Thriving Practice with Tracy Cherpeski

What if the biggest gap in your healthcare practice isn't clinical—it's emotional? In this episode, Tracy Cherpeski sits down with returning guest Phil Johnson, founder of the Master Business Leadership program, for a direct and data-driven conversation about emotional intelligence and why most high-achieving healthcare professionals have barely scratched the surface of developing it. 

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Phil's work spans 18 countries and 57 years of experience. He breaks down why EQ development is experiential—not intellectual—and why that distinction changes everything. He shares the neuroscience of why change is so hard, what it really means to stop giving away your energy, and what the ROI of genuine EQ development looks like in concrete results. 

You'll hear why high IQ and low EQ so often go together, what Apple's hiring strategy reveals about emotionally intelligent organizations, and how the Gallup data on global employee engagement connects directly to what's happening inside your practice right now. If you've been talking about emotional intelligence without doing much about it, this episode is a direct and useful challenge to go further. 

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What happens when the business of healthcare starts to crowd out the heart of it? In this episode, Tracy Cherpeski sits down with Dr. Peter Kevorkian — President of Life Chiropractic College West and a chiropractor with 42 years in private practice — to talk about the one thing that separates thriving practice owners from burnt-out ones: staying connected to your purpose. 

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Dr. Peter has spent his career as a voice of conscience for healthcare practitioners, reminding them that they entered this work to serve people — not to be consumed by coding, compliance, and insurance bureaucracy. In this conversation, he shares how he built a predominantly self-pay practice that made a very good living without ever turning a patient away, what patient empowerment actually looks like in practice, and why he believes the healthcare system functions more like a sick care system than a wellness one. 

He closes with a message so simple it stops you in your tracks: everyone wants to feel heard, significant, and loved. Lead from that, and everything changes. 

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Medical school taught you how to care for patients. It didn't teach you how to run a practice. In this SNACK episode, Miranda Dorta interviews host Tracy Cherpeski about the business knowledge gap that's quietly costing independent practice owners—and what you can do about it whether or not you have a business degree. 

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Tracy breaks down why the clinical mindset—while essential for patient care—can actually work against decisive business leadership. She shares why the clinician hat and the CEO hat are not interchangeable, what delegation really means (it's not abdication), and the most practical first step for any practice owner who feels behind on the business side. 

This one is short, direct, and packed with insight that applies whether you're just starting out or years into practice ownership. 

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There's something in your practice that keeps coming back. You handle it, move on — and there it is again. In this solo episode of The Thriving Practice Podcast, Tracy Cherpeski reframes every recurring problem in your practice: those problems aren't malfunctions. They're messages. 

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Drawing on her background in regenerative gardening and her experience coaching independent healthcare practice owners, Tracy introduces the concept of reading practice problems the way a skilled clinician reads recurring symptoms — with diagnostic intelligence, not just a quick fix. She walks through three categories of recurring "practice weeds," four diagnostic questions you already know how to ask, and a simple Two-Week Data Log that shifts you from reactive manager to pattern-reader. 

This is part two of a two-part mindset series. If you haven't listened to part one — Episode 247, From the Weeds to the Horizon — Tracy recommends starting there. But this episode stands on its own as a practical framework for any practice owner who's tired of managing the same problems on repeat. 

Ready to do this kind of thinking in community? Our June TPC cohort is open now. Inquire at ThrivingPracticeCommunity.com 

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What does it cost when a skilled provider spends their afternoon doing compliance paperwork instead of treating patients? In this episode, Tracy Cherpeski sits down with Paulina Riedler — founder of SpaKinect and a registered nurse turned entrepreneur — to talk about telehealth compliance, practice efficiency, and the real cost of being the bottleneck in your own medical spa or aesthetic practice. 

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Paulina built SpaKinect 14 years ago after spotting a compliance gap in the aesthetics industry: nurses performing Botox without proper physician oversight, not out of carelessness, but because the existing system made compliance impractical. Her telehealth good faith exam model now serves over 40 states and 42 employees — and has given her a front-row seat to how clinician-owners think about (and often avoid) thinking like a CEO. 

In this episode, you'll hear about the hidden revenue cost of handling your own compliance exams, why every practice owner should do a time audit, what it means to always be deal ready, and why succession planning isn't just for people who plan to sell. Tracy also shares a shoutout to a team member who proved that great systems are the best insurance policy a practice can have. 

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If you've ever looked at your fee schedule and felt a knot in your stomach, you're not alone. Fee setting is one of the most avoided conversations in private practice — and it's not about not caring. It's about the discomfort that runs deep in helping professions, where talking about money can feel like it conflicts with the commitment to care. 

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In this SNACK episode, Tracy Cherpeski sits down with Miranda Dorta to cut through that discomfort and get practical. They explore why so many practice owners undercharge, what that pattern has to do with burnout, and what it actually takes to build a fee structure that reflects your value and keeps the lights on. 

You'll hear Tracy break down the numbers every practice owner should know cold — from burn rate and cash flow to how insurance versus out-of-pocket decisions shape your entire business model. She also shares the one number you can pull up right now that tells you a lot about where your practice stands. 

Whether you're just starting to look at your finances or you know it's time to raise your fees and keep putting it off, this conversation will help you take off the clinician hat and put on the CEO hat — without losing what makes your practice worth running. 

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What if the physician best positioned to help women through perimenopause is the one they’re already seeing — their GP? In this episode, Tracy sits down with Dr. Danielle Hunte, a general practitioner from Barbados and founder of Midlife Meridian, to explore exactly that. 

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With nearly 30 years in medicine and over 20 in private practice, Danielle went through perimenopause herself — and even as a physician, it caught her off guard. That experience sparked a new mission: closing the gap in menopause care and education, for both patients and the GPs who treat them. 

In this episode, you’ll hear why GPs are uniquely positioned to manage menopause (it’s not a one-system problem), the simple screening tool Dr. Danielle developed that revealed a silent cohort of symptomatic patients, and her vision for a “practice-in-a-box” digital resource for other providers. You’ll also hear a really honest conversation about sustainability — what it means to build a second revenue stream, protect your time, and keep showing up creatively so the practice doesn’t swallow you whole. 

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After more than 18 years in insurance-based healthcare, Dr. Samantha Mekrut made a decision a lot of physicians dream about: she left to build something better. The result is Meristem Family Medicine — a direct primary care practice in Medfield, Massachusetts, where patients pay a flat monthly membership fee, appointments run 30 to 60 minutes, and the administrative machinery of insurance billing is nowhere to be found. 

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In this episode, Tracy sits down with Dr. Mekrut to unpack the real difference between direct primary care and concierge medicine, what it actually takes to make an affordable membership model work, and why eliminating insurance billing overhead is the key that makes it possible. 

They also get into Dr. Mekrut’s specialty: menopause care for women in midlife. From the flawed rollout of the Women’s Health Initiative study to the community library talks she hosts to educate patients without selling them anything, Dr. Mekrut is approaching women’s health the way more of us wish the system would. 

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Burnout is one of the most talked-about topics in healthcare — and still one of the most misunderstood. In this SNACK episode, Miranda Dorta turns the mic around and puts Tracy in the hot seat for an unscripted conversation about what burnout prevention actually requires. Not the surface-level version. The real one. 

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Tracy breaks down why the self-care checklist approach misses the mark, how practice ownership compounds burnout risk in ways that employed providers rarely face, and why real prevention is a structural decision — not just a personal one. She also shares where most practice owners skip the prevention work that costs them the most long-term, and what to do right now if you're already in the thick of it. 

This conversation is built on research, grounded in Tracy's CME-based content, and refreshingly practical — no platitudes, just real frameworks for building a practice that doesn't burn you down. 

Don't miss The Prevention Paradigm masterclass on April 28th — the link to register is in the show notes. To schedule a consultation with Tracy, visit thrivingpracticecommunity.com. 

Read the full show notes, memorable quotes, and key takeaways. 

Sign up for the Prevention Paradigm Masterclass. 

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What if your practice is one of the last true neighborhoods your patients have access to? In this episode, Tracy Cherpeski sits down with Lisa Prior — leadership and change consultant and author of the forthcoming Rubber Avenue: When Work Was the First Neighborhood — for a conversation that reframes where practitioner burnout really comes from. 

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Lisa grew up in Naugatuck, Connecticut, the world's first rubber town, and has spent years researching how the collapse of company towns and community institutions has quietly shifted an enormous emotional burden onto frontline healthcare providers. She shares her father-in-law's remarkable story of standing up for 750 retirees' medical benefits, why she believes we're at 'a fork in the river,' and what a new social contract between work and community could look like. 

This one went places we didn't fully expect — and it's exactly the kind of conversation that helps practice owners understand why this work matters so much, and how to sustain it. 

See Where Your Practice Stands: Take our Practice Growth Readiness Assessment 

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