Has anyone actually ever paid the fee to do this with meaningful bumps in referrals and production? I keep getting approached by these state-based magazines where I am, pay $1,000, and be featured in "this" or "that." Anyone have real-world experience with this? I'm considering it, but right now $1k seems like a lot...
Do they care about “award winning”? Publications? Teaching?
Off hand a big one for us is MyChart. Not just ability to see labs online, but mychart specifically. Obviously an issue because we run on eCW and they come in assuming we have MyChart like their last PCP. Nothing against Epic, but we don’t have Epic cashflow as an FQHC.
Happy Fourth of July to all of my fellow private practice physicians.
I've been thinking a lot today about where I came from.
My grandparents immigrated from Germany. My grandfather's brother fought in the Battle of the Bulge and later served during the Nuremberg Trials. My grandfather started as an apprentice, became a master plumber and electrician, and eventually built his own business.
When I was younger, I used to ask him, "Why didn't you ever teach us German?"
His answer was always short and sweet: "We're Americans now."
It took me years to understand what he meant.
It wasn't that he disliked the German language or wanted to erase his heritage. It was a different era. He had lived through the aftermath of Hitler's rise and understood how important it was to embrace the country that had given his family a new opportunity.
The town my family came from has more cows than people. Yet somehow, a few generations later, I have the privilege of owning a growing medical practice, employing an incredible team, caring for damn near 40 thousand patients, and helping other physicians build practices of their own.
That kind of upward mobility isn't guaranteed anywhere. It certainly wasn't guaranteed for my family.
America isn't perfect. No country is. But I'm grateful to live in a place where hard work, calculated risk, and entrepreneurship can completely change the trajectory of a family in just a generation or two.
As physicians, we're fortunate to have the opportunity to build something that serves our communities, creates jobs, and leaves a legacy beyond ourselves.
So today, I'm thankful, for my family, for the sacrifices that came before me, for the freedom to build, and for this community of independent physicians who refuse to stop believing in private practice. I'm thankful for you guys and gals. I also learn a lot from you guys.
Wishing all of my brothers and sisters in medicine a safe, meaningful, and Happy Fourth of July for this special year.
🇺🇸
Good morning,
I am seeking advice from my entrepreneurial minded colleagues. I am PGY-10 FM trained, ER career doc. A few years ago I started an urgent care that has done very well. We now have 2 locations and our third opens in a couple of months. We have also started a primary care clinic and have two providers that are nearly full, and are hiring our third.
My goal here is to create a truly great medical group. PCP and UC go hand in hand and it's working well, and we all work hard to give the best possible care for our patients.
I'm always thinking about what we can do next. We moved PCP from a space built out attached to our urgent care to a larger clinic space, so now that space is empty. The space is actually perfect size to add a CT and US machine. This would cost me about $80,000 in electrical upgrades and remodeling. I already have a radiologist to read all imaging. CT, auto-injector, and US would be about $210,000 (refurb) - and all would be financed via lease. This is attached to an urgent care so there is always a provider there in case of IV contrast reaction.
Our break even for imaging would be about (on average) 3.5 CTs and 3.5 USs per day.
My thoughts are that between 3 UCs and 3 PCPs we generate more than enough imaging to break even, and locally there are imaging centers but no one actually advertises, etc, and we can get enough other business to actually do well.
But this also is a lot of risk, its $80,000 in upgrade/remodeling that I could lose, expensive equipment that I could turn around and sell if needed, and then the whole pain of finding a RIS, billing, etc, and a whole new RCM to worry about.
The alternative is that we can simply not do imaging, and I can focus on building urgent cares.
My ultimate goal is to sell and quit working. But sometimes I feel in my heart I want to grow this into a truly excellent medical group and really make a difference in our area. Meaning I would love to still be in charge of this in 40 years. But I also don't know how sustainable medicine is in the long run, with our never improving reimbursements from insurance but everyone wanting a pay raise/cost of everything going up.
I wrote a lab order and of course I included a valid ICD-10 diagnostic code. They called me and asked for the code again. I said, well it’s right on the order but sure I’ll give it to you again. She said okay thank you. Then they faxed me and asked for the code again. I faxed back again explaining it’s right on the order but here it is again. Then they called again and asked for the code again. I told them I’ve answered this several times and asked them to not contact me further about it.
Fast forward to today and they have sent me over 200 faxes asking for this SAME code for the SAME patient for that SAME lab order.
Currently own a practice where my only employees are myself and my spouse. We have a self-employeed 401k.
Thinking of taking on some employees.
The law typically requires that we - scrap the SE 401k and start a regular small business 401k for everyone ...
but I'm wondering if it is better to start a second corp that would hire the employees and then subcontract their services to the clinic... and create a separate 401k plan for the employees of that corp. That would allow us to keep our SE 401k and maximize our contributions.
Anyone have any insights on this unusual question?
small/solo practice owners. How do u setup pre-tax benefits like cme or educational assistance etc? Also, is there any way to setup “student loan assistance “ pretax money to cover student loans? Ive a giant student loans so every $ is precious.
Thanks in advance.
I run a small healthcare communications team, and I keep struggling with how to structure our medical education content so it works for such different audiences. When I write for clinicians, patients tell me it's too dense and hard to follow, but when I simplify it, some professionals feel it loses important nuance. I also worry about keeping everything accurate and properly cited without making the content feel like a dry textbook. Ideally I want a format or process that lets me tailor tone and complexity depending on who's reading it, without duplicating all my effort.
Hey all
Looking for guidance on virtual assistants. I’ve seen a ton of companies doing this but am struggling to figure out who is worth working with and who to avoid. Ideally have someone outside the US for lower cost but open to opinions if anyone has tried those and had a bad experience. I am looking for basic front desk services including scheduling and routing tasks.
Any specific companies or price points would be greatly appreciated.
thanks in advance!
Hi everyone. Tech is definitely not my thing and I need someone who can help get everything set up properly, install whatever needs to be installed, handle computers, printers, etc. For those of you who own practices, do you have an IT company you'd actually recommend? Looking for someone reliable and reasonably priced. I'd much rather hear real word of mouth recommendations from fellow doctors than just pick someone off google lol
I'm curious what you all doing in terms of booking numbers.
We book 22 per day, usually have 2 no shows for more established panels so the doc usually sees 20 per day.
How many do you book per day and how many do your people see per day?
Competitor books at least 25 per day for us and allows up to 3 overbookings during a regular 8 hour day.
My dentist started to charge a credit card fee recently. This got me thinking about this topic again.
Is anyone here passing these costs along to the patient?
Last month I paid about $6,800 in credit card fees alone to the processing company. That is not an insignificant amount of money that I'm debating on starting to pass along to anyone who pays via credit card.
Some states its not legal, so if you are thinking of doing this check your local laws.
i am currently doing a deep dive trying to find a new platform for a multi provider psychiatry clinic because our current software is making everyone miserable. right now we are using a general mental health platform that is clearly built for standard talk therapy, which means our prescribers are stuck trying to force complex medication management and lab tracking into fields that were never meant for them. the whole electronic prescribing setup for controlled substances is incredibly clunky, and adjusting dosages or handling simple refill requests takes way too many clicks.
we really need to switch to a cloud based solution that actually respects a psychiatric workflow, especially for quick follow ups and detailed initial evaluations. a seamless patient portal is an absolute must for us because our current intake process for medical history and consent forms is completely disjointed, and we need clients to be able to fill out everything online before their first visit without constant tech issues. it also needs to handle insurance billing smoothly for complex psychiatric codes so our admin team does not have to spend hours fixing claim errors manually
Seeing more and more discussion around AI Voice Assistants in private practice, especially for front desk calls, scheduling, rescheduling, after-hours requests, and message routing. Not AI scribes, but the phone side of the house.
AI use in healthcare is moving fast overall. The AMA reported that 81% of physicians used AI professionally in 2026, up from 38% in 2023. But patient-facing chatbots and virtual assistants still seem much earlier in adoption. MGMA reported in 2025 that only about 19% of medical groups were using chatbots or virtual assistants for patient communication.
Where it seems useful:
Where it can get messy:
The bottom line is this is not a must-have for every practice yet. For a low-call-volume office with a strong front desk, it may be overkill. But for practices drowning in phone calls, missed calls, after-hours voicemails, or scheduling overwhelm, it could become one of the more practical AI use cases.
The real test is whether it actually completes useful parts of the workflow, not just “answers the phone.”
For transparency, I'm with Tebra, and we’re watching this space closely because a lot of independent practices are trying to figure out if Voice AI is ready for real use.
Is anyone here using an AI voice assistant yet? What’s the feedback from staff and patients?
Many medical companies sell physician personal info to broker websites for anyone to buy. Ever singed up for Sermo...yeah they sold all your personal info to whoever is willing to buy a list with your personal info. Want a list of doctors who own their own practice? There is a list you can buy with names, numbers, and email addresses.
I get at least 5 texts a day from random companies who want to sell me something or buy out my practice. Today alone, I've gotten over 30 text messages and I'm over it.
Have any of you been successful in finding where your info is being sold and then removing your info from these brokers?
I am an actively enrolled physician launching a direct-to-consumer service that will primarily offer laboratory and non-acute diagnostic imaging. I want it to be 100% cash-pay, bypass Medicare IDTF rules, and keep my personal enrollment clean for my hospital career.
We strictly refuse all Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare patients at scheduling. Because we never see federal beneficiaries, the mandatory billing rule is never triggered, and we bypass federal IDTF enrollment.
I plan on owning and playing an admin role while employing third parties to review the intake process (filtering out inappropriate requests as well as Medicare patients), complete phlebotomy (with labs being processed at a partnering lab. I’ve obtained a contract with), obtain and read images.
I’ve heard conflicting advice that I either must formally opt out or ensure the services we offer are totally non-billable to Medicare.
However, given this will be a purely private, elective entity, can I just refuse patients based on their insurance status?
Of course I’ll be seeking legal counsel but would like resources to refer to for myself. Thanks!