Making Solo Practice Work on a Practical Level: One Physician's Experience

Almost no physicians are natural businesspeople. And if you’re in a practice and don’t understand how your business works, you’ll lose money. So sit down and listen to the CPA when he visits you, and listen to the office manager when she talks to you. Otherwise, you’ll lose money and time and enjoy your practice less. And physicians who don’t do this right, the amount of money they take home is so much less than what they’d expected, and so they lose satisfaction, and don’t enjoy their interactions with their patients as much. And when I went into solo practice, I wasn’t focused on how much money I wanted to make; I figured out how much money I needed in order to support my basic lifestyle, and then plugged in my opportunities. And there’s a cycle of building volume but then building overhead, and when overhead becomes 70 percent, you’re not going to enjoy your practice. So how do you get to that happy medium? If I add more patients, I’d need to add staff, and I don’t want to do that. This situation works perfectly for me right now.