"An unacceptable number of private medical practice
physicians become financially handicapped by assuming
that because they are physicians, have a medical office, and
a line of new medical patients will be waiting for
someone to open the door, why worry."
One has to ask themself, how it can be that about half of the graduating medical students in our nation each year, about 10,000, remain oblivious to the fact that they sense no need for a business education while they are finishing residency training or already in a private medical practice business? I ask that because I was one of those physicians in the same situation in 1970. And I still don't have an answer--but I know there is an answer to that dilemma.
It must have something to do with the many years of education. It seems that most of us from first grade up to graduation from medical school that each of us were fed, clothed, and coddled by family pumped up expectations, our own desires and expectations, and never really had to work for a living. We just kept on believing that the process we were interacting in would continue forever. Therefore, no need to prepare for working for a living until it was needed. That's about 25 years of never needing to earn money to live on or need for a business education.
Even the money earning chores as teenagers, jobs in college to help with tuition, jobs in medical school to help with tuition was commonly used for living needs rather than for tuition as
we claimed.
Now add to all that the fact that the premed advisors never mentioned the need for a business education as they rightly should have. Then medical school educators never mentioned the value and advantages of a business education either.
If there is a resolution to this problem regarding working to make money to live on and preparing for that upcoming necessity, it would have to be a required education while in medical school or a personal decision during medical practice. Neither has happened and likely won't.
Logically, it all gets back to money and where it comes from, how to make money, how to manage money and finances, how business fits into the money picture, and how business and money interact.
Getting back to the money management deficiency..
The perception about money and how it flows through our economy actually steals more money from our pockets than taxation of income by our government.
Physicians are particularly prone to be misled by the powerful and outdated, ancient, persuasive LIE that physicians don’t really need a business education to practice medicine. Reason says that the LIE is true. Logic says that that the consequences of that LIE in a rapidly advancing society of business culture that demands obedience to the business and marketing requirements for growth, profitability, and maintenance.
And if that doesn't occur, such as in medical practice businesses over the last century in our nation, the result is commonly slow failure, a permanent unrepairable business entity, and in the case of private medical practice businesses, a far more dangerous set of consequences that have evolved.
Dangerous Consequences created by the lack of a business education of physicians that are destroying our healthcare today...
- Those shadowed consequences have led to the continuing loss of control over our nation's healthcare that our government politicians want complete control of...
- Increasing reliance on a legion of midlevel healthcare providers instead of real physicians...
- Dramatic drop in the choice of college students for a medical practice career...
- A financially crippled medical profession forcing independent physicians out of private
medical practice and into government controlled medical practice employment... - Major drop in the quality of medical care being offered, forced on physicians, both
employed and independent physicians... - Public reduction in the professional reputation status of physicians as elite professionals
leading physicians to become beaten down healthcare providers with less reason to seek
their optimal professional skills and knowledge, and less reason to maintain a cutting-edge
skill set and knowledge in medical practice... - Unauthorized government agencies now dictating rules for what physicians can and cannot
do or even say to patients in their medical practices... - Medical schools who refuse to offer or provide a business education curriculum for medical
students which handicaps every physicians capabilities to become the best physician they
can be in private medical practice and in government controlled medical facilities... - The evidence for each of these issues is overwhelming, in plain sight, and nothing has been,
is now being done, or will be done to resolve these impediments to health and medical care...
Any physician who believes that myth is a victim of psychological obsolescence, which translates to owning a private medical practice that is predetermined to fail financially to some variable degree and will guarantee that physician a medical practice that is never profitable enough to make his or her career expectations anything more than a dream.
The very sad fact that a physician's arrogance completely overcomes the advice and information offered to them by literally every elite business expert in this nation results either in loss of their private medical practice for financial reasons, or a career long struggle wondering why their medical practice never is able to expand/grow.
Even worse, because of the lack of appropriate medical practice income, regardless of any personal efforts to stoke up their own ideas of what improvements they make out of their business ignorance, leads to practical career medical problems. The most formidable problem coming out of a less than expected income is that the affordability of upgrading their medical skills, knowledge, and talents are seriously compromised for their whole medical career.
And that compromise often leads to the inability to be the best you can be, to maintain a cutting edge on medical skills and knowledge, and to provide your family needs and expectations they plan on. Regrets later are also hard to deal with. I know because I have been there, and now am dealing with them often.
That persuasive logic even today continues to be held in esteem because of three simple disruptive behavior and belief perspectives…
1. Medical schools never contradict the belief that physicians don’t need a business education…they just evade the whole idea totally.
2. Business knowledge is never important to medical students until much later in their medical careers when it’s too late to obtain it…because medical educators for the last century consider that the value of business education for physicians is a myth.
3. The business of medical practice “knowledge” is too much of a distraction from real medical practice time and effort to be worthy of attention…the greatest myth ever promoted.
Other issues surface that are completely disregarded by those who are business ignorant, like…
1. Economic trends and beliefs never stay the same over time…which physicians are
oblivious to.
2. Patient expectations and choices force changes in the business of medical practice…
causing practicing physicians to always react retrospectively.
3. Private medical practice can’t survive without a solid business platform that contains
the business tools necessary to compensate for the economic changes, the real flow
of money, and the intrusions of government on private medical practices.
Each of these practice-destroying issues keeps rumbling under the surface of your unconscious mind. They unconsciously beg to be noticed but you are too busy making money healing and curing your patients to notice consciously… something most physicians seem to do by nature.
The unconscious barriers to your attention about, and regard for, what affects the business platform of your practice are deeply fixed in your mind. What you consciously notice is an uncomfortable feeling like something is missing and you can’t quite figure it out.
My first indication that my practice was disintegrating under my nose was when my office manager informed me that there wasn’t enough money to pay all the overhead bills and employee salaries. I attributed that to a temporary seasonal drop in income that had happened before. But then the problem continued month after month gradually creating bigger money problems.
My CPA who did all my accounting never said a word to me about the dropping income trend. My corporate attorney who had set up my retirement plan and followed my practice income never said a word to me about the drop in income that would affect my contributions. My first step was to lower my own already low salary temporarily so we could pay all the bills. Nobody watches out for you… but yourself.
Never depend on your backup resource people to alert you!
The practice income continued to drop steeply and I was forced to move to a tiny office where the rent was much less and had to terminate a couple of my employees. Finally, I found it necessary to cease paying the withholding tax to the IRS just to get by and keep my family intact, even knowing the IRS would be after me soon to pay up.
Divorce, bankruptcy, and depression were part of my last few years in private medical practice. I failed to find an employed medical position for over 2 years and we were living on credit cards and what office equipment and supplies I could sell to other doctors.
All these last few years in private practice was a valid mandate for hopelessness. I had absolutely no idea what marketing was about; let alone how to do it. I had no prior education about business principles or about how to manage a business. What's your status on these two situations today?
I just kept on accepting what circumstances handed me. I saw no options except to become employed somewhere in the USA. I understood that I had only the knowledge about medicine that I could ever rely on.
"I want you to think about what I just related to you because there are thousands of private practice physicians today experiencing the same sequence of events as I did. Most of them keep quiet about it, rarely reveal the circumstances to colleagues because of the shame of failure, and leave the community soon after. The tragedy resulting from it leads to the increasing attrition of physicians. The greatest tragedy about it is that it's been happening for decades in our nation
and no one has done anything about it."
Today I can talk about all this unemotionally for the most part. The same process impacts all of the physicians in the same manner. All you have to do is count the number of doctors who have been forced to sell their medical practices to hospitals all across our nation and become physician employees to understand the depth of the money problem in medical practice. And no one seems to be doing anything about solving this dilemma... at least try to.
Regrettably, the hierarchy in medical education over the last 5 decades have failed… and the increasing load of evidence telling them that the source of the problem is money, still doesn’t seem to get their attention. Any reasonably intelligent person can easily see that there is a need to somehow enable all physicians to earn the income they deserve.
When I think about those days over again, now knowing what the solution is, I became furious at my medical school’s total disregard for providing doctors a business education while in medical school. If it isn’t done then, it never gets done. Physicians simply won’t get the business education when it is left up to their own choice.
My conclusion is that the medical-profession academics know that physicians need to have a business education to succeed at a level professionals deserve. They not only refuse to provide the business education but also refuse to make business education an important ingredient in
the practice of medicine. Strange…since business is the basis for all private practicing
physician’s incomes.
Another component of the debate is, why would medical school academics refuse to tell the medical students that they have to have a business education to really succeed, even if they won’t provide it themselves? It’s an arcane tragedy pushed on to all doctors today.
Beyond that, the academics certainly understand that their disregard of business education has been predisposing physicians to financial failure in private medical practice for decades. They
have willingly been proponents as well as the primary cause of physician’s financial failure in
medical practice.
When a physician like me didn’t know what I didn’t know about the critical value of a business education and end up with a mind completely ignorant of the business ways out of financial failure, even the business strategies that prevent it in the first place…then whose fault is it?
So, I ask myself questions, to which I never found a reasonable answer back then…
1. How do I suddenly get a flood of new patients
joining my practice which would skyrocket my income
and improve my practice rapidly?
2. How do I get other doctors to refer me more
patients, right away?
3. What is it that I missed, or did, or needed, or
should have done all along prior to all this
happening to have prevented it?
4. Is there maybe one thing any “business-
ignorant” medical doctor can do today to change things
around financially under those circumstances?
In my opinion the answer is NO. But there is a
way out for those who are willing to listen and
read, then take action.
Today I know the answers to all of these questions. Back then, from the first day that I started my medical practice I should have been creating a doctor referral program and marketing my medical practice. How would any physician know that it has to be started when you open your practice and must be continued for the duration of your career? I didn’t know that. Now you know because I told you so.
Learning how to run my practice as a business rather than as a place to treat patients, would certainly have prevented what happened to my medical practice financially.
You can’t possibly run your private practice business at top profitability unless you have the required business education to do it. Logic should reveal to you that the money you earn without business knowledge is meager compared to money can earn with business knowledge.
You can earn some money practicing medicine as all private practice doctors know, but it will NEVER be enough under present-day circumstances to provide everything you plan to do with
your career.
How would you expect to do so without ever having the business knowledge required for the most success when all other commercial business owners and other businesses in the world require it to succeed? It’s neither logical nor substantiated by facts and evidence, you can’t!
So, it’s a money thing…
It took me another 15 years before I found out what had been missing in my medical practice way back then and still is missing in most medical practices today… and shouldn’t be.
1. I had absolutely no business education or knowledge, at least not enough to even recognize what could have helped me.
The solo medical practice I started by putting together bits of information from other doctors, their office employees, and the employees I hired, was nothing more than a mix of personal experiences that I thought at the time was excellent help.
The fact is that nearly all physicians in private practice have used this same means to set up their practices… and are having the same results that I did.
It’s no different today. For those doctors who today are wading into the private medical practice swamp, relying on business advice and knowledge from those who have essentially no business education themselves surely contributes to financial failure.
Maybe it’s not as extreme as bankruptcy, but it’s enough of a reduced income to cause you to give up on prior career expectations and plans, forget about paying for your kid’s college education, and re-adjust your lifestyle down to a lower middle class level.
Those consequences are common in the medical profession today among private practice doctors. It’s a money thing! Even retirement may not be affordable. Is this what you signed up for?
2. When you add the difficulty of running/managing a private medical practice without adequate business knowledge, to the difficulty of managing money required by all successful businesses, it adds up to another dimension of financial failure.
You find that money becomes the one common and necessary element required to accomplish all you ever intended to do in your career. When there’s not enough money available, those hoped-for benefits won’t happen.
It has nothing to do with your passion to do great things in medicine. It has everything to do with the business performance that enables you to produce the income you need to do it all. All that depends on seeing enough patients produce the income needed.
What’s your understanding about the flow of money in and out of businesses?
It would be a miracle to find even 5 medical doctors that understand this question. It rarely is discussed in public. We all know about earning money and spending it. But there’s very little concern about where it’s coming from and where it’s going to as long as we grab a good bit of it
as it flows past us.
The general consensus among physicians…that all money is derived from some sort of business entity and that no one can do much in life without money is not debatable. Money is not the objective, but it provides the path to the objective.
Another belief about money exists within the business community. Money is not scarce. There’s lots of money flowing around and is transferred hand to hand around the world every day. The top 1% of the population controls most of the money which leads us to believe at least in medical practice that we have a good opportunity to get a hold of a lot of it. We have always been told that.
We believe that hard work has its rewards and the harder we work the more income we have. What we didn’t count on was the reality of our government taking over healthcare as well as the medical profession… sometimes alluded to as the "healthcare industry." Neither did we believe that the surge of medical technology would do anything more than making medical care better.
Physicians find themselves under increasing government fee restrictions and regulations that are compromising their ability to earn enough money to pay the bills. No matter how hard physicians work seeing 20 more patients each day than usual, they can’t keep up financially. Along with hard work is another detrimental consequence… burnout.
Physicians have reached a time today that they are out of money-earning options. Some have an outside income from a business they started. Many have family money to back them up. The majority of physicians today have an enormous educational debt to pay off, if they ever can. That debt issue also compromises their income for 15 years or more.
How does the flow of money have anything to do with the private practice
of medicine today?
Most physicians start a private medical practice and try to gather enough medical patients to provide the income for the practice.
For physicians without a business education, that process for earning money has become limited by government paperwork, a limited amount of time to see a limited number of patients each day, limited motivation and energy to keep up that pace over time, and lower fees to comply
with regulations.
The issue here is that physicians survive by doing anything they can to attract money to themselves and their practice. Sometimes it’s illegal. It becomes a job of coaxing money back to them. The problem is that money has a mind of its own which is a secret that physicians and others are completely unaware of. The flow of money goes to those who know how to treat money.
The concept actually is completely the opposite of what you think. Most physicians today don’t get it. Physicians have to learn how to wade into the economic fog and dive into the current where the flow of money is going.
The old concept: I start my medical practice and sit there waiting for patients to come in the door without doing much of anything to stimulate them to do so. (business ignorance)
The new concept that all physicians should be using, and aren’t...
I start my new medical practice but now I have to do numerous patient-attracting campaigns on my own out there to get enough well-paying patients that will bring in enough income to provide me the means to reach all my goals.
It’s a matter of positioning your medical practice and yourself in the path of the flow of money. You do that by such things as starting your medical practice in an "affluent" area of the city, marketing your medical practice continually, establishing a great referral program that pumps patients into your practice from other physicians, and making yourself well liked in the medical and
local communities.
Money, having a mind of its own, recognizes that it must go to businesses that know how to treat money. This is someone that money likes.
You give money to poor people thinking that it will help them, but it doesn’t. You have to keep giving them money which disappears immediately with no lasting positive effects. It wastes money and that’s why money doesn’t flow there. Money flows to people and businesses who know how to use money to benefit many.
For medical professionals it becomes a task of never depending on money to come to you just because you’re a “good doctor.” That come-on stopped working decades ago.
Gradually, physicians have learned ways that they can step out into the path of the flow of money such as…
1. Starting their medical practice in an area where patients have good jobs and who make more money than most is smart.
2. Choosing a medical specialty that is known to be a high-earner specialty.
3. Begin practice by partnering with doctors already in practice that needs help…then have the money to go solo eventually.
4. Choose the geographical areas of the nation where the net income of doctors is higher (usually in the Midwest).
5. Starting practice with an HMO and then moving to private
medical practice.
6. There are millionaire physicians who need associates. They got there with a great patient load and appropriate business knowledge.
7. By marketing your medical practice, you are stepping out into the flow of money. You appeal to patients with higher incomes and the best job incomes.
If you don’t market to them, they will likely not find you. Word of mouth and the telephone book will take you 20 years to build a good practice, and about the time you plan to retire.
1. Intentionally making yourself well known and liked in the medical community. You attend social and charity events, you volunteer to lecture in the community (commonly gain one new patient from each event), you create a great reputation, and you publish articles, newspaper articles, and newsletters to patients.
2. Since about 60% of your new patients come from other doctor referrals, having a doctor referral program established is a gold mine for attracting new patients.
Why these things work so well for you is because it’s what most physicians rarely consider doing. It makes you outstanding in the community and most potential new patients learn who you are eventually. You are intentionally seeding the local population for new patients.
The more you do these things the more patients and income you will achieve. The more methods you use to do these things the more effective it becomes. You know this; you just never did anything about it.
The battle between your interests and money flow...
Have you ever wondered why about 15% of medical doctors change practice situations each year (AMA Studies)? They didn’t just one day quit and move elsewhere. They all made the decision based primarily on their ability to adapt and accept what their practice situation required.
Although there are many good reasons to change their situations, you have to remember that their decision to be there to start with was made at a time when they were ignorant of the many deep potholes one finds in the road to the business of medical practice. That 15% of doctors who made the wrong practice decision would probably never have done it if they had had a business
education prior.
Then, there are the many other reasons that are the result of income problems of one type or another. Typically, many physicians make the decision about where to start practice based on family demands, recreation requirements, military service, dad’s influence, peers available to help them, and more.
Often physicians make those decisions with no real concern about whether the financial situation might be unsatisfactory. Often it’s the result of a total lack of due diligence. Is there a factory in the area that pays good wages to their employees? You know your patients can pay you for care.
Young doctors often use emotions to make decisions that a good business education
wouldn’t permit.
The importance of starting practice where the flow of money is already running through
can't be overestimated.
But for those of you, physicians that are already locked into a medical practice location and moving to another practice location seems beyond your ability to cope with, you do have a reliable means to upgrade your present medical practice that a small investment in business education
can quickly produce.
The myth about business education that keeps most physicians bound and gagged...
The reason that taking on the task of business education may seem so impossible to you is that your mind has had no exposure to how powerful a small piece of business knowledge can be for you. The irrational tendency is to look at business education as if it requires years of learning and a mountain of money. That’s only if business and marketing becomes your "profession," not your
backup resource.
The point is that the business and marketing knowledge you need is purely for back up to your medical practice financial security. The fields of both are so wide and deep that college professors have a hard time teaching it all. That is exactly why physicians don't need an MBA, only the aspects of business and marketing that fill in the holes in your practice financial bucket that block
the leaks.
What you can do with a small segment of business education may be all you need to accomplish. That can be done easily by reading three of four books written by business experts on one element of business that is not only something you would like to do but also something that interests you. If it doesn’t work for you then you find a second business method to try.
For upwards of 8 years I have been telling you what options you have and how to use them efficiently in your medical practice to make more money, feel better about yourself, gain prominence in your medical community, keep your practice growing, and apply business strategies and tactics that can make you rich.
What do you think my 100 or so medical business and marketing articles written to you and published on my website for your benefit are all about? The fact that all of that expert business education on my medical website has been freely available to anyone, should tell you that they aren’t there to make me rich. I know that the information I put out for physicians is worth at least $250/month on a par with monthly consulting fees.
Because readers and physicians consider that anything offered for free isn't worth a plug nickel, makes it necessary to for me to charge for access to my physician's business and marketing education online, all in one place and continues to expand in those topics at this time.
Good, my rant is over, so let’s get back to solid information.
My advice to you is to start thinking about doing just one of two business strategies, and then expand your medical practice without seeing more patients unless you choose to every day in the office… without being overstressed or burned out. Working smarter is the key. That’s where business knowledge runs rings around usual medical practice productivity and profitability.
You need to get over your thinking pattern about avoiding business knowledge altogether. Who knows, maybe you will find that starting small and thinking tall will incite a passion to take your medical practice business to extremes. However, that would likely pissoff all the physicians in your local area that don't have that knowledge. You might teach them what you learned, for a fee. It would be terrible if you suddenly were wealthy… how would you be able to explain that
to your peers?
I understand that within every skull, creative and ambitious thoughts occur...for some physicians more than others.
Your passion to continue practicing medicine will return when you diligently apply what I have been telling you to do all this time, otherwise, you may be among those physicians who can’t be taught anything new, don’t wish to do any better, or can’t make a connection between income and the quality of doctor you have become.
Special Comment:
By familiarizing yourself with the medical practice business facts and advice contained in this private medical practice business and marketing website content, that is available to you in only one place in the world of medical practice in our nation today (2021-22), you can be sure that your private medical practice business will never fail you, when and if you choose to follow the advice.
Secondly, you will not only reach your ultimate potential faster and more assuredly than over 95%
of other physicians, but also you will build a medical practice that can withstand all of the government mandates and restrictions on private medical practices that increasingly continue to harass you daily.
Requirements for maximizing your medical practice income
1. Good knowledge of medical practice management
2. Having the energy for continuous medical practice marketing
3. Medical practice business planning is important.
4. Marketing for physicians and their office staff is a winning set up.
5. Learn what makes a medical practice business successful.
6. Your medical practice business system is essential.
7. Bothe practice marketing and physician marketing is rewarding.
8. Business success is the objective of all physicians in private medical practice.
9. My business website—www.marketingamedicalpractice.com
----Professional Probe----
Can you relate to this photo? Most physicians can. Physicians suffer from a mess they got themselves into simply by becoming a physician... and at a time when we never even
saw it coming.
This situation is so close to reality today because physicians are also trapped by having absolutely no idea about how to solve their financial problem of dropping income.
If the dog pictured here squirmed around enough it would get free. But instead it quietly waits for help... the wrong approach. Similarly, physicians could work themselves free of their financial worries by discovering and implementing a few practical marketing methods that allows one to squirm out of your financial bind... but most physicians don't do it.
Physicians, who were born with the entrepreneurial spirit, too often don't know they have that capability. You need to be told you have it for some reason that I don't understand. Maybe it's simply that you need permission to step out into the unknown world of business where the answers are found. You have nothing to lose because you are already hurting financially.
Buy a few of Dan Kennedy's books on marketing; read them and apply the principles today. It's a cheap marketing education after all.
Articles © 2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #63, 3-16-22
