The Boring Side of Business Ethics, Laws, and Insurance
===
[00:00:00] You asked a lot of boring behind the scenes questions about what it costs and what legal things you need in order to start your business or to keep it running. Well, I'm here to answer these boring ass questions. So if you're here for it, you know, stay on this channel. I already warned you that shit was going to be boring, but here it is.
My name is Wong. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist, and I own several different businesses. My name is Wanda. Therapy clinic wants an online business. Um, and one of the questions I got from therapists who are, you know, thinking about starting or they, you know, they're, yeah, they're mostly thinking about starting even the people who've started taking, you know, patients like here and they're kind of doing their side thing.
I think a lot of their fear comes from like, I don't know if what I'm doing is right. I don't know if what I'm doing is legal. So Hwang, you know, what do I need to be thinking about? So let's get into it. Let's get into it. So you can feel really [00:01:00] comfortable and confident about starting your business and Not being so afraid of everything, and I think the biggest thing when it comes to starting your own business is you have to change your mindset from being an employer, being kind of like told what to do, I mean the whole point of going into business so, so you don't have to deal with that shit, like you become the person who tells yourself what to do, and um, and so much of about it is like taking action without, without waiting for permission, so I think if you, been working in the system for a while, you kind of, you know, or you, maybe you have that like, I'm a good girl kind of identity, like I don't do anything wrong.
Oh my God. Um, rules were meant to be broken, but not lost. Right. So, um, really the biggest thing is register your business. So you got to register your business because they want you to pay taxes. So that's number two pay your damn taxes and then you're legal like you're doing everything right register your business and In your state just go and you register you pay a small fee and [00:02:00] you know Don't think about I'm gonna encourage you to not think about the cost of everything But like who's gonna pay for that cost, right?
So if you see a patient that patient is gonna pay for that cost and once they pay for that cost like done done Onto the next one. What else? Um, so you have to register your business, you pay a small fee, you pay the small fee every year, um, right? It's no big deal. Um, and you register your business with the IRS because they want you to pay your damn taxes, right?
So pay your taxes. Um, and as long as you're doing that, you're pretty much legal. And then the third thing is we're licensed professionals. And so if you've been following your licensure, your state licensure, the AOTA, like the big, um, overbooked, um, overarching board on ethics and I don't know about you, but in the state of Florida, I have to take ethics every two years.
So, you know, I have to actually read something and then I have to answer the questions to make it look like I've been reading and following the rules. And it pretty much just tells you like, if you're going to [00:03:00] see someone, don't intentionally harm them, right? If you're going to see them and you're going to bill someone for it, um, actually deliver on the promise.
on the service because you're billing for it. Um, so if you have a relationship with, um, someone else, like insurance companies, like you're committing fraud or, or, you know, breaking ethics when you, um, when you say you're doing something, you're not doing something, if you don't normally do that, then you don't have anything to worry about because you're not going to be unethical.
And I often talk about this, but let me say it again, just because you're uncomfortable, doesn't mean it's unethical, right? Just because you're uncomfortable doing something doesn't mean it's unethical. Um, you might be uncomfortable with telling someone about what you do and asking them to pay for it.
That's business, but that's not unethical. It's just, you're uncomfortable because you've never done it before. Right? So completely different. Uh, so yeah, just follow, follow whatever you normally have already been following and don't mess that [00:04:00] up. You know, if you intentionally harm someone, we're healthcare providers, we've been sworn to not do that.
And so if you do do that, then, um, You know, if you do, if you do that, that then yeah, it's unethical, right? But for the most part, that's it. Those are essentially your three non negotiables when it comes to like, can you run your business ethically? Now from a self protection perspective, this is behind the scenes again, there's absolutely nothing sexy about this.
But when I started my own business, I got, um, professional Health insurance. Like, what is it? Professional? License. Like, um, professional liability insurance. Professional liability insurance. I got that for myself because when I worked at a hospital I was covered under the big entity. And then, really, actually, when I went out on my own, Um, when I went and worked for someone else privately, I just [00:05:00] wasn't sure about that.
So I got my own professional liability, even though they could have had it in their business. So in my business, for example, I insure my whole business, right? So I have professional liability. For my business and it covers all my staff that's underneath it as long as they continue to work for me, right?
So that covers me that covers my therapist So that's professional liability and then because I rent a space because I rent a space you have to get Commercial liability. So what does that mean? That means as soon as Someone walks through the thresholds and they come into my office if anything happens to them Um, they can I guess they can sue me, right?
And so I have that type of commercial liability for the space and if Anyone robs me everyone anyone breaks my [00:06:00] glass then Then I'm covered for that as well. So, you know, those I think are the two biggest ones as soon as you Go out on your own you have to cover your own ass and then you have to cover your space Now obviously when my space was really small and I was just by myself.
It was much cheaper. I can't remember I don't even know the price now But you know, yeah, I pay it Um I pay it like once a year. I forget how much it is. I know my commercial insurance actually went up this year Um, I think I paid over like two thousand dollars, but it's because I got new equipment that I needed to insure So if anyone breaks in please don't break into my place, right?
Don't steal my shit Um, you know in case of a storm or a hurricane or whatever, um, like my equipment is covered, but when you're first starting out, you don't have to worry about that. Sounds like a really [00:07:00] huge bill, but, um, you know, it's just part of doing business. You have to, this is why I say your prices needs to be inclusive of what you need to cover because over a period of time, you're going to get more stuff.
When I started out. Listen, when I started out, I bought shit used on eBay and I, if you haven't seen it, go watch this other video. When I talk about that, when I started my business, I started as inexpensive as I could, and I got stuff used on eBay. And as I made more money, I bought more things. And then as I made more money, I bought more high tech, Things that, that have a return on investment, which will make me more money, right?
So that I can pay that, that bill off. So, um, you know, don't get overwhelmed with this huge idea like, Oh my God, I have to pay all this stuff. No, you only have to pay for whatever it is you need at that moment in time. If it's this much, you pay this much. If [00:08:00] you're not taking this much, then you pay this much more, right?
But when you're starting out and you're just by yourself, cover your own ass and call it a day. Now, um, so yeah, from an insurance standpoint, this is okay. Are you still with me? Are you still watching? If you are, please let me know. Please let me know that you actually watched and, you know, learned something about insurance.
Um, but, and then leave me a question underneath about, you know, what other behind the scenes boring shit do you want to hear about? Because this is absolutely not sexy, but somebody asked me this question, so I'm answering it. Because I want to be transparent and, you know, and help you understand that, that there is nothing to fear about opening the business.
It is very simple. It's very, you know, it can be very straightforward step by step. Um, get more things as you grow, get more things as you make money. The hardest part is to start. And the hardest part is to get over your doubt that your past that's possible for you [00:09:00] to make money to pay for all this shit.
Because you, you need proof of concept. You need to get that first patient to then feel like, Oh shit, I can do it. You need that inner voice. You sometimes you need that outer voice until you get that inner voice, you know? Um, so yeah, so yeah, leave me a comment if, if like, you like this behind the scenes shit.
So my last, my last insurance costs, um, and I didn't get this until I want to say about two to three years into it, right? Two to three years into it. I invested in, um, short term and business insurance. And the reason why I did that is because I have long term like, let me see, um, I have health insurance, right?
So I have health insurance through my husband. I'm, I'm married and, um, I get my health insurance through his, through his work. And then, but my issue [00:10:00] was that I had always had short term insurance because, uh, when you, when you work for someone else, You have maybe a certain amount of paid time off, right?
Um, but you don't, you, you don't necessarily want to use all that time or maybe you don't have any. And if you get injured, you can't work. And if you can't work, you don't make any money. So the small amount of cost that it costs to have a short term, um, disability insurance is like, if, um, so many days after your injury, it'll cover you if you don't have any money.
have to be out of work for like so many months. So I always had that when I worked for someone else and I felt like that was really important for me because what we do from our, from our job is very physical. If my hands get injured, knock on wood, um, I can't work because I need my hands, right? If my leg broke, I'd be okay.
Lump around. This has happened to me before. Um, so if I [00:11:00] hurt my legs, I can keep going, but if I hurt my hands, I can't. And so I wanted to make sure I had short term disability insurance to be able to cover from, for like any kind of injury stuff. And then, um, my business insurance came into play because once I started to hire, um, once I started to hire full time and once I got into a bigger space, so when I was in a really.
small space. I didn't, I didn't even contemplate it. Once I, I, um, once I grew a little bit, I decided, you know what, I need to protect my salary. So I got insurance. So if anything were to happen to me, I would, you know, if anything were to happen to me, I would be able to, um, you know, get a, Paycheck essentially from this insurance company to at least cover the cost of running the business [00:12:00] um Until I could either sell it close it or something like that But the business insurance will pay you for like X amount depending on what you need covered.
So I felt like that was really important for me Like to cover my ass everyone thinks about the upsides of things, right? Everyone thinks about like, oh my god making a lot of money keeping all the money and you know taking vacations and I don't know all the good stuff. Like you think about all the good stuff of business and um, I like to weigh both sides.
I don't just think about the good stuff. I think about the bad stuff too. Like things that can happen. Um, it's not that you don't do it. It's just that you, um, try and mitigate some of the bad stuff and mitigation of the bad stuff is really it comes down to insurance. As much as we hate insurance, you know, it's really important to have.
So those are three things I ended up getting as I, you know, grew my business. But when it comes to ethics and, and [00:13:00] doing things legally, just follow the law, right? Just follow the law. The law says register your business pay your freaking taxes and follow your licensure, you know your state licensure board and don't Don't do the wrong thing.
You know what the wrong thing is Don't do it Uh, don't commit fraud. Um people do it and they're like, I didn't know did you really not know? Um, and if you don't know look that shit up, there's tons of information All right, so if that helps let me know leave me a comment below and i'll see you for the next video
