If you’re thinking about starting a medical practice, you may not know where to begin. How much will everything cost? How can you find new patients? What else needs to be done to get started with your business? Read on to learn some tips for starting a medical practice.
Save Money for Startup Costs
You’ll need to save money or find some other way to pay for startup costs. The amount will likely depend on numerous factors including your location, the type of equipment you need and so on.
However, you may not need to come up with as much money as you may have anticipated. In a recent article on KevinMD.com, a doctor explained how he started a family medicine practice for $11,000. Among the tactics that helped him keep costs down, he purchased a used refrigerator, had friends paint for minimal compensation and got some things for free. While it may or may not be realistic to start a medical practice for that amount in your situation, you can still probably trim startup costs by using similar tactics.
Purchase Insurance
Purchase the appropriate forms of insurance. You may need to purchase insurance to cover items such as business liability, internal theft, malpractice, personal property, workers’ compensation and others. Also, according to Medical Economics, experts advise offering employees health insurance, so be sure to consider doing so if and when you hire people to work at your practice. Consider purchasing these and any other types of insurance that may be necessary to operate your business successfully.
Get New Patients
You aren’t considering opening a medical practice just to say that you did so. Of course, you’ll want to treat patients, which will help you pay the bills.
Some ways to get new patients include becoming active in your community and conducting seminars. Other methods to inform potential customers about your business include providing answers to medical questions on social media, website advertising and by asking for referrals. There are likely plenty of affordable ways to advertise in your area and you probably won’t have a full load of patients in the early days of your practice, so you should have some time and hopefully enough money to increase awareness of your business.
Hire Employees
Even if you can do the job on your own in the early days, you will probably need assistance once your practice develops a significant number of patients. If this occurs, according to Medical Economics, positions you may wish to fill include a receptionist as well as those involving billing, records and possibly others. Options for finding workers include hiring those who have worked with you before who may be looking for work as well as placing job ads and via word of mouth. So consider reaching out to members of your network to notify them that you’re hiring as they may know individuals who may be interested in the job.
Conclusion
These tips should help you get started if you choose to start a medical practice. For more information about a given aspect of starting such a business and for specific advice, contact the appropriate organizations or professionals.
