Medicine & Business

Many physicians have reached a time when they expected to take it easy, yet they find themselves working harder than ever. Others are concerned about a continued decline in their patient base. Here are a few suggestions to help you jumpstart your practice.

Patents covering business methods and models may in the end be the most valuable corporate asset. What many health care and medical providers are now learning is that this powerful piece of intellectual property protection is available to them as well.

Physician assistants and nurse practitioners, when properly trained and utilized, enable practices to provide a higher quality of services and allow the physician to treat more patients in a timely manner.

Physician billing departments generally have not kept up with changes in their operating procedures to accommodate the hurdles put up by insurance companies or the problems that arise internally.

If the complement of physicians is structured appropriately and the right combination of financial stability, physician leadership and management skills are present, an IPA can be an effective model for physicians and physician practices to better serve their patients and successfully work with the third-party payors in their community, and with vendors.

The credentialing process should be designed to aid an MCO in choosing competent providers and to ensure providers a fair application of the selection criteria. An MCO that exercises reasonable care in credentialing and monitoring its providers reduces its risk of malpractice liability.

A physician no longer desiring full time work with on call responsibilities may still benefit the practice. The economic arrangements to make things work fairly for the parties involved can be worked out if the parties are motivated to do so.

There are specific things specialists can do to successfully "survive" the transition from residency or fellowship to private practice.

New ancillary services are one approach to a product line practice expansion, presenting operational and economic benefits.

After working as an employee for two to three years, the young doctor will often become a partner while buying in to the practice over another three to five years. With some practices, the partners own the real estate and the issue arises as to whether the young doctor will become an owner of the real estate as well, and if so, how.