Dr. Somi Javaid on private practice and the year she lost herself
Practice ownership and growthSummary for practice owners
Dr. Somi Javaid recounts building HerMD, a women’s health practice focused on menopause and sexual health, after deciding that a conventional appointment format did not fit the care experience she wanted to create. Her account is relevant to OB-GYN owners considering a differentiated service line or a move into independent practice. She describes learning business fundamentals on the job, seeking help from physicians and nonclinical experts, and taking responsibility for details that had previously been handled by an employer, including entity structure, accounting, credentialing, financing, and billing. Growth brought another transition: she could not continue to manage every function herself while remaining involved in patient care, so she hired people to take on distinct responsibilities. The conversation is candid about the pressure of ownership, including the risk of losing sight of personal wellbeing while building a company. Javaid emphasizes recognizing when support is needed and learning from coaches and peers. For practice owners, the operational lesson is to treat delegation and a trusted professional network as part of the business plan, rather than as optional extras after growth. She also links her decision to own a practice with autonomy and the ability to preserve the physician-patient relationship. The episode does not suggest that every physician should choose ownership; it offers one founder’s perspective on the skills, tradeoffs, and personal boundaries involved. Owners can use it as a prompt to define their service model clearly, identify gaps in their business knowledge, and establish support before the workload becomes unsustainable.
Owner takeaways
- 1:35 Define the patient experience and service focus that will distinguish a new practice.
- 2:39 Build business knowledge through courses and advice from clinicians and experienced operators.
- 3:43 Plan for entity setup, accounting, credentialing, financing, and billing as core startup work.
- 5:18 Recognize when growth requires hiring people to own functions beyond the founder’s capacity.
- 8:29 Make support and personal boundaries part of the owner’s operating plan.
Why it made the list
A physician founder’s story provides concrete lessons in launching, differentiating, and scaling a women’s health practice while seeking support. It made the list with 45 views.
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This video is published by Kevin Pho, MD on YouTube. Obstetricians.com is not affiliated with the creator, and inclusion is not an endorsement by either party. Watch it on YouTube.