All MHM clients are very dedicated individuals.
Having spent approximately 15 years of training and finally becoming medical professionals, they go on to work incredibly long hours.
They do so because they actually love what they do.
All at some point all have taken the decision to start a private practice.
It’s unlikely they would be my clients otherwise if you think about it.
They start a private practice because they wish to make more money doing what they love anyway.
To have any other objective is either (a) silly or (b) engaging in self-delusion.
There is no shame in admitting you start a private practice to make money.
As I’ve blogged many times previously a private practice must be run as a business – a business with more than a social conscience but nonetheless still a business.
Yet, sadly, many consultant surgeons make the mistake of believing their practice will grow and make them rich if they continue doing what they love to do.
Sadly that is not true for doing what you love seldom leads to long-term financial success.
And that means you must measure the performance of your practice.
This is the point at which the private consultant surgeon realizes he/she must understand financial analysis i.e. the numbers.
It’s not all that complicated. Supplying data to your accountant every year isn’t the same as understanding the numbers behind your practice though.
Let me give you a real example.
I was contacted recently by an established medical professional. He claimed to be working all the hours God sends but said he was always broke.
It didn’t take long to work out why.
The first good indicator was a complete lack of financial analysis other than a tax report a little over one-year-old. No debtors ledger was available.
He didn’t have any real idea how much he was owed.
Indeed it transpired both patients and insurance companies were only invoiced monthly.
So I took the last six months worth of clinic lists and checked how many had or had not been invoiced.
Quite a lot had not.
I did the same with surgical episodes with the same result. This was followed by an investigation into how much had not been paid even if invoiced.
But it was also a case of adding up the total revenue generated for each month, calculating the total costs (room rental, monthly indemnity insurance premiums, secretarial costs, etc). Then one was subtracted from the other.
Even if any type of provision was made for tax liability was ignored the results were not encouraging.
The really bad news is that the consultant looked very blank when I asked which percentage of patients were referred to him from which source.
It was clear this particular consultant had no real idea of how his practice or business was performing.
And that was and still is a very dangerous place for any business to be.
pete@medicalhealthcaremanagement.co.uk
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