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START-UPS:   5 Types of Medical Practices to Consider Starting

5 Types of Medical Practices to Consider Starting

It’s no secret that 2020 has changed the way medical professionals deliver patient care. The future of individuals, be it, physicians or investors, looking to invest in different types of medical practices is also changing.  Where chaos exists, there are always paths of opportunities.  Some medical practices are thriving for a variety of reasons. If you’re considering a medical practice startup, the following are some options to consider starting and why.

1. Concierge Family Practice

Concierge medicine isn’t new, but it’s becoming more popular among the middle-class.  One of the benefits for doctors is the “no-frills” operation. Instead of worrying about staffing issues, training, and budgets, you carry almost no overhead. Having a physical office location is optional and up to the individual physician.  Customers pay a flat monthly rate for unlimited texts, calls, visits, or even house calls. Obviously, a doctor may elect to place restrictions on the specific times a patient may have access to them.  A concierge medical practice removes the need for insurance billing and related payment delays.  The main benefit for patients is the ease of access to a doctor. For them, it’s like having a personal physician. Most concierge doctors will make house calls and/or communicate with patients electronically.  The monthly fee that concierge physicians charge can vary greatly depending upon the patient demographics. Family plans as well as the type of services all influence the cost.  While many general physicians will see several thousand patients a year, a concierge doctor typically limits their patient base. This helps give concentrated care and avoids burnout.  One of the big draws to concierge medicine is to eliminate overhead costs and pass part of that savings on to the patients in the form of lower fees or more extensive and personalized service.

2. Telemedicine Practice

With the rise of Covid-19, telemedicine has sprouted legs that can sprint. The convenience of practicing medicine by telecommunications is a benefit for you and the patient.  Be sure to check local and state laws before choosing this path. Each location may have restrictions that differ from place to place.  Another great benefit for doctors includes the ability to expand services to other states that allow telemedicine. Don’t be confined by your geographic area. If a dedicated patient moves away, you can still service them.  Telemedicine is also easy to market especially to the tech-savvy prospects who look forward to seeing medicine update. Just be sure to form a strong marketing strategy.

3. Group Practice

Teams are always stronger than an individual. This rings true for physicians, too. A group practice has the financial strength to weather lean times and overcome adversity. They also offer patients more options and greater convenience.  In a single-specialty group, several doctors are typically dedicated to one medical specialty. This can be anything from primary care to orthopedic care or internal medicine.  A single-specialty group offers the physicians a better quality of life and enables them to be more refreshed. It can also reduce the concerns about a doctor taking a vacation and having to close the office for a period of time.  Multi-specialty group practices are made up of different doctors from different specialties. The physicians pool their resources together primarily through sharing office space and administrative support.  The scheduling, billing, and filing are handled by one staff for all the doctors. Some multi-specialty group practices have several doctors within each specialty.  While several private practices have to continue to pay their support staff full salaries during tough times (or risk losing them to other jobs) group practices are splitting the costs of their support staff.

4. Traditional Private Practice

Some doctors choose to start a private practice because of familiarity and stability. Your patients will enjoy the personal touch and attention you can give them resulting in better care and happier clients.  Additionally, you don’t have to pay hospital or facility fees as a private practice outside of a network. Pass these savings to your customers and expect a constant flow of patients.  The health of the doctor can also benefit from private practice.  You can set the hours to be a traditional nine-to-five schedule that gets you home at a reasonable hour every night. There won’t be any after-hours calls or weekend worries.  A doctor can also limit the number of patients that are seen in their practice. When you hit your capacity, let the community and people know you no longer are accepting patients.

5. Locum Tenen or Short-Term Substitute

The fifth option isn’t a common one, but it is necessary. Hospitals, group practices, and clinics may lose a doctor for a short absence. Just because the doctor is gone doesn’t mean care should stop.  Short-term substitutes, or locum tenens, fill the void a practice needs. In most cases, it’s less than a year but longer than a month.  This is a perfect situation for someone who likes to travel or doesn’t want to commit to an area yet. If you plan to fill in out of state, make sure you complete any certifications or requirements.  Because a locum is only filling in for a few months, the pay can be substantially higher. The prospect of doing this as a career isn’t usually the path physicians take; however, it might be what works for you.  While being a locum tenens isn’t an actual practice, it is a great way for a doctor to see how different organizations or practices work before choosing one.  

Knowing the Different Types of Medical Practices

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a medical student, knowing the different types of medical practices can help you pick one suitable for your lifestyle and goals.

The future of medicine looks strong with numerous possibilities and opportunities for every medical professional.

Concierge Medicine Transition and Startup

If you are one of the many physicians today who is frustrated with the direction of your medical practice, tired of seeing more patients yet making less money, and working evenings or weekends just to keep up, you are not alone. More and more physicians are turning to concierge or “direct pay practice” to regain control of their practice as well as the ability to improve the quality of patient care.  According to the Concierge Medicine Research Collective, concierge medical practices have increased tenfold over the past four years. Additionally, physicians and specialists who have converted to a direct pay or concierge practice report that they feel a stronger sense of control over their lives, income, and how they deliver patient care.  Our concierge team works with physicians at any stage of the decision-making process. In the early stages, we assist in the assessment, market feasibility, planning, patient conversion, and more. You can rest assured that you’ve considered all the benefits of transitioning and remain confident that you’ll avoid any pitfalls.

Reliable Credentialing Service You Can Trust

We Understand That Your Revenue Depends Upon Our Response Time

Whether you’re starting a new practice or expanding a solo or multi-specialty medical practice, our team moves quickly to get you credentialed with the necessary payers. We also do enrollment for providers of community hospitals and work with a wide variety of specialties including dental practices. We keep you in the communication loop without overwhelming you with details

Financial Success Starts with Revenue Cycle Analysis

The success of your practice rests largely upon the effective management of your revenue cycle. A comprehensive review of your current billing processes, policies, and procedures can help you discover where your practice is missing revenue opportunities.  DoctorsManagement offers a comprehensive review of your revenue cycle process, which includes:

Billing and Accounts Receivable Evaluation

We help identify underlying causes of extended payment cycles by evaluating key billing and collections indicators and benchmarks as compared to better performing practices. Also helps ensure all available revenue is accounted for, this evaluation will include a review of the current chargemaster, timeliness of charge capture, codes utilized, remittance files, and adjustments and write-offs.

Preventive Measures

Reviewing the patient registration processes helps to ensure that accurate and complete information is being captured up-front, during scheduling and registration. We also identify if eligibility and insurance verification and financial counseling is structured so as to identify accounts that may require financial clearance

Medical Practice Valuation

There are a number of occasions that require the formal valuation of your medical or dental practice, such as death, divorce, sale of all or part of the practice, disability, etc. There are also a number of occasions in which it is either advisable or desirable to know just what your practice is worth.

Our medical and dental practice valuation process is the same regardless of the triggering event. We look at the value of the practice from a number of perspectives and calculate the value in several ways, each of which is valid and according to normal accounting standards. We then take a blend of these various methodologies to determine our final dental and medical practice valuation.

The Value of a Proactive Valuation

It’s recommended that every practice have an initial valuation with periodic updates… 

If the medical practice valuation has been performed and kept up to date, then all parties are able to plan and anticipate exactly what would be the financial consequence of any triggering event.  Valuations performed after an event such as death or disability become personal. Practice valuations performed before the triggering event are evaluated logically because the parties do not know, at that time, whether they would be in the position of buyer or seller and can therefore look at the value more objectively.  In the event of the death of a solo physician, we believe the updated practice valuation, coupled with a document designating Doctors Management (or whoever has specific knowledge of the practice and its value) should be contacted immediately to process transferring (selling) the practice before its value drops significantly. If we are familiar with the practice and have already done the medical or dental practice valuation, we can immediately put it on the market and get the top possible price. The longer a practice sits without a physician or even with a locum tenens provider, the lower its value.

Sell, Merge, or Transition Your Medical Practice

Solo physicians have one of two primary mindsets when it comes to thinking about an exit strategy for their practice. Either they have not planned properly for their retirement, thinking that they would be able to sell their practice and live on the proceeds, or they think the practice has little if any resale value, and consequently they choose to phase out of practice by gradually reducing the number of days they see patients until there truly is nothing left to sell.  Finding the right medical and dental practice appraisal, transition, sales, or merger person (or group) and negotiating the best terms and conditions is something that should be done by a professional firm that specializes in dental and medical transitions, mergers, appraisals, and sales. While attorneys and accountants know how to crunch the numbers and create documents, they don’t necessarily understand how to operate a medical or dental practice – especially during a merger, appraisal, transition, or sales phase.

Receive the Right Price for Your Practice

If planned properly, virtually every practice has value and can be sold to another party.  DoctorsManagement can help you get a fair price and a functional transition, appraisal, merger, or sale of your medical or dental practice. We can help you determine the right price for the practice (click here for dental or medical Practice Valuation services). During this process, we may be able to identify improvements that could be made to your practice which would make it more valuable for your sale, appraisal, merger, or transition. There have even been occasions in which we have “fixed” the practice to the point that the physician decided to stay and not sell at that time. Dental or medical practice appraisals, mergers, transitions, and sales are not just for retiring physicians. It may be that you want to continue to practice medicine but in another part of the country or you may even be going overseas, etc. The medical and dental practice transition, appraisals, mergers, and the sales process is much the same, whatever the reason for the sale.  We can discuss with you several options for engaging DoctorsManagement to represent you in this medical or dental practice transition, sale, appraisal, or merger. The process almost always begins with a practice (e)valuation. We want to know what the practice is worth and what can be easily done to make it even better during the dental or medical practice merger, appraisal, sale, or transition. Much as a realtor would tell you to paint a room in your house or clean out the basement, we can tell you what needs to be done in your practice to help attract the best potential buyer.  Now that the dental or medical practice is ready for sale, appraisal, transition, or merger, and we know its value, we can determine how you want to work with DoctorsManagement in the medical or dental practice sales, transition, appraisal, or merger process. We can represent you for a fixed fee, for a percentage of the selling price, or a combination of the two. The dental or medical practice merger, sale, appraisal, or transition method you select will determine how expenses such as advertising and site visit costs will be handled. Since this varies on a practice-by-practice basis, we will need to discuss this medical or dental practice merger, sale, appraisal, or transition with you individually.

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