"Factors that define your medical practice
outcome and profitability, and your
probability of reaching your maximum
private medical practice career potential."
Physicians, tell me truthfully! Are you one of those physicians who chases windmills? Do you believe in the precept, “If you begin a medical practice anywhere, patients will come and your medical practice business will flourish beyond belief.”
If so, don’t be embarrassed by that idea being jammed into your brain for decades, and now realize it’s far from the truth, that physicians do not need a business education to practice medicine.
A successful medical practice is a small business, functions as a business, follows all the parameters of any successful small business, is maintained as a business, and grows as a business. So why is it that 95% of medical doctors fail to realize this fact... or if they do, they totally ignore it and
hope for the best?
One could call that,"medical school brainwashing." Because 99% of medical schools intentionally avoid mentioning anything about how a business education of physicians would benefit them in their medical practice careers, it does indicate that they truly are covertly brainwashing all medical students against having a business education.
Logic tell me that if medical school deans know how powerful and beneficial a business education is for physician's careers and they revealed those truths to the students, all medical schools would be forced to provide a business education, or offer it to med students at least. So, they hide it. And they have been hiding it for over a century.
Has anyone ever told you about what those benefits are? Consider some of these
business education benefits...
- Prevents the loss of medical practices caused by lack of income.
It teaches medical doctors how to see it coming and how to
prevent it. - Provides all of the business and marketing tools and strategies that
enables every physician to earn any level of income they choose,
at any time, and for any reasons. - Provides all the knowledge and business skills necessary to insure
the permanent security of a clinical medical practice. - Brings every medical practice business up to the level of all other
successful commercial businesses with all the advantages associated
with any business. Without it, the best you can hope for is mediocrity.
And it's why physicians who practice without a strong business
education will always leave over a million dollars on the table during
their medical careers that they never recognized was there.
It’s a shame to look at all the older physicians who have spent all that time and money on education and medical training only to end up with suboptimal medical practices that they hang on to with tenacity, thinking, “It’ll get better soon” and never does.
At the opposite end of the scale are medical students who have no idea that a medical practice is a true business that sells medical care to its customers (basis of businesses). At least they are never told that in medical school. If you were, then why did you not listen to the advice?
Medical practice business management is not about a doctor seeing patients and providing medical care. It’s about a medical practice business that stands on its own, has people in it that are employees, or physicians that provide health care services.
And that, my friends, is the ultimate truth as to why almost all physicians fail to reach their maximum potential for income and enjoyment in life. If you can’t quite get my point, then remain skeptical about my admonitions. You need to hear it from other experts. I recommend you read what Michael Gerber, business expert, has to say about it in his 30 year summary of working with practicing medical doctors, “The E-Myth: Physician”.
Since we are going to now look at the most important issues concerning the business of medical practice management and why it usually doesn’t measure up,keep an open mind...
1. A medical business separates goals from functions
A business is successful when all of the individuals in it are dedicated to performing their required jobs to perfection and understand that they all work, improving continually, towards growth of the business. It’s not about improving the doctor’s income and his staff hoping to get a raise.
It’s about understanding that great things happen when coordinated efforts by everyone working there results in tremendous expansion of their patient load and income for the medical practice. A mind-set that... the medical staff works for the business, not the physician.
2. Physicians must readjust their thinking
Sure, physicians want to be the kingpin in the practice and make all the decisions. After all, it’s only there because of them... right? Inevitably, what happens next happens to all small businesses. When the physician discovers he can’t do everything in the practice, he or she relies on an office manager to keep employees in line and the office running well.
Then the physician can do what he is supposed to do, see and treat patients. A physician wants to be an entrepreneur but loses control of his medical practice management because he is too busy to make sure the bills are being paid, patients are being treated well, and each member of the staff is happy working there. Most physicians never take the time to actually know how their business is doing... other than seeing the monthly financial report from the CPA.
Employees come and go frequently for many reasons. Usually, what happens is that one of the other employees takes over the job, and is now doing two jobs for the same pay. The work effort decreases. Practice slows down. The doctor must get involved more in the business part taking away from his time with patients... or staying late in the office to get it all done. During all this process the practice income drops to the point where it can hardly pay the bills anymore.
It may take a year or two before the office gets to this point. Since the physician and staff are overworked, tired, and stressed, this is the usual point when the doctor closes the practice and moves elsewhere. You’ve seen it happen many times in your community, all for the same reasons.
A few doctors hang on, put up with the recurrent problems, low income, unhappy employees, and simply decide to accept things the way they are for the next 30 years. This does not have to happen.
3. Understanding the dynamics of money
Money can be income, profit, flow, or equity says business expert Michael Gerber. Everything in the medical office can be done more efficiently, more effectively, and more smoothly. Getting right down to the exact details of every small business office income and expense item is the only way a physician can evaluate how his practice is doing with any degree of accuracy.
Medical practice equity is rarely understood by physicians and yet is probably the most critical barrier to their medical practice business success. It’s what your medical practice business is worth to someone who wants to buy it. And, your medical practice business must be understood as your “product”...not your services. Patients expect that your business needs to be there 24/7.
You must have your medical practice business be there and available, whether you are present or not! It must be set up to function independent of the physician.
4. Provide a business system for your office...
Successful businesses, such as McDonalds, can be compared to a “turn-key” system. Everything in every franchise is done exactly the same everywhere. If you have a detailed list for every job in your office, any newly hired employee for that spot knows exactly what they are expected to do and how to do it... and you eliminate the troublesome job of trying to train them.
The business system you develop is the secret to your ultimate success. While you are on vacation, or at medical meetings in another area of the country, new patients are joining your practice, your office jobs are being maintained properly, and the usual functions of your office continue. You never want to entertain the idea that, “when I’m away, we don’t make any money,” which is exactly how most physicians truly feel.
The problem for most physicians is that the business system has to be in place at the start of the medical practice for it to work effectively. If you implement a new system in your present practice, it’s almost always necessary to start with a new group of employees. Breaking down the mindset of old employees as well as their habits they have developed working for the old you, just
doesn’t work as well.
Relegate yourself to being a physician-as-employee... not physician-as-owner in this situation.
5. Business Plan is the initial step.
The foundation for your successful medical practice business begins with a practical sound set of dreams and goals for your medical practice business success. The fallacy of starting a medical practice and then deciding where you want to go with it doesn’t work, as a bunch of medical doctors find out eventually.
Once your vision of where you want to be in 20 or 30 years is clear in your minds-eye, it’s just a matter of completing the blueprint and setting up shop. Sure it may change over time. So, you must extend your blueprint in another direction.
6. Marketing is the glue to hold the system together
Unless you are already a medical doctor celebrity, you must have marketing strategies as part of the planning strategies. Successful businesses require it. Understanding what marketing is all about
at the beginning means doing some studying and research beforehand.
Patients have to know you are available, where you practice, what you are trained to do, and what you provide that patients need or want. You do that through medical practice marketing strategies and tactics.
As you can see from what I have described, the whole approach is the opposite of what is traditionally accepted for medical practice. The mistake is to start at the bottom, as most do, and look up, instead of starting at the top and look down on your medical practice business as you know it.
I want to burn these thoughts into your mind so you will never forget to consider them when you reach a point where enlightenment of your left brain dominates.
And, yes, there’s much more about these factors you’ll need to know and understand. That’s exactly what I intend to teach you when you’re ready.
"Rich people have big libraries,
poor people have big TVs."
---Jim Rohn
----Professional Probe----
"Puppies do what there are trained to do.
Physicians function on the layers
above training and education."
"Have you trained you puppy to bring in the mail every day?
Wouldn't it have been helpful if you had received information from
your college or medical school early enough in you education to
have included business education courses. No one told you about
that in your premed group in college. No one told you about the
value and advantages of a business education in
medical school either.
Millions of physicians over the last century have suffered financially
and needlessly from the lack of this one simple recommendation
and it continues today. Now you manage a medical practice business
and things haven't changed. You have been cleverly shortchanged
in your education for unknown reasons. If you apply for a job today,
the first question they ask you is about your business background."
