Richard AgamaOpening a medical practice is a significant undertaking. If you’re a medical health professional seeking to have a bit more freedom than you’d have in the hospital setting, you might be considering opening your own medical practice. Read on for what to know before opening a medical practice.
Planning the Business
A successful business must begin with a successful business plan. This can be one of the most exhausting yet fulfilling parts of starting your medical practice. Use this time to establish goals, objectives, mission statements, and values. You’ll begin your budget planning and financial modeling in this phase.
Office Location and Setup
Before you begin scouting a location, you’ll need to know how much space you need, the ideal place for current patients you may have, and the budget.
Once you’ve secured a location, you’ll work on furnishing the office and even settle on your hours of operation.
Equipment and Technology
You’ll have to decide which systems and software to use for your electronic health records (EHR), practice management (PM), medical billing, patient experience and intake, communications, specialty-specific medical equipment, and office supplies. When deciding, consider how large you’d like your practice to grow and if the system can manage.
Insurance
Insurance is essential for every medical practice. It’s important to understand the different types and the correct amount you should get. You’ll need to know which mandatory and optional types are crucial to having the right amount. A few types you may need are:
- Malpractice
- Error and Omissions
- Workers Compensation
- Liability
- Umbrella Policy
- Business Interruption
- Employee Practices Liability
- Health, Life, and Disability
- Employee Fidelity Bond
You may not be familiar with some of these, like error and omissions. That’s why it’s a great idea to understand them beforehand.
Medical Credentials and Hospital Privileges
There’s a wide variety of requirements you’ll need to meet before you can practice legally. Your first step will be applying for a National Provider Identifier (NPI) number and state medical licenses. After you have these, you can begin the credentialing process. This process is for authenticating your credentials.
Once you have this established, you’ll be allowed to accept insurance. You’ll determine which insurance companies will work for you and negotiate contracts.
Hospital privileges allow you to treat patients in a hospital setting. You’ll need to apply for those as well.
Marketing and Hiring
You’ll need to take time to market your practice and hire the right staff for the office. Hiring the correct staff is critical for your business to succeed. There is a learning curve for a new business too. The team will have to adapt to issues and understand how they all work, but eventually, everyone will get into a flow.
With marketing, you’ll have to create a logo and think about having a social media presence. You’ll figure out which marketing is best to see your business grow and thrive.
Opening any business isn’t easy, but it has the potential to be rewarding. Refer back if you need help or ideas when opening your own medical practice.
