HCA 620 What advice would you give to a recent medical school graduate who is seeking to open a medical practice

HCA 620 What advice would you give to a recent medical school graduate who is seeking to open a medical practice

The article by Guglielmo, “How to Write a Business Plan” provides the guidelines on how to provide an appropriate plan of action. The focus is more on the practicality of the business plan rather than mere reflections. The emphasis is on detailed planning as when you put a plan in action the processes may greatly affect the success of the plan. He points out the key contents to be involved when making a business plan should be executive summary, business description, target market, development and production, sales and marketing, management, support services (support team), financials, risks assessment, cash flow statement, balance sheet and income statement.

Opening a medical practice is a complicated and challenging process and to ensure success, it’s critical to have a clear and detailed business plan. Between putting together a team, finding financing and choosing equipment, moving parts that depend on other organizations, such as completing insurance credentialing and securing a tax ID are hands on tasks. Having a clear business plan will provide an estimated timeline and clarity of the process. It’s much better to find out after committing your ideas to paper that you may have problems to overcome than finding out somewhere down the road, after you’ve expended a lot of time and money. “The business planning process opens your eyes to these potential problems, thereby increasing your chances of success”(Guglielmo, 2017).

In addition to securing a capital to help cover startup costs, having a clear concise management plan, marketing is one the key aspect that can make or break a practice as often practitioners fail to bring in enough patients and the business is not bringing enough return to stay afloat. Fewer doctors are starting one- and two-person practices, largely because it’s expensive to start up, they prefer being affiliated to a larger group however, patient census can be maintained by having a clear marketing plan.

References

Guglielmo, W. J. (2017). How to write a business plan. Medical Economics, 84(17), 42-46. Retrieved from: https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1347599161&Fmt=4&clientId=48377&RQT=309&VName=PQD