Healing patients.
Raising chickens.
Two reasons this physician loves his life.

John M. Haley is determined to find out which varmint is eating the chickens he raises in his backyard. His flock of Rhode Island Reds, Americanas, and Plymouth Rocks has been getting smaller — down to only five chickens from 12.

“It could be a coyote, a fox, or a raccoon,” Dr. Haley says, “but I will find the guilty party!”

On his one-and-a-quarter acre of land near White Rock Lake in Dallas, Haley and his wife, Margie, attempt to live sustainably. They raise chickens to eat the eggs, keep four beehives for honey, raise tilapia in a 100-gallon tank on their front porch, use the waste from the tilapia to fertilize plants and herbs, and when the tilapia grow to a pound and a half, they eat them, too. And the Haleys also use solar panels to generate electricity, have a system for collecting rainwater, and maintain an earthworm farm.

“So we have a few minor projects around the house,” Dr. Haley says.

Thankfully, his neighbors sleep with their air conditioners on, so they don’t hear his rooster crowing at dawn.

All in the family

In some ways, with his urban farm, Dr. Haley is returning to his family roots: his great-grandfather was a farmer in rural Texas.

Dr. Haley’s family may have continued farming if his grandfather, John Chambless Haley, hadn’t had different aspirations.

“He came off the farm, pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Became a schoolteacher. Finally, he married one of his students, in a little schoolhouse where he taught in East Texas. They decided they wanted something better. So they starved and scraped and he went back to medical school.”

John Chambless Haley eventually became anatomy professor at the medical school at Baylor University, and he would go on to serve as the chairman of the anatomy division. (If you visit Baylor, don’t miss the Body Parts Museum, which was created by and named after John Chambless Haley.)

John Chambless Haley had four sons, three of whom became physicians. One of these physicians was John M. Haley's father, who also had four sons, all of whom became physicians as well. Of Dr. Haley’s three brothers, one is an internist, another a cardiologist, and the third is a medical director for Trailblazer Health Enterprises. Dr. Haley and his three brothers are all members of the TMA.

After medical school, Dr. Haley enlisted in the Navy during the Vietnam conflict and served as a flight surgeon for three years. During his time in the Navy, he went to Pensacola, Florida, for a six-month training course in ophthalmology.

Ophthalmology turned out to be a perfect fit for Haley. “I’ve loved every minute of it, and still practice every day, and still love it. I love going to work.” Plus, he says, ophthalmologists can make most of their patients very happy. “We can make them see. Cataract surgery is one of the most exciting things anyone ever does.”

The importance of insurance

After getting out of the Navy, Dr. Haley completed his residency at the University of California, San Francisco, and then moved back to Texas and started his business, the Garland Eye Associates, in 1976.

He admits it was difficult to learn how to run a practice at first. “It was terrible! Terrible! We had very little help back in those days,” he says. “You have to find good advisors, even if you have to pay for them, because it will cost you a lot more if you screw it up and don’t do it right.”

Dr. Haley says offering health insurance to employees is key. “I think that’s a part of being in the business we’re in. We can’t have employees coming to work worried about a sick kid. If we [as practice owners] have a safety net for our families, we owe [our employees] the same thing.”

Other insurance is important, as well. “We have them all,” he says about the policies he has for his practice. “You need adequate life insurance, adequate office overhead in case you get sick so your business can go on. You have to protect yourself and your business. It’s a very complicated matter, but you’ve got to do it.”

Challenges of a changing profession

Finding the right insurance coverage isn’t the only challenging thing about running a practice these days. “Every year, it gets more difficult for individual physicians to go into practice,” Dr. Haley says. “On top of all of the medical equipment we have to buy, we now have to implement electronic health records. It’s complicated, the laws, rules. You have to be up on everything. It takes an exceptional individual to do this.”

But Dr. Haley adds that medicine has always been changing. “You’ve just got to be ready for it. It’s not going to stay the same. We’re going to continue to see lots of change, and if you don’t like change, you’re in the wrong field. But we’ll be fine. Medicine will survive. And we’ll be very satisfied in the career that we’ve chosen.”

Whatever the future of medicine brings, nothing may be as daunting as catching the wily critter stealing his chickens. But Dr. Haley is determined to solve the mystery. “I just bought a game camera,” he says, “so I’ll find out who the guilty party is pretty soon.”

To contact Dr. Haley, e-mail him at bigdeyedoc@mac.com.

To learn more about insurance for your medical practice, download our guide: A Practice of Your Own.

It’s benefit enrollment time.
TMAIT can help.

Benefit enrollment season is a good time for practice owners and managers to re-evaluate your group insurance coverage. Here are some questions to ask yourself before enrollment time begins:

• Is your benefits package competitive, compared to similar-sized medical practices?
• Do your employees have the coverage they need to feel protected and valued?
• Are there ways your medical practice can lower its insurance costs while still having quality insurance coverage?
• Are you getting the customer service you need from your current insurance agent?

Our newest Advisor, John Isgitt, can meet with you in person to discuss your needs. With continuous customer service, he can help you:

• Find the benefit plan that suits the needs of your group and fits your budget
• Offer your employees plans from top-rated insurance carriers
• Help your staff understand and fully utilize their coverage

In addition, TMAIT offers a broad range of group plans, including health, dental, vision, life, short-term disability, long-term disability, and long-term care. And our Advisors can shop the open market to find insurance plans that meet your needs.

To schedule a review of your group insurance coverage, contact John Isgitt at 979.777.9351 or jisgitt@tmait.org.

Attend the TMA Fall Conference — and follow on Twitter!

The TMA Fall Conference, Moving Forward in a Post-Reform World, is coming up on October 15 and 16 at the Hyatt Regency in Austin. Don’t forget to register.

You can follow all of the happenings at the Fall Conference on Twitter, as participants post comments and share ideas using the hash tag #TMAFALL. You can even ask questions via Twitter during the general session.

To prepare for the conference with session dates and times and some suggested reading, visit the TMA website.

Register online

Or, register at the conference:

Friday, October 15
TMA Building: 8:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Hyatt: 9:00 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 16
Hyatt: 6:00 a.m. – Noon