So, You Want To Start Your Own Clinic

So, you want to start your own clinic? You have spent years honing your clinical skills and expertise. Your patients love you and respect the quality of care you provide. Now you’re at a crossroads, seeking more independence to make decisions that affect your patients and that could give you more control over your practice. Or maybe you are just toying with the idea for whatever reason. This is an exciting time! But there are questions and obstacles facing you. What insurance companies do I take? Should I take Medicare? How am I going to turn my satisfied patients into more patients? Where will the referrals come from? What is Excel? Do I incorporate or work as a sole proprietor? This is a time when it’s easy to get carried away with the excitement. You may ignore all the questions. It’s easy to get the cart before the horse.

Create a written plan. Before you run out and get an attorney and incorporate and before you sign a lease, you need to create a written plan. It is vitally important that you create a written business plan. Your plan and timeline for set-up/start up will precede the actual start of your business. So, you'll actually have 2 plans, your start up plan and your business plan. The start up plan will be all the things you need to do before you open your doors for business. The business plan will be your plan for operations for the first 1-5 years.

Fail to plan, plan to fail. It is as simple as that. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not likely to get there. And if you think you know where you’re going, but have never been there and leave without a map, you’re not likely to get there in any reasonable time and in the condition you left in. An idea is not enough. Write it down. Your plans should be written and changeable. As you proceed, you will learn new things to add to your plan and you will need to modify, edit and delete portions.

Your start up plan should include all the things you need to do in order to open your doors. In most places you’ll need to obtain a business license. You will want to have a lease, a bank account, billing software or a service, equipment, business cards, stationery and liability insurance to name a few. You will also want to sequence these items with an end goal in mind of opening your doors for business on a specific day.

There are many resources available for writing business plans. There are multiple software packages, books and websites. The critical pieces of your business plan are your:
Vision: Why, Where and What do you want your clinic/business to be?

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Sturdy McKee is CEO of san francisco sport and spine physical therapy and JDSM Medical Management. He can be found at www.JDSMManagement.com.