Thoughts on solo practice.....

[Guest guest]

Just wondering........as I am struggling to deal with staff and overhead and taxes and just plain keeping up with all the business issues of running a practice....and feeling completely overwhelmed at the moment. I have only been open for 11 months, have started from scrtach and have 401 patient as of today.

How many of the solo docs have their spouse running their office???? Just seems to me that this may be a huge difference in whether this thing can work or not.

Thoughts?? Musings?

Dannielle Harwood, MD

To: Sent: Mon, November 29, 2010 7:39:02 PMSubject: Re: But for the grace of G... keep overhead low

RE can we all make it?

1) I think we can -- point is to leverage technology to make us as efficient as we can be but

2) May need to take a different direction; I ended up working outside the office for 1/2 to 2 -1/2 days a week for salary.

3) Get a sense where enough is...how many pts a week you need to get to....to do what you want.

Matt in Western PA

Re: Medicare Fears

One thing we all forget is that one day, sooner for some of us than others, we will be the ones on Medicare. Every person over 65 is on Medicare even if they have a secondary.Who will take care of us when we are old? That being said, we do need to be paid for our work. I had ~ 20% Medicare, my biller told me, and she said I was more than doing my share. So I started taking only 1-2 new Medicare pts/month. I do not drop my pts when they become Medicare age, and I too also take pts' mothers/fathers. And as someone said, if the schedule has openings, it's better to see a Medicare pt than to sit there doing nothing.Ellen(Cutting Medicare with the EMR Hi TECH stuff going on will also decrease the supposed amt we can be reimbursed for EMR. But they have been talking about cuts for yrs. Will they really do it?

Hard to imagine. Every Congressman/woman has a mother/father on Medicare. Time will tell).> We have not taken any new Medicare patients in the last 6 years > because of fear of payment cuts. Over time the percent of our patients > in Medicare has fallen to less than 10 percent. Not only do we have to > go through this Payment uncertainty every year, older patients also > take more time for any level of service in my opinion. If you mess up > Medicare rules by accident there are potential criminal penalties. > With commercial insurance the worst they can do is ask for money back > and then kick you out of their panel.>> Sent from my iPad> Larry Lindeman MD>> On Nov 27, 2010, at 4:20 PM, Myria > wrote:>>> What are others doing? Opting out or hanging in there to see if >> Medicare is saved again.>> ly I can't imagine making it with the planned cuts and > 60% of >> my practice is Medicare.>> I would want to charge my Medicare patients an additinal fee but that >> would be illegal.>> I don't think a NCB will hold up in my practice anyways. It's more >> than maddening to be repeatedly placed in this postion!>>>

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