Unlocking the Entrepreneurial Spirit: Achieving Physician Independence and Success in Private Practice with the Right Team
Physicians, starting your private practice or returning to independent practice is an achievable goal when you hire the right team. In recent years, physicians have made the decision to leave private practice for a myriad of reasons, some of which have not produced the desired results. Perhaps some physicians did not clearly define what they expected when they chose another pathway but, nevertheless, the concept of independent private practice is a cornerstone of our U.S. health system for good reason.
Physicians are inherently entrepreneurial thinkers who want to own their own businesses and be the architects of their own destiny. The U.S. health system was, for years, dominated by this entrepreneurial spirit in physician practices, which produced some of the most innovative ideas and treatments of the last century while doing so with minimal bureaucracy and red tape for physicians. Non-independent practice choices come with the price of less autonomy and larger lists of policies and rules to follow. However, the entrepreneurial environment allows physicians to participate and vote on the costs they will absorb and where they want to go strategically, which is not always an option in a non-independent environment.
Physician independence can be achieved when the right team with the right knowledge correctly sets up the physician practice. While it is certainly true that today’s private practice complexities are not the same as in prior decades, a concrete but relatively straightforward plan can be a big help. For example, the setup of contracts and credentialing, electronic medical record system, strategic and visible footprints, and strong practice workflows can go a long way in setting the stage for proper business measuring as the practice goes forward. In fact, one area of private practice that can benefit from today’s stronger business management focus is to measure key performance indicators much more tightly than in prior decades. The economics of today’s private practice environments simply cannot afford to avoid measuring very tightly whether each patient seen is translating to compensated care. The right management team can help physicians set up and measure for success.
Finally, strategic direction is one of the high-level pillars of independent practice management which is often ignored by smaller practices due to an overwhelmed staff and the need to simply care for patients. However, the failure of setting and marking strategic deliverables is one of the key predictors of where private practice can struggle or not survive. With the right management team and the right entrepreneurial mindset, strategy can not only be set but can also thrive.
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