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If you want to build a successful medical practice, there are dozens of moving parts that you must manage in tandem with one another. Learning how to focus your energy on the right tasks and make strategic investments in the areas that matter most will yield the best results.
5 Tips for a Better Medical Practice
The idea of building a “better” medical practice is unique to you. For some, better means bigger. For others, it’s about creating a more intimate experience with a few select patients. Then there are some physicians who want to practice a specific type of medicine that brings them joy and fulfillment. It’s up to you to determine what your version of better is. But regardless of what that looks like, the following tips should help you move closer to your goal.
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1. Leverage Financing to Grow Your Medical Practice
It’s really difficult, if not impossible, to grow a medical practice to any significant size without relying on financing. The key is to be smart with how you finance, which products you use, and the types of lenders you work with.
When seeking out physician loans, build a relationship with a company that can service all of your lending and insurance needs under one roof. This gives you the convenience and flexibility you need to scale at will (rather than having to stop and vet new options every time you need to inject a little cash into the practice).
2. Pay for Talent
There are plenty of ways to save money, but staffing is not one of them. In fact, we’d recommend paying top-dollar to staff your medical practice. Then invest significant resources into keeping them happy and engaged.
Stop thinking about staff only in terms of salary and benefits. Instead, consider the full cost of turnover. Hiring a new employee costs significantly more than the number on their paycheck. (One study suggests the price is $15,000 per employee.) So by retaining your talent, you eliminate this extra spend and establish a sense of continuity among your team.
3. Identify Your USP and Run with It
Every medical practice needs to understand what it brings to the table, in terms of how it serves clients in a unique and compelling way. Much like any business, you should take the time to develop what’s known as a Unique Sales Proposition (USP). This is a simple sentence or phrase that explains the unique value that you provide in the marketplace.
Once you have clarified your USP, use it as the backbone of your marketing, branding, and advertising. This is the reason that patients choose you over the many other options that exist within their networks.
4. Create a Strong Referral Network
If you want to generate new patients at scale without having to spend a ton of time and energy on marketing, advertising, and lead generation, you’ll want to build a strong referral network that supports your mission to serve very specific patients.
Most referral networks will include physicians and other healthcare providers, though it’s possible that you could also include insurance companies in this mix. Whatever the case may be, consistent networking is a must!
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5. Use Tech the Right Way
It’s impossible to build a thriving medical practice in today’s business landscape without having the right tech pieces in place. But when adopting technology, make sure to emphasize interoperability.
“In health care, [interoperability] means being able to share electronic information across the healthcare continuum to improve efficiencies and deliver better outcomes and patient care,” says Jana Macon, healthcare software insider. “The ideal solution is cloud-based and will allow the provider to receive referrals electronically. This streamlines the referral process for both the referral source and the provider, reducing human error and eliminating paperwork.”
Technology should simplify, not confuse. If an application or software adds more friction than it solves, it’s not a good fit for your practice. Be discerning in this area.
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Take Your Medical Practice to New Heights
Anyone who tells you that you must follow a specific formula to build a thriving practice is either misinformed or disingenuous. The truth is there are dozens of ways to grow your practice, most of which are highly predicated on your specific underlying mission. Once you get clear on what you’re striving for, everything else falls into place.