I was running my own business.

When I am working on a client project, that has my full attention, whether it is screening competitors or interviewing potential customers for the Norwegian company. Between projects I travel to Norway to sell our consulting services or I spend time reading industry news and reports as well as general science and business articles. I also spend a lot of time networking within healthcare and life sciences in the Boston area.

One typical thing is that I very often run into the same “problem”: Having to ask prospective clients very basic questions over and over, such as: “What’s the problem you’re trying to solve?”; “How is your solution better than what’s already in the market?”; and “Who’s your customer, and why will they care enough to pay for your product or solution?”

 

3. What are your ‘can’t live without’ Smartphone or desktop applications?

Andreas: I wish I could list a bunch of cool business-applicable apps here, but for my Android phone I can’t live without:

 

4. What are your tricks for time management?

Andreas: Unfortunately I’ve yet to find a trick that works for me.

 

5. What was the best advice you received when you started your career?

Andreas: It’s not exactly advice, but more of an experience:

When I was in grad school I was asked to do a mundane task; moving a computer monitor down to the basement. I did the task immediately – it took me 2 minutes. Later that day the professor asked me where the computer monitor had gone, and I said I put it away like I was asked to. He was very surprised and said he didn’t expect the task to be done for at least another couple of days (seriously!). Then and there I knew that academia was not a place for me. I finished my Master’s and never looked back.

 

6. Given the current economic climate, what has been your strategy for building awareness of your business for short term and long term growth?

Andreas: This is not really applicable to me. When you work for a government agency that aids entrepreneurs, a bad economic climate will have clients beating a path to your door.

 

7. What is your proudest achievement as an accomplished entrepreneur?

Andreas: Since I don’t really have any entrepreneurial accomplishments to write home about (yet), I have to go all the way back to the neighborhood video rental “business” I had in my early teens. I’ve always been a movie buff, so I bought a lot of VHS back in the day. No marketing, just pure “you can rent the same movie from Andreas for way cheaper and keep it for as long as you want”-word-of-mouth.

 

8. How do you achieve balance in your life?

Andreas: I live my life by the story of the philosophy professor with the empty glass jar and his questions on whether the jar is full after adding rocks, sometimes called “The Important Things In Life”, and I also re-read Mary Schmic’s “Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted On The Young” on a regular basis.

 

9. Your top 3 book recommendations?

Andreas:

  • [amazon_link id=”0553379011″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Story of B[/amazon_link] by Daniel Quinn
  • [amazon_link id=”0143113100″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Brain That Changes Itself [/amazon_link]by Norman Doidge
  • [amazon_link id=”0307465357″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Four Hour Work Week[/amazon_link] by Tim Ferriss

 

10. What are your most rewarding charitable involvements?

Andreas:

Also, the following will receive donations as soon as I do hit it big!

 

11. Who has influenced your career the most?

Andreas: Without a doubt Paul Levine, partner at Morgenthaler Ventures and Joe Tasto, Director of Business Development at Ventana Medical Systems. My current manager Karl Skogen has given me a lot of great leadership advice as well.

 

12. What is your advice for someone interested in entrepreneurship?

Andreas: If you want to be an entrepreneur, find your passion and figure out how to make money off of it. Talk to whomever you think might want to pay for what your selling, and listen to them – listen good.

Category:

Business Services

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