ABOUT THIS SERIES
Have you been pondering striking out on your own, making the leap from employed associate to practice owner? Or are you just starting out in practice, and wondering if it’s worth going even deeper into debt to start your own venture rather than getting “a job”?

Whatever your situation, Physicians Practice is here to help with our comprehensive six-part guide to starting a medical practice. In addition to the pre-opening day planning advice you may have seen in other such guides, we’ll delve deeper into the key milestones you’ll need to meet for success long after you cut the ribbon.

It’s a favorite daydream of many new practice owners: becoming “self-sustaining” so that they no longer have to spend time soliciting business and can really get down to patient care without distraction. And while no successful practice ever stops attending to patient relations, plenty of practices do eventually reach a point at which they don’t need to focus resources on formal marketing. In the beginning, you need to make connections with potential patients and sources of patients, marketing yourself and letting people know what you have to offer.

“People like my office, they like the experience, they refer their friends and family, and I don’t have to do any marketing,” says West Virginia dermatologist Beth R. Santmyire-Rosenberger. “We haven’t done much advertising for the past year, and we’re booked. Most of our referrals are word of mouth.”

But in specialties that were previously the domain of the well-connected super-doc with a stable of referral-funneling colleagues, patients are now shopping around a lot more, even with referrals in hand. “Things have changed,” says Marilou Terpenning, MD. “Today, many of my patients ‘interview’ me before deciding to receive treatment with us.”

Because of this propensity for doctor-shopping, many practices will need to begin building in time for extended consultations and simply consider them part of the cost of doing business, as in Terpenning’s Santa Monica hematology/oncology practice.

In general, now is the time to spend a little of your personal capital on precious extra minutes with patients. Make sure they have a stellar experience from the very first scheduling phone call to the final bill and beyond (patient satisfaction surveys, anyone?).

As Santmyire-Rosenberger notes, “An opinion of me and my office is formed before people even meet me.” How quickly the phone is answered, how pleasant the receptionist is, whether the plants in the waiting room are wilting — such seemingly trivial things make a big impression on patients.

To know you is to love you

Experienced practice owners’ top marketing suggestion is a classic technique that pays off even in a hyperlinked digital world: Give in-person presentations in your community.

“There’s no substitute for becoming known,” says Terpenning. “It’s a low-cost way of getting your name out there.” Libraries, larger employers, and schools are all likely candidates for hosting educational physician presentations. Find out who makes such decisions in your target organization — often HR directors in large companies, the principal or business manager in schools — and approach them with a proposition to offer a free seminar on, say, diabetes management or some other relevant health topic.

While you’re out there, ask attendees what they think they’re lacking in their own healthcare providers, and what they can’t seem to find elsewhere. Focus on making those things part of your practice; most likely, you’ll hear less about particular services than about the type of physician and practice people want. You can also offer yourself up to local newspapers and TV stations as a subject-matter expert; large-format display ads and infomercials are usually available, too, but these types of outreach can be too expensive for new practices to comfortably afford.

Consistently highlight your unique attributes in any messaging that leaves the office, whether it’s via paid or unpaid channels. For example, if you can offer patients more time with you than most physicians, because it’s part of your long-term strategy, then make sure people know it. “Seeing fewer people, for longer [visits], reinforces the relationship-forming and sustainability of the psychological component of practice,” says internist and pediatrician Chrissie Ott, who has adopted that strategy in her Portland, Ore., practice.

Or maybe you offer a full range of genetic counseling services, like Terpenning. Whatever it is, find ways to let people know. Shout from the rooftops if you have to. You’ll need to make sure your messages are understandable to the lay public, of course, so if, for example, you’re the only board-certified specialist in the region, you’ll want to think about what “board-certified” signifies to a potential patient.