"Foreknowledge of the common tips, challenges and
medical practice business and marketing advice is exactly
what every physician needs to be aware of, if they expect
their professional life and career to be one of optimal
performance and value to medical patients."
Career benefits for all three groups of physicians below...
1. Medical students.
2. Residents in training.
3. Physicians in private medical practice.
Why it’s very important...
You may not realize that all medical doctors in the private clinical practice of medicine are true entrepreneurs!
Understanding that an entrepreneur, by definition, is a person who has reached a higher level of thinking that convinces themself that taking one step out of one's comfort zone, rapidly enables the subconscious mind to provide the person with an excess of information and data from your stored memory banks pertaining to the challenge, decision, judgment, resolution of a problem being considered which in turn enables a problem to be solved because you now have many more alternatives or ideas that your mind opens up to you and you wouldn't have even considered.
When you step out of your comfort zone your mind helps you far more than usual. That's why entrepreneurs find it much easier to solve problems and come up with solutions.
Some problems seem to be unresolvable primarily because of the fear of making a wrong decision (known as self-restrictions). So one steps back into their comfort zone and chooses not to try any ideas or solutions at all. It's called the comfort zone where we are right then.
So how does this relate to physicians? Every practicing physician has the experience of running up against a symptom, a disease, a medical problem, a diagnosis that they have never seen before, heard about or was never taught about in medical school.
What do you do? Just tell the patient that you don't know? Or do you tell the patient what you think it is and treat it appropriately? Here, every physician steps outside their comfort zone, where the diagnosis is unknown and unprovable, to treat a patient for a diagnosis that is unknown by you. Most physicians prefer not to tell a patient that they don't know unless they refer the patient.
When the diagnosis is obvious, you are in your comfort zone, and treat it appropriately. When the diagnosis in not known, you are out of your comfort zone and you do the tests and/or may go ahead and treat it anyway by guessing. How about the Strep throat issue? Do you go ahead and treat it without doing a culture first?
For Medical Students...
If you don’t read the articles on this website, you can expect to stumble around later wasting time and energy to learn these things. There truly is such a thing as “shadow mentorship” (It’s how you learned human anatomy your first year of med school… right?) and it’s levels above “book resources” and “medical article reading” by any standard of qualification.
In today’s constantly changing medical practice environment you likely are pitifully innocent of the majority of pending, constantly changing and present medical practice issues that will create for you umpteen hurdles to jump.
These challenges that appear out of nowhere and threaten your professional status and career have everything to do with your ability to practice medicine in a comfortable and profitable manner.
You should have this information in mind as early as possible in your medical student years in spite of the clinical learning curriculum requiring your constant attention. You will thank me later for pushing you in this direction.
No one else will do that “favor” for you while in medical school because most of your teachers likely are in academic medicine and have no medical practice business to manage themselves, the employer facility administration does it for them.
Wouldn’t you prefer knowing the inside details of the 20 + critical factors you need to know about and comply with just to get into your own medical practice? Start your "practice" investigation a year or two sooner than everybody else?
You will discover with time how much less trouble and worry you will have about your future because of the information you find recommended here.
Residents in training...
By the time you have reached the midpoint of your specialty training, the majority of new physicians haven’t made the big decisions. You are so busy with your medical responsibilities you procrastinate until the last hour of training, it seems like.
The fact that your decisions being made at this time will determine how you will spend the rest of your next 20 or 30 years in medical practice… at least for most of you it should wake you
up to reality.
Your reasoning and decision making are made well before you are in the real process of practicing medicine the way you planned. That, my friend, is exactly why your extreme diligence is required. It’s exactly why you have a responsibility of due diligence to do what it takes to leave no stone unturned in order to insure that what happens to you is not by fate, but by damn
good investigation.
Unfortunately, it’s rare to find a resident in training who is not only willing to “know” all the future circumstances regarding their next professional step in practice but also is willing to sacrifice the time during training to make it happen.
The resources that I intend to suggest to you are what you will need to help you to stay on track and focused on what really counts.
Let me present you with a few questions that you need to ask yourself and that you may not have thought of...
- What geographical area of the country do I want to live in over the next 30 years? You’re making a decision for your family as well as yourself.
- What situation of medical practice do I think I want to establish for myself for the next 30 years or so? Like medical research, academic medicine, private medical practice? Have you traveled there, spoken with those you might be working with in the future? What if you don’t like them right at the start?
- What supportive factors will I need in that situation to practice like I want to and has lots of room to grow my practice?
Does the area have industry where people work and have health insurance? Is the area overcrowded with my specialty? How would I know? Research who your patients will be there and whether you will run out of patients eventually?
Are large hospitals available and have the tools I need to practice my specialty? If not,
why—too small of a community?
Are medical educational facilities and higher education colleges and universities nearby? Good for kids going to local colleges.
- If I get into academic medicine, will I be able to work up to a higher level of administration and seniority? Want to become chief of service sometime? Go there and talk to other doctors.
The recommended reading is meant to help you to find answers to these questions and many others. It’s critical that you know ahead of time what you are going to find when you get there…for your own peace of mind and practice satisfaction.
Physicians in private medical practice...
Why would any physician already practicing care about these resources anyway? You are already in practice somewhere and usually doing a satisfactory job at it. However, you and I know that you could do a lot better. There are hundreds of ways to get to your optimal capabilities and practice income…if you are inspired to do better.
The AMA surveys show that about 14% of doctors move every year. Are you in that category, or will you be in the future? If you’ve been in medical practice over10 years, you likely aren’t familiar with the changes in practice requirements in other states, new HIPPA rules, advantages of joining the Federation Credentials Verification Service (FCVS), your NPI number, EFIO, CAQH, OAS, PECOS, NPPES, RED FLAGS RULE, CLIA, COI and MEC, etc.
With the final disposition of the Affordable Care Act trailing on at the time of this writing (Oct 10, 2021), you may be forced into practice modifications that you have never considered, let alone
want to do.
So, a brush-up on the world of Credentialism. It’s is a smart thing to do today. If you thoroughly investigate your options, then you’ll be well prepared to make good decisions later. Just don’t get the idea that a transition is easy and not painful. Let a bolt of common sense lightning strike your brain and open some new doors for you.
Don’t let mediocrity hold you back. You deserve top-level status not only in your medical community but also in your capacity to grow and do what you are capable of doing. Most doctors underestimate their optimal performance in medicine…don’t let that happen.
Take my word for it. The resources I am recommending will provide you with new inspiration and motivation to magnify what you already are doing. I am a no BS person to work with.
You get the truth.
Recommendation:
“The Medical Entrepreneur”
by Steven M. Hacker, MD
Paperback 217 pages—approx. $18 new. Second Edit. 2012 Available also in Kindle edition.
The Medical Entrepreneur computer application for your computer or mobile devise is available
as a free download at iTunes or by use of this link: www.themedicalentrepreneur.com/app/app.html
Dr. Hacker divides the book into three parts...
- Everything you need to know before you see your first patient.
- For all physician entrepreneurs
- Pearls and proceedings from the 2012 Medical Entrepreneur Symposium
General Overview that I’d like to share with you...
Dr. Hacker has a wide range of medical practice experiences in his career and ends up on the side of private medical practice. His sentiment is the same as my own about that.
He also has an impressive number of years of experience in founding and working in and on many businesses outside of medical practice. In one way or another, they were all associated with the healthcare field.
Part 1: Everything you need to know before you see your first patient...
Dives right into what every physician has already been through like choices we all have to make after medical school graduation and before we see our first patient. The purpose is primarily for the benefit of medical students who rarely are told much at all about what to expect about setting up a medical practice of their own.
Pitfalls are pointed out and his advice about management of those is validated in writing in the book by legal professionals and others who are experts in every area concerning establishing a medical practice that I can think of.
This is the first book I’ve found that carefully describes in detail all the necessary factors for building the foundation for a strong medical practice. These necessary requirements commonly are just a blur to most students and young physicians. They certainly were for those of us back in the late 1960’s, and I suspect still are today.
Balancing the pitfalls with pearls of wisdom that come from the heart of the author gives the reader a strong sense of the author’s desire to help medical students and new doctors avoid mistakes in the process of becoming a medical warrior passionate about curing illness and mending trauma. The fewer mistakes we make during that process, the more time we have to practice medicine.
The information includes everything from forming a corporation to creating setting up an estate plan. The details are so well described that you can go to any expert or attorney fully armed and ready to make serious decisions.
What I found extremely helpful to me knowledge-wise was the section on “Licenses, Laws, and Acronyms”. The great majority of these important issues I escaped from when I retired in 1999.
In this section, Dr. Hacker has written in-depth about the many hurdles you will face as medical students in the future. Older physicians in practice today are already involved in trying to adjust to HIPPA regulations and governmental restrictions on fees.
I had no idea of the number of acronyms physicians must know about, know what they stand for, and know how much they can and will affect every physician in medical practice from here on. This interwoven web of controlling agencies puts us all at risk today in one way or another. They won’t be going away in the future, so read and weep.
Older physicians didn’t get by all those years in practice without living in terror either. The medical malpractice insurance crisis in California in the 1970s was a big one… practicing without malpractice insurance for 2 years was a real zinger for most physicians there. It happened again in Nevada and a few other states a couple of years ago with the same problems for physicians.
Others were the new “recertification” requirements, the CME revolution, and the increasing malpractice risks along the way.
What Dr. Hacker is trying to get across to medical students is the diligence and self-discipline that are required. Most of the barriers that come up are things that require preparation for handling. You have to know what’s coming down the line in order to prepare for it… like applying months early for a controlled drug license and your approval for the medical administrative
agencies you join.
Included in these preparations for the state medical licenses you may need to apply for. Start earlier than you think to get those. During residency is a perfect time to do that.
Part two is a brilliant and unique section of the book dealing with the monetary need today for all physicians to consider starting outside businesses…that is if you intend to financially survive in private practice or even as an employed physician in the future.
Part 2: For all physician entrepreneurs.
The word entrepreneur has surfaced all over the Internet, in books, in education, and worldwide in recent years. The interesting thing about the word is that few physicians really understand what the word “entrepreneur” truly means and all that it encompasses.
This fact has been a significant obstruction to the business education of physicians and most others in business. Entrepreneurism has reached the level of a career path in colleges and universities.
The irony is that most doctors are entrepreneurs by nature and they don’t even recognize it. If you knew what it was all about, you would have the advantage of expanding your medical practice several times over.
A good definition of an entrepreneur is…
“It’s someone who becomes aware that they have far more capabilities for creating and expanding a business than they ever imagined.
It involves the concept that when you step outside your comfort zones, face your fears of failure, and understand the full extent and power of your true natural creativity. you open your mind to ideas, options, and processes for success that you will never see otherwise.
Coupled with these factors are the determination, self-discipline, self-confidence, never-give-up attitude, and belief that there is a way to accomplish anything with persistence and self-motivation.”
Some call an entrepreneur a persistent SOB, in a leopard’s attire. Now, if you don’t believe physicians are natural entrepreneurs right from the start, then consider what physicians do when they often run up against a patient that they have no idea what is causing their medical problem.
That’s right. You consciously open your mind to every detail of your medical knowledge, training, and education tucked away in your subconscious memory banks and with persistence come up with a close to perfect diagnosis and treatment. You never give up on it until it’s solved and managed adequately. How does that sequence get fired up suddenly and automatically?
Right, you send an voice-mail on your mobile device to the subconscious librarian and ask for all the medical information concerning the issue. Dr. Maxwell Maltz explains how that happens, how the mind works, in his classic book still recognized today from the 1960’s titled, “Psycho-Cybernetics”.
I can feel it. You are catching on so fast that I can’t keep up with your train of thought about the point that Dr. Hacker is making here.
Dr. Hacker, as I am, is concerned that most private practice physicians are headed for financial poverty in medical practice unless you have multiple streams of income, besides medical practice. I’ve written about this in my prior newsletters over about 8 years.
He wisely gives you a rather detailed analysis about how to understand financial statements, protect your intellectual property, and raise capital or funding for those separate businesses you certainly will need in the near future. Additionally, he includes specific data and instructions on medical websites, critical business requirements and standards you can’t do without, and resources for everything he says.
The idea is to work less and earn more by following the proper channels he advises.
Part 3: Pearls and proceedings from the 2012 Medical Entrepreneur Symposium
This section of the book tells you what the experts are saying about the business of medical practice and how to avoid the pitfalls along the way. It appears that this Symposium is put on once a year in Florida in the spring… March to May. Any medical doctor or medical student should make every effort to attend the next one.
Comments...
This book spoon-feeds you the information you can always use along your career path as things in medicine keep changing. I commend Dr. Hacker for publishing such an outstanding composite of important information all packed into one book. You would be foolish to pass up this opportunity to add this book to your personal reference library.
Although medicine is advancing rapidly in technology, treatments, and healthcare, the unexplainable neglect of medical educators and medical schools to provide business education to all medical students even as a voluntary course of business and marketing study on
DVD’s continues.
This is while medical schools are spending billions of dollars erecting new buildings on campus for more medical research and unnecessary medical studies most practicing physicians don’t need. Students and physicians learn as much as possible while in medical school, but actually use only about 30% of that in their careers.
The lack of medical schools taking action by providing a business education is a tragedy!
Food for thought if you intend to become the best physician you can be.
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----
"If you would let a camel try to swallow your kid,
would you accept the advice of the professor of
harsh reality?"
There are a very few people yet in existence that actually care about what is happening to physicians in our nation, both inside and outside of the medical profession. How often do you run into an article in the newspaper about the struggles going on today within the medical profession and the private practice of medicine? Virtually NONE.
What you find are stories about hospital problems, Clovid pandemic issues, physicians in trouble with the law, abortion conflicts, but nothing about the physicians losing their private medical practices because they can't make enough money to pay the overhead, let alone have any left over to take home with them.
It seems to me after nearly 20 years researching the major causes for the disintegration of private medical practice, the tsunami of physician attrition, male college students who have given up applying to medical schools, how many physicians are now retired and having to live on social security checks, and a million or so physicians today that are now working their way through the "burnout phase" of their medical careers, has revealed to me the extremely serious consequences of being a hard working dedicated physician today.
Do you know of anyone or any group who is doing anything, or who has done anything significant over the last 5 decades, that deserves a thankyou for their actual productive efforts to resolve the consequences suffered by most private and employed physicians today? It all starts with the medical schools refusal to provide an academic business education for all medical students--the core cause of it all.
Articles © 2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #51, 3-16-22
