It takes an amazing amount of determination and resilience to become a consultant surgeon. Years of study, sacrifice and long, long nights.
Finally you make it. Then one day decide to start a private practice i.e. a business.
The issue however is that such determination can lead some to think they know how to manage a business.
Due in no small part to their determination and resilience, their ego gets in the way.
That can be a problem when an issue comes up they do not know the answer to.
And that happens to me. Just as it does to everyone else from time to time.
So what do I do?
Ego
I put my ego to one side and find someone to ask who DOES know how to deal with the issue.
It is a huge mistake to carry too much ego into a private practice and become afraid to ask because it’s perceived as a weakness. That’s utter nonsense.
In fact quite the reverse.
Recently, MHM was approached by a consultant who displayed all the signs of an ego getting in the way of running a practice.
Rather than ask how medical billing should be done correctly, he insisted it was undertaken in the way HE thought it should be done.
Save there was and is no way, invoices could be processed that way.
It mattered little that the consultant thought it was a “stupid” way to process his invoices.
What mattered was it was the way the insurance companies insisted on.
The reality was the consultant concerned didn’t know how to process an invoice. That in itself is not a problem.
The real problem was that he wasn’t prepared to ask someone else how to do it correctly.
His view was that he hadn’t spent years at med school and put in a huge amount of effort only to be told he didn’t understand how to do such a simple job as raising an invoice.
Cash Flow
No wonder his cash flow was so poor.
His achievements in becoming consultant surgeon were amazing. He had literally come from nothing and pulled himself up by his bootlaces.
Sadly however – and to his financial cost – he hadn’t left his ego at the door when he started his business.
Asking for help doesn’t show a weakness.
Actually being prepared to ask for help is a strength.
pete@medicalhealthcaremanagement.co.uk