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Travis
You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis.
What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money
podcast where it's our mission to help
you all make a little bit more money. Today on the show, I have a new friend of mine, Dr. Betsy Dovec. She's the top female bariatric weight loss surgeon in the world. Trailblazing surgeon, the founder and CEO of Body by Bariatrics and the Surgical Institute of Central Florida in Orlando. Over the past 12 plus years, she's performed more than 6, 500 bariatric surgeries. Passionate about ending obesity stigma, she advocates for treating obesity as a chronic medical disease, not a personal failure, and provides unprecedented lifelong support. Betsy, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the show today.
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Thank you, Travis. I'm very excited. Let's make some people some money.
Travis
So first off, can you explain to me, can you define what barrier bariatric weight loss surgeon is?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Sure, yeah. A lot of people are like, what is that geriatrics like treating old people like, what are you doing? So I am a surgeon that is hyper focused on weight loss procedures. So it's not cosmetic surgery. So it's not like lipo or mommy makeovers. It is things like the sleeve gastrectomy, which I take the stomach from about the size of a football with that one and, and I bring it down to the size of a garden hose. And then I do a lot of gastric bypasses. So that is a very highly metabolic procedure that helps you to not just lose weight, but it really rewires a lot of your hormonal signaling and it also improves or resolves many, many, many, countless weight related conditions. So number one being diabetes. So I get to tell people as soon as they wake up from their surgeries, they're no Longer a diabetic and they have great results. And it's still the most effective treatment that exists to lose we to keep it off.
Travis
How did you choose this path? Like, when even in medical school, was this something that you intended to do when you got out? Like, what? Tell me about the process.
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Yeah. So I am from West Virginia and I went to medical school like pretty much anyone else who goes to medical school in West Virginia to do primary care. And the only real kind of, I guess, idol or any like just really force in my town was a pediatrician as a kid. So I thought I was going to be a pediatrician. I didn't even realize there was so many different aspects of medicine. And then when I went to med school, I did the surgery rotation. And every rotation really just has its own personality. And that one really drew me in. And I spent a half a day in a clinic watching one person after the next talk about how they've lost weight, how, hey, Doc, thanks for saving my life. And I'm like, whoa, that's it? That's it. It was like something went off for me and I never looked back. And I did the grueling residency, general surgery residency, doing years and years of things I didn't want to do just to get to the goal of bariatric surgery.
Travis
So when you came out of residency, did you go work somewhere else for a little bit? Did you immediately jump into the entrepreneurship side?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
No. So I finished residency, then I did a one year fellowship. It takes 14 years to become a bariatric surgeon. And then I did that at Vanderbilt. And then ultimately I got my first big girl job. I was an employee. I was hospital employed by a community hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. And I was there for the greater part of a decade. And then I was recruited because I was the busiest bariatric surgeon in the country. So I was recruited to start a program in Orlando, Florida at a large health system. So I took on a job as a hospital employee again, which is what got me down to Florida. And then after one year, I was like, why do I keep doing this for the man? It's time for me to really think about starting my own business, my own private practice. And then Body by Bariatrics was born.
Travis
How common is that as a doctor, as a surgeon?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Very rare. Very, very rare because I do it then. I have always had a very entrepreneurship mindset, even when I was like in seventh grade. It sounds lame, but I made quite a business out of selling a friendship bracelets. And then I went on and I'M
Travis
lame at all, Betsy. That's what we do on this show.
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Okay, cool. And then I went and I taught swimming lessons. And I did that for years and years. And I, for a kid, my, my late teens into my early 20s, it put me really through a lot of my spending money in medical school. And I also did just private lessons. I would do it from 9am to 9pm and I got a new phone line as it like this is the 90s. So I was, you know, wheeling and dealing early. And I've always had that kind of chip in me. And I mean, there comes a point in life where you either tolerate being an employee, you tolerate the rules is their brand, it's the way they want to do it financially, marketing, operationally, whatever. You're an employee, they pay you, and you kind of put on a set of handcuffs for that comfort, or you stop whining and you make the uncomfortable decision, the lonely decision to resign and really just learn and learn fast so that you can survive and build a business. And this month, we're celebrating our third anniversary of the business.
Travis
Wow. When you first opened your doors, what were the, what were the skills that were apparent that you were lacking at that point in order to be able to be the business owner as well as the surgeon? Right. Because these are two. I feel, I feel like there's this, there's this world because a lot of people start a business because they're passionate about something or because they're good at something. They finish an apprenticeship of, you know, working for an electrician for this. Now they're an electrician, but it's like they're really good at the thing. But being a business owner and being good at the thing are two completely different worlds. Right.
So tell me about that for you.
Dr. Betsy Dovec
So, so, so, so, so true. I think the biggest thing for me, yes, I spent, like I said, 14 years learning the technical skill of being able to perform a surgery. And then when you get your first job, even hospital employed, I had to learn in a way, it's kind of like I was in sales for that too, because I'm doing an elective procedure and I have to really make sure people can see that, hey, your life could be improved by having this weight loss surgery. But I have to educate you, I have to prepare you, I have to do a great job. If something doesn't go right, I have to be there to kind of hold your hand through it, tell you all the risks, the benefits, all of that. So I kind of had to develop a spiel there then the business of what I had to learn. The hardest part for me was understanding the most ridiculously antiquated, convoluted, complex world of revenue cycle management in healthcare. Billing, coding, posting, charging, and the fact that patients also have a financial responsibility with their out of pocket with insurance. As you may or may not know about deductibles and co pays and coinsurance, understanding that lingo, realizing that people were like, yeah, I'm good for it. You're doing a lot of services for months and months. Oh wow. I have done about a half a million dollars worth of free services for a long time because I didn't realize that I needed to set up that Medicare portal. I needed to have somebody that made sure that when I pushed my note out that it went somewhere, not into the abyss. So I took a lot of whoops in the beginning. From a financial it seems so simple. Like of course you're like you're doing something, you need to make sure you get paid for it. I was just so focused on getting patients doing the clinical stuff, getting off the ground that man, I didn't really do a great job at the revenue cycle management aspect in the beginning.
Travis
What about getting customers? How have you found that?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
So bariatric surgery is heavily this episode
Travis
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Dr. Betsy Dovec
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No, it's our honor.
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Dr. Betsy Dovec
and participate in McDonald's while supplies last Zoomer Focus. This is a B2C game and there's a little bit of play between even just B2B going directly to employers so that they opt into the coverage for bariatric surgery and then how you kind of bundle a lot of services together meaning anesthesia with the facility with the surgeon's fees with any other testing, labs, imaging, whatever you need into one thing with a bow. So there is some of that really as well. But the the consumer, the client is the patient and so I I look at it again as three big arms here and so you really really really to survive within the bariatric surgery world. Especially since my number one competitor is a GLP1 medication which is the hottest, sexiest thing that's ever existed right now. So I have to really do a great job marketing and it starts with a killer website that's really simple that then has a great kind of foundation of okay, we get the leads in the door. Everything I do, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Bing, Google, Reddit, podcast, anything that I'm doing, I need to drive people to bodybyberiatrics.com that call to action. And then I need to make sure that I have a team behind the scenes that are able to really get people into the bucket. Whether they have insurance or not, they're going self pay or not, they have the money or not, they're going to do a payment plan or not. I have to make sure I understand exactly where everybody is.
Travis
Did you have anybody in your life that you could go to with these types of questions? Any like mentors or figures like that?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Yeah, I have an amazing mentor who is somebody who in the late 90s, she's about 10 years ahead of me in her career and she worked for Cigna and she was in her 20s and she had commanded an amazing salary for somebody in their twenties. Like she made like 300 grand a year or something. And she realized at that time, if you think about it, in the late 90s there the system to if you were an employee and your HR department sent out the benefits, you would fill them out by hand and it was all paper and it was kind of that.com transition 2000 she developed. Her company was literally called web Benefits and she put that online, that process. And so she developed and she got where people with people who were soft software developers and ultimately fast forward, she sold her company for over $105 million and she is now like almost like I. She met with me on a Saturday. I'm like, gosh, how generous. But then she was like, I missed that time. That gritty startup, eating ramen noodles, like the uncertainty, going to the bank, taking out a $12 million loan, like all the crazy stuff that I'm doing now. She's really been an amaz to tell me like, okay, you gotta do Excel spreadsheets and just get organized and just all the buckets and all the things. And I couldn't have done it without her.
Travis
What are, what, what are some things in the business that you feel like you have not necessarily given up on learning but that you realize like, you know, this isn't like the best, highest and best use of my time. I can't be an expert in all of these fields. I have to bring somebody in to do this particular thing, whether it's HR or finance or marketing or sales or you know what, what are some of the things that you feel like? I'm good, I'm in this bucket. But I, I had to go hire the people who were going to do these other buckets.
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Yeah. So I still do all my own marketing and I have tried relentlessly to get different firms. Everyone promises they're going to get it, but there's such a voice and a language and this is such a niche, a niche thing that I think I got to do that myself. But as soon as I can find somebody that can do something competently, I know how to do every aspect of the business on for the most part in its entirety. But as soon as I feel like someone can do that, then I'm like, great, you're. You do it. And I forget to kind of almost exist as long as it's doing and going well. So for example, things like I have a team of seven full time employees that are in Albania who do a lot of the more administrative burden type items. They call, they verify benefits, they get prior authorization before surgery, they push out the claims, they work claims denials, they're on the phone with the insurance companies. I also do medical weight loss. So they're also doing all those sorts of things. So those tasks, paying, you know, kind of a minimum wage type of a thing to people who have a great attention to detail. I am not going to do any of that kind of stuff. I also have somebody who is my right hand woman who is just excellent at, she's the best at operations and just thinking about every single thing we do. How do we make it more efficient? We have a customer relationship management tool. So she does a lot of the operations, she oversees the finances. And then I just kind of sweep in now and I can do it, but I mean I did a lot of that manually. I would send out the messages myself. And then we finally again automated emails, automated text, automated the engagement. Just even getting systems that are designed that you can now kind of afford. You invest in it and then you can now become more efficient. It's like a force amplifier.
Travis
You mentioned a $12 million business loan. Can you tell me that story?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Yeah. So I starting body by bariatrics the the surgeon's side of it.
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Dr. Betsy Dovec
And doing the surgery, I did not take out a loan for that business at all. I just did a lot of free surgeries and just dipped into my finances and my life savings and that sort of thing. The reason why I quit my job as a hospital employee is because I realize and I and I'm bet the farm on it that bariatric surgery is one of those specialties that can be done better. Better experience, just easier. Still, great quality at a lower cost in a surgery center. So that's the facility arm. So right now, bariatric surgery of all the people that qualify in the United states, less than 1% of people get it. And it really just comes down to cost. And a lot of these employers are not opting into coverage for their employees even though they see the roi. They see that their employees are going to be more healthy, less cost, and diabetes meds and high Blood pressure and sleep apnea, all of that. But the hospital facility is taking 60, 70, $80,000 for their sliver per case. So I say, why don't we build a surgery center? You can still do it again safely there, and you can do it at a fraction of the cost. I can negotiate directly with Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross, Blue Shield United, and then we're able to improve or increase access to care to those who need it. So I, in order to do a sur surgery center, I built a 15,000 square foot building. I thought about private equity. I thought about, I talked to a venture capitalist, I talked to hospitals to potentially go in 5149 or vice versa. I went to ASC or ambulatory surgery center management companies. And at the end of the day, the thing that made the most sense for me was that I would go to the bank and have a loan for 12 million guaranteed by the SBA. And I took it out and I put it, put every single thing in my life on the, on the line. I had to inject some personal equity into it. And we built it, we opened like about 11 months ago, and we're paying our bills, so we're getting there. And it's been the wildest, most crazy, probably insane journey that I've ever took it on. But even though there's more, I guess on paper, so much more stress or risk, I love it because I'm not, I'm doing it for myself. And there's something to be said about that.
Travis
There's something to be said about that. There's also something to be said about stress management in general. And that like, we, as, I feel like we as humans, just like we love, we can't get enough of stress. You know what I mean? Like, we're like, it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? You could be an employee making, making next to no money and be spending the rest of your time playing video games and eating pizza and you'll be stressed because you don't have enough money and you're, you know, in chronic pain and overweight and whatever else. You know what I mean? Like, it just, we, we are going to seek out regardless. So, you know, you can't allow it to be the thing that decides whether or not you're going to do something because even if you don't do the thing, you're still going to have arguably the same amount of stress. Like, there's not a, it's not a direct correlation of the increase of risk as, as the Increase of stress is, you know what I mean? Like if your risk goes up 10x, your stress might go up by 10%, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's a great point. I just gotta do what you gotta do, you know what I mean?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
You really do. And I think that anxiety and feeling unsettled is more if you're in a situation or something that is not serving you and what you feel like you could contribute to this world. And I think once you, for me, I can't even imagine. I spent like over 10 years working for someone else. Like I just doesn't even make sense to me. And I did. My husband is very risk adverse. I am very risk tolerant. I'm like off the charts with it because yolo, you know, just like you said, you're gonna be stressed no matter what anyway. Might as well have some, I guess fun doing it too.
Travis
Yeah, exactly. I just like go for what you want to go for. Like you said, you only get one life and then we're, then we're gone at the end of it. So might as well, may as well put, put all the eggs in that basket, you know. And then this obviously helps you diversify a little bit, put some assets into the holding of the company. Right. Because now you own a building which is exactly an asset, regardless of what happens with the business is like the building is the building and have that no matter what happens to the P and L of the business itself, you know, which is almost like just vertically integrating into like a section of the, of the business that you haven't done before. So and it makes it more defensible, you know, and if you go to an exit in the future, like that will absolutely be a huge portion of that that they look at on your, you know, on your statement that is like, oh, we have this asset of this beautiful building that we just developed, you know what I mean? Internally. So absolutely props to you for all the risk you've taken.
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Well, thank you. Yeah. And I mean I think that's so true because you know, I, we bought the land and so that's a company in and of itself and then we built the building on that land. So that company. Now even though I have other companies within that building, my surgery center pays rent to the company that owns the land of the building. And then we, we open up a med spa in there too. So that's also part of this whole health, wellness, beauty and weight loss ecosystem. That, that kind of puts it into truly. You know, a lot of people talk about it like, oh, we do it all, but like, we really do. Our sister brand is called Body by Beauty and she does cosmetic skin removal surgery, body contouring, or even just, you know, breast augmentations, mommy makeovers. All that stuff is also done right there. So we have our office, we have the conference room, we have our med spa, we have the surgery center, which, yes, I want to bring in other surgeons, multispecialty to operate there when, hey, I'm on vacation. And I got a spine surgeon doing a big personal injury case. That's amazing. So you're making money while you sleep. And this is really the only way that I can do it. I had an absolute finite ceiling as a hospital employed surgeon that even if I was making like, like 99th percentile in income, I'm doing all these surgeries, everyone's really happy. You still are going to be capped. There's a lot of laws. They can't like inducement and all that stuff. So now there's no limit. So. And that makes it kind of exciting too.
Travis
Absolutely. And you're doing it the right way. You know, I think people hear the whole. The trope of, well, the average millionaire has, you know, seven different income streams or whatever. Then they try to diversify all their income streams before they've ever hit any sort of financial target. And then they pick things that are. Have nothing to do with each other. You know what I mean? It's like, well, you didn't just go diverse of quote unquote, diversify income streams by just, you know, opening a restaurant down the street, you know what I'm saying? Like, you did something that only continues to also help serve the rest of the things that you're already doing. It's exactly. You've built an ecosystem that enables you to have multiple monetization points through the thing that you are really good at, the skill, the core skill set that allows you to earn the income that you, that you get to earn. So, Betsy, I appreciate being willing to be, being willing to be open and share some of these things with us. What, what is, what is the goal for you? What is the ultimate goal?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Well, first, next stop, I. I want to fill the surgery center. And right now we're probably only operating about 40% of the block time utilization. There's a lot of time that it sits empty once we do that. What I would love is to take this concept, this body by brand and scale, you know, and it's, you know, look, strategically, I don't know what that looks like. Who are the partners in order to scale you really do need, you need money and does the business just keep reinvesting in itself and spreading out there or do I exit this to one of those hospitals that you know, were kind of tough on me, you know, when I decided to turn they turn their back on you and maybe they'll come back around like you said, because they're not just buying a building. The other thing is that the inspections at the state level and at the federal level, centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, those things take a long time and that would be able to be just kind of converted over with the sale. So you're also selling, you're selling an actual physical bricks and mortar, but you're also selling maybe the book of business, but also all of that time and energy and resources and know how to get that up to speed. So that's priceless too. So I, I definitely, I will not do bariatric surgery forever and ever and ever. As much as I love it, it is very physical and at some point, I mean I have to planning for my future in this and, and hopefully generational wealth for my kids and my family and, you know, what's to come.
Travis
I love everything that you're working on, Betsy. And again, thank you for taking the time. Where can people go to get more from you personally?
Dr. Betsy Dovec
Yes, they can go to bodybyberiatrics.com and if you wanted to see me personally, I'm on Instagram as Dr. Dovak. That's D R, D O V as
Travis
in Victor EC Dr. Dovec over on Instagram. D O V E c. Last name Dr. Dovec on Instagram.
Betsy.
Thank you again. Everybody else listening. Remember, only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's start there. Here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time. Peace.
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Episode: INTERVIEW | Make Money by Building a Scalable Healthcare Business with Dr. Betsy Dovec
Host: Travis Chappell
Guest: Dr. Betsy Dovec, Bariatric Surgeon, Founder & CEO of Body by Bariatrics
Date: April 12, 2026
This episode features Dr. Betsy Dovec, one of the world's leading female bariatric surgeons and now an entrepreneur, who shares her journey from hospital employee to founder of a scalable, multi-faceted healthcare business. The discussion focuses on why and how she made the leap into entrepreneurship, lessons learned in business operations, risk management, vertical integration within healthcare, and scaling a service-based medical practice into a sustainable and wealth-building ecosystem.
Definition of Bariatric Surgery:
Dr. Dovec clarifies her specialty: not cosmetic, but highly metabolic surgeries like sleeve gastrectomy and bypass to treat obesity and related conditions, fundamentally improving patients’ lives.
"It's not cosmetic surgery... It is things like the sleeve gastrectomy... super effective treatment that exists to lose weight and to keep it off." — Dr. Dovec (01:32)
Choosing Surgery Over Primary Care:
Initially drawn to primary care while growing up in West Virginia, Dr. Dovec was inspired to switch to surgery during her med school rotations, particularly when seeing the direct, life-changing impact on bariatric patients.
"I did the grueling residency... just to get to the goal of bariatric surgery." — Dr. Dovec (03:01)
First Career Steps:
After a 14-year training journey including a surgical fellowship, Dr. Dovec worked as a hospital employee in Baltimore and Orlando before realizing the limitations of employment and making the leap to entrepreneurship.
"Why do I keep doing this for the man? ... And then Body by Bariatrics was born." — Dr. Dovec (04:23)
"There comes a point in life where you either tolerate being an employee... or you stop whining and you make the uncomfortable decision... to resign and really just learn and learn fast so that you can survive and build a business." — Dr. Dovec (05:24)
"Being a business owner and being good at the thing are two completely different worlds." — Travis (06:08)
"The hardest part for me was understanding the most ridiculously antiquated, convoluted, complex world of revenue cycle management in healthcare." — Dr. Dovec (06:38)
Patient as Customer:
Patient outreach is B2C, but there's also B2B potential through direct employer relationships for bundled service packages.
Marketing Approach:
Dr. Dovec emphasizes content-driven digital marketing:
"It starts with a killer website... Everything I do… drives people to bodybybariatrics.com." — Dr. Dovec (11:45)
Competitive Landscape:
She highlights competition not just from other surgeons or hospitals, but now from emerging weight loss drugs (GLP-1s), necessitating strong, clear value propositions.
Finding Mentors:
Dr. Dovec describes the significant impact of an entrepreneurial mentor who previously sold a tech company for over $100M:
"She met with me on a Saturday... she really has been amazing to tell me… you gotta do Excel spreadsheets and just get organized." — Dr. Dovec (13:16)
Building the Team:
Dr. Dovec personally handles marketing due to the required niche expertise, but outsources administrative and operations (e.g., Albanian team handling insurance and claims, and a COO for process efficiency). Automation has further streamlined everything from communications to claims.
Taking Big Financial Risks:
She self-funded her initial practice before taking a major $12M SBA-backed loan to build and open a 15,000 sq. ft. surgical center, increasing access to affordable care by offering procedures at a lower cost than hospitals.
"I went to the bank and had a loan for $12 million guaranteed by the SBA... I put every single thing in my life on the line." — Dr. Dovec (18:38)
Owning Assets & Multiple Revenue Streams:
Owning the land and building, then renting space to her own entities (surgery, medspa, office, conference center), allows for efficient cross-service referrals and new income streams.
"Now, even though I have other companies within that building, my surgery center pays rent to the company that owns the land and the building... Our sister brand is called Body by Beauty." — Dr. Dovec (23:06)
Truly Integrated Healthcare Ecosystem:
By expanding into medspa and cosmetic surgery, Dr. Dovec creates a health, wellness, and beauty ecosystem with multiple points of customer engagement and scalable, repeatable business processes.
Managing Stress:
Travis and Dr. Dovec discuss how stress is inherent regardless of risk level, so it's better to pursue meaningful, self-driven work regardless of potential for stress.
"You can't allow [stress] to be the thing that decides whether or not you're going to do something… even if you don’t do the thing, you’re still going to have arguably the same amount of stress." — Travis (20:34)
Calculated Risk-Taking:
"My husband is very risk-averse. I am very risk-tolerant... YOLO, you know, just like you said, you're gonna be stressed no matter what anyway. Might as well have some, I guess, fun doing it too." — Dr. Dovec (21:37)
Strategic Growth:
Dr. Dovec aims to operate her surgery center at maximum capacity, then scale the "Body by" brand—potentially franchising, selling to a major health system, or continuing to vertically integrate with added services.
Exit Considerations:
She notes the importance of not just the physical asset (the building), but also regulatory licenses and certifications (which add intangible business value for a sale or exit).
Legacy:
Ultimately, she links her efforts to long-term financial security and generational wealth:
"At some point, I have to be planning for my future in this and, and hopefully generational wealth for my kids and my family and, you know, what’s to come." — Dr. Dovec (26:55)
On leaving employment for entrepreneurship:
"You’re an employee, they pay you, and you kind of put on a set of handcuffs for that comfort, or you stop whining and you make the uncomfortable decision, the lonely decision, to resign and really just learn and learn fast so that you can survive and build a business." — Dr. Dovec (05:14)
On the paradox of stress and risk:
“If your risk goes up 10x, your stress might go up by 10%... Just gotta do what you gotta do, you know what I mean?” — Travis (21:06)
On vertical integration in healthcare:
"We bought the land... built the building on that land... My surgery center pays rent to the company that owns the land and the building... So they have our office, conference room, med spa, the surgery center." — Dr. Dovec (23:05)
On the vision for scaling healthcare entrepreneurship:
"What I would love is to take this concept, this body by brand and scale... I won't do bariatric surgery forever and ever... Planning for my future in this and, and hopefully generational wealth for my kids and my family." — Dr. Dovec (25:29, 26:55)
D O V E C)Summary by [your AI Podcast Summarizer]
“You can’t save your way to your dream life anymore.” – Travis