How to thrive as a private practice owner without foundational support
Healthcare paradigms change continuously, and the dynamics of the private practice today are a lot different than they used to be. Tightening regulatory measures, insurance constraints, and an overall societal emphasis on consumerism and cost containment have caused many providers to find comfort in large care organizations.
But despite this, many are stepping out from under the overhead cover of large organizations and making the transition toward private practice. Doing so may seem scary, as independence can carry with it feelings of isolation, but it doesn’t have to. Before making the move to private practice ownership, some basic considerations should be made as well as preparations to steer off the fear of isolation.
The Trade-Off
Make no mistake—running a private practice is a lot of hard work. Providers coming from larger organizations will most likely find that their roles have expanded significantly. Day-to-day administrative issues, such as billing or scheduling, no longer have entire departments ready to address them, and the responsibility befalls the provider or a comparatively limited office staff.
For more considerations on whether to start your own practice, try our blog post: 5 Considerations for Starting your own Practice.
But with the struggles of practice ownership come some real benefits as well. In respect to setting, practice owners are limited only by their imaginations. They have control over location, layout, messaging, and decoration; the latter of which might not seem terribly important, but in the age of consumerism-driven health care, the coziness of the practice is something to which patients respond strongly—which is particularly true in behavioral health. This in turn contributes to a stronger provider-patient relationship. A return to the traditional care partnership with patients without a layer of bureaucracy in between is how genuine satisfaction in medicine is derived, many providers would argue.
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Filling The Labor Gaps
The key to off-setting the isolation of a private practice is to leverage technology advantageously. EHR software carries a lot of the cognitive burden of running a practice through automation. Through software, practice owners can reconcile several interdependent processes, such as intakes, scheduling, and billing, ensuring timely workflow progress while minimizing administrative error. In summary, providers maximize task accomplishment with comparatively fewer resources.
Running a private practice is not for everyone, but providers that are tempted to do so should never feel as if it’s logistically impossible. Becoming an independent provider without the full backing of a large care organization can be done with the right EHR solution.
