I find it really interesting when I ask that question of consultants considering starting a private practice.
The answer should be: make money!
Nonetheless on many occasions I hear:
the practice should be seeing 20 patients a week
or
I want to grow a successful private practice.
Both of these are fine ambitions when starting out in private practice.
Yet neither actually puts into perspective why a consultant wants to start a private practice. Considering the enormous effort required to start up, grow a private practice and keep growing it, they are dangerously insufficient.
The real aim of any consultant wishing to enter the word of private medicine should be to make money.
Otherwise why bother?
That does not imply for a split second, making money is more important than a patient’s health. I’m pleased to say I do not have one single consultant who puts money before a patients health.
But I do have a considerable number of clients who put making money very high of the list of practice aims.
And that’s how it should be.
However:
Making money is NOT enough
In addition, there is a better answer to the question of why start.
That answer is to make a specified amount of money. For arguments sake, lets say £100,000 in the first year.
It doesn’t really matter what the actual number is. It could be £100,000 or £200,000 or £1,000,000 for all I care.
What the number will do is allow the new consultant to establish a target to aim at. More importantly still, it will enable him or her to measure against the target.
And that is absolutely vital if you are going to run a private practice.
After all, if you’ve got nothing to aim at, how will you know if and when you’ve hit the target?
pete@medicalhealthcaremangement.co.uk