In Part 1 of this series I began discussing some of the myths that occur in private practice. This article continues with another common myth that encumbers owners.

Do you know the factors that put the majority of start-up private practices on the rocks, and what things you must know to navigate to success? Even with a desire to succeed, you’re still doing something, frankly, you know nothing about.

Despite many years of clinical or professional training, private practice owners receive virtually no practical education in the way of starting or running a practice. This “other half of your education” in private practice involves specific marketing, management and financial control skills indispensable to your ultimate success.

Most start-ups never reach for the help they need. They are trapped by fixed ideas, myths, speculations or have accepted well-meaning advice that occurs from colleague-to-colleague or even during formal training. These are assumptions of how something should work or be, but not how they actually are. You need to be able to spot these as traps or they will surely undermine your understanding of this subject.

Owners must pay heed to some common fixed ideas as they relate to the Keys to Practice Success. In this article we will take up a “myth” of Organization and Practice Management followed by the truth of the matter, and then immediate “first aid” advice.

MYTH #2: ORGANIZATION AND PRACTICE MANAGEMENT:

“I’m not a manager, I’m a clinician. I’ll just hire someone to manage my practice.”

The Hard Fact: You are your own boss. You wear both clinic and management “hats” now.

Like it or not, if you own the practice, you are the manager. You just manage it well or manage it poorly or you dump your hat.

For example, it is a fatal mistake for a practice owner who is mystified or confused by one of the functions under him, to attempt to handle that function by hiring an “expert” and turning control of the area the owner does not fully understand to someone else.

The most successful practice owners in the U.S. can handle any and every marketing, clinical, management or financial job in their business. Staff know and respect this and a competent owner can’t have the wool pulled over his eyes.

When I see a clinic that just cannot grow beyond family-style management, I recognize that they are missing a fundamental law of building an organization. They do not know the difference between Phase I - beginning a new activity and Phase II - running an established activity. They never acquired the know-how to transition from one phase to the next, so stay stuck in Phase I forever.

Shackled with the fixed idea of “I’m not a manager”, the clinician who became an entrepreneur long enough to start a business doesn’t usually understand that there is a method to management and marketing, let alone how to train his staff in it! Recognizing and applying Phase I and Phase II are key in overcoming that.

Strategies for Organization and Management:
1. Make a long-term commitment to yourself and your practice to become as knowledgeable in the skills of management as you are as a clinician. Then ensure, year-by-year, that you receive formal instruction as a manager as well as continuing education in your clinical skills.

2. Draft an organizing board* for your clinic. Place stable, competent, trained people in executive positions.

3. Put your policies* in writing. Insist that each team member reads, understands and follows them. Key areas of policy in a private practice would specifically deal with patient care, how staff should express problems and solutions within the practice, a system for dealing with staff reviews and discipline. These points would be in addition to any standard policies required for insurance and privacy.

4. If you want to get out of Phase I on a post, it will be essential for you to set up a training program for staff. This would include formal instruction in the skills of their position, attendance at conventions and seminars, as well as in-servicing* on your particular policies and procedures. It is not “overkill” to have an in-service every week. The ideal arrangement is to have a dedicated, in-house space where you can oversee and assure on-going education.

A prospective client who was resisting an investment into training for her key executives asked, “But what if I train them and they leave?” So I asked, “What if you don’t train them and they stay?” She had no answer because that is what she’d been doing for years. Incidentally, it was that fixed idea which sat at the bottom of her 12 hour days, stress and practice chaos.



Glossary of special definitions--

In-servicing: Taking place or continuing while one is a full-time employee: in-service training workshops.

Organizing Board: A board that shows what functions are done in the org, the order they are done in, and who is responsible for getting them done.

Policy: Operational rules or guides for the organization which are not subject to change.

Health Products on our marketplace

Mr. Schmiedeke is the nation’s foremost authority in the development of professional referrals, private practice management and marketing. As co-founder of Survival Strategies, Inc. (http://www.survivalstrategies.com), a consulting company for private practice health care professionals, located in Burbank, CA, he has helped more than 4,000 clients achieve real independence, flexibility, and the freedom to make their own decisions—the very qualities that attracted them to the business in the first place. He is the author of the book “Keys To Private Practice Success—Marketing and Management Skills They Didn’t Teach You In College”, http://www.survivalstrategies.com/email/kpps_book_promo.htm, the “Owner’s Manual” for private practice owners and other training materials.