June 2018 was a lucrative month. I earned a total of $14,540, mostly from doing telemedicine. This included $2,853 of dividend income which gets paid out every 3 months.

I do an average of 1 hour of telemedicine per day. Some of this income was a carry-over from May but it was still pretty solid.

Telemedicine Income

My hourly wage is much higher doing telemedicine than it was when I was seeing patients in the Urgent Care in person. I’ve stopped keeping track but it has gone up from about $140/hour to $250/hour. Not to mention, I am taxed at much lower rates with this income.

I do an hour of telemedicine a day, most days of the week. As long as it’s interesting I like to continue doing it. Unfortunately, it’s a risky practice since most states consider telemedicine the ugly stepchild of medicine.

I asked my lawyer what he thinks about me doing telemedicine and he was 100% against it.

JustAnswer – $1,324

This income was for the work I did in May but you get paid the following month. It’s pre-tax income so I still need to factor taxes into this.

I’ll discuss taxes in more detail at the end of this post. From my 2017 taxes I would say that independent income is much more favorable than earning an income as an employee.

Portland Community College – $1,252

I got my last paychecks for my teaching gig at the local community college. These are after-tax W2 wages.

I didn’t set any of this money aside in a 401k even though it would have lowered my taxes. I am not sure I want to set any more money aside in tax-deferred retirement accounts – taxable accounts are easier for me to access and have less of an IRS headache.

Teladoc – $1,261

I cut back a lot on my telemedicine work with Teladoc because their volumes slowed down. I still managed to earn a decent income of $1,261 with them.

It’s pre-tax money as well. I can’t share other details, such as how many patients I saw, because most of these telemedicine companies have contacted me and asked me to keep those details private.

Doctor on Demand – $1,226

DoD is still one of the best telemedicine gigs out there. The shifts are easy to do and they are one of the most professional companies.

Again, can’t say too much about them for privacy reasons. But this is the money I earned for an undisclosed amount of work.

Roman – $4,178

This is a new telemedicine gig that I started doing. I like how they run their platform and the workflow is really intuitive for me. They provide ED drugs for male patients.

This is a lot of money for 1 month of work but their platform allows for an easy way to see a larger volume of patients. Great support on their end with a very involved CMO.

Oscar – $1,680

This is my income for my telemedicine shifts with Oscar. Some of the income was from May but they weren’t able to get me on-boarded in time so I got paid in June.

Oscar is a telemedicine and a health insurance company all-in-one. It’s very interesting and I hope they make it big. Their medical director is dedicated and helpful.

I have no idea how I get paid by these guys. Could be hourly, could be per shift. I like how they do business so I just see patients for them and for now don’t care too much about the details.

Spring – $766

This is a telemedicine company for whom I only do consulting work. I don’t see patients for them and not sure I ever will.

Most of the work I’ve done so far has been as a regional medical director.

Dividend Investment Income – $2,853

Dividends are paid out monthly on bonds but quarterly for the stock index funds I own.

I am invested in 80% stock index funds and 20% in bond index funds. My stocks are divided equally between US and international funds.

• $1,040 came from my private brokerage
• $1,186 from my IRA
• $181 for my Roth IRA account which mostly has REIT’s
• $446 from my old 401k which I haven’t rolled over yet

Taxes

Most of my income is 1099 income which is the form on which these wages are paid to independent contractors. I take 20% off the top and set it aside for estimated taxes.

In practice, I use my budgeting software, YNAB, to take 20% from each of my incomes and move that money to my Taxes category.

From the screenshot above you can see that for June I set aside $2,292.07 for taxes. And I ended up paying $2,600 in estimated income taxes which were due June 15th.

I send 75% of my estimated taxes to federal and 25% to state.

Net Worth

I share my net worth every month when I do these income posts. As of July 1st, 2018 my net worth is roughly $850,000.

This net worth factors in my paid off condo which I calculate at around $185k. The rest are my securities investments, cash balance plans, and emergency funds.

What’s not reflected in my net worth is my ability to continue earning an income which is a very valuable asset. Nor does my net worth reflect my entrepreneurial pursuits.

I’m 40 and retired. I don’t intend to grow my net worth further though there is that constant pressure to think that it’s not enough. It’s hard to get rid of that fear even though the math says otherwise. You just gotta accept things the way they are and stick to my investment and retirement plans.

Next Month Income…

I’m leaving for Spain tomorrow. I have no idea what my income will be for July. I will continue to do my consulting work from Spain. I might do some telemedicine from overseas as well.

I might even cash out some investments and live off of that. We’ll see.

I suspect that in August I will have to serve my stipulated order from the medical board and stop practicing medicine for 30 days. That’ll teach me, I’m sure.

This is the first month I don’t have any applications in the pipeline for new telemedicine companies. I have more than enough income diversification. This makes me feel secure.