How to choose between clinic offers or starting your own practice.

If you are thinking of starting a new practice, whether you’re a recent grad with no patients or an existing health professional thinking about making a change, here are some important factors to consider when deciding between a new clinic or starting your own practice!

First, dig deep to understand what drives your passion!

Reflecting on this question can reveal important values and needs to consider about your future work environment. This can also help you identify if you should start your own practice or work with an existing clinic. For example, say you want to focus on mamas and babies. You’ll likely want to be involved with a multidisciplinary or women’s health clinic where you can trust the other practitioners with your patients.

Working at a clinic

When looking at a clinic, make sure to ask these key questions:

What are their values, and do they align with yours?
What are their passions or specialties, and will they help or hinder your future growth?
What are their target patients, and will you have to compete for those patients?
Is there room to grow, and what support is in place to help you grow?
How have other practitioners progressed at the clinic?
What is your practice style, and does it fit with the clinic practice?
Will you need to work at multiple clinics to grow the way you want? If so, are there other locations available to you, and will they be logistically challenging?
What are the historical practitioner turnover and reasons for leaving?
What value do you get for your % split or rent payment?
- Do they have a waitlist of patients you get access to, or will you be responsible for marketing yourself?
- Do they cover all your marketing expenses? Are they willing to spend time and resources to market you?
- Does the clinic have a strategic marketing plan including specific goals, action plans and necessary budget to accomplish these goals?
- What is their reputation with clients and practitioners? If possible, make sure to speak with referral sources and former patients to determine the community’s perception of the clinic.

Pros of choosing a clinic or employer:

Ability to take advantage of shared overhead expenses, such as rent
No fixed costs such as the purchase of equipment, which is generally expensive
A clinic with multiple disciplines can help attract more patients and avoid competition
Group practises and larger client bases are better able to manage risk
Low to zero start-up costs

Cons of choosing a clinic or employer:

Reduced autonomy
Personality clashes
Disagreements over assets needed to run your practice

Starting your own practice

If you choose to start your own practice without a clinic, just keep in mind that you lose access to some resources, existing brand awareness and reputation. Instead, you’ll have to develop your own brand awareness and reputation, which may take longer.

Starting your own clinic is a lot of work but completely rewarding!

Pros of starting your own clinic:

Complete freedom to set your own schedule
You’ll have a dedicated staff of your own
Ability to customize the care you provide patients (typically under certain restrictions and rules under a clinic)
Learning experience/crash course on everything business from marketing to human resources and contract negotiation

Cons of starting your own clinic:

High start-up costs (i.e. renovations, medical equipment, insurance)
The entire burden of running a practice rests on you, which includes finding a location, hiring staff, worrying about insurance coverage, equipment, overhead, and managing day-to-day operations.
Possibility of failure

The financial factors. How much money can you make?

We will be the first to say that money isn’t everything. Only you can determine what the most critical factors are in making your decision.

But of course, we all need to make money!

Take the time to build out a budget under a new clinic scenario. This should include things like expected start-up costs, patients from day 1, reasonable patient growth, and monthly expenses.

Working at a clinic on a split typically has no start-up costs and offers immediate access to patients; however, there may be a maximum number of patients you can take on based on room availability.
Starting your own practice will have larger start-up costs and you will be responsible for marketing, you’ll have complete freedom of your schedule and 100% of the sales instead of a % split.

RESOURCES:

Thinking about making a change with your practice? Most health professionals have financial goals, but without a budget, they are earning money and spending it without a plan and end up wondering where all the money they worked so hard to earn went.How can you expect to hit your financial goals, or stay accountable to them, if you aren’t doing proper planning on how to get there.

Financial empowerment shouldn’t be reserved for accountants!

Business Foundations: Budgeting covers everything you need to know about building a budget as a health professional so you can fully understand how you earn and spend money!