The Great Practice Makeover: Just Like Starting Over
An overworked family physician gets some much-needed advice
By Laurie Hyland Robertson When he launched his solo family practice in 1995, Roy Gondo knew that to stay afloat he’d have to have to work long, hard hours and look for ways to save money. It’s hardly surprising, then, that he enlisted help from his wife, Angela, to handle much of the practice’s administrative functions as well as play a role in marketing and building a patient base.
Nearly nine years later, Angela Gondo is still (unhappily) the practice’s de facto office manager, and both Gondos are up to their elbows in backlogged patient charts and billing. Angela has begun to wonder whether it wouldn’t be better if her husband took a full-time position in another clinic. An office where he’d have a steady salary would be nice. And regular vacation time. “We used to go to Hawaii,” she says wistfully, but the Gondos haven’t been able to take a break from their practice in Yakima, Wash., in five years.
As for Dr. Gondo, he isn’t ready to give up on his practice just yet, but he does worry. “I enjoy solo practice, but I don’t know how long I can do this without it being taken away,” he says, citing the increasing burdens of regulation, pay-for-performance, and the like. A series of disastrous staffing decisions — one of which resulted in a draining legal battle over unemployment benefits — compounds the questionable long-term viability of this practice.
The Gondos needed help. Fast.
When Physicians Practice brought The Great Practice Makeover to Gondo’s aid, we found burnout looming. In addition to putting in packed days at his own clinic, Gondo serves as medical director for a prison and chief medical consultant in a psychiatric hospital. Angela Gondo routinely works until at least midnight six or seven days a week. Rhea Peralta, a medical assistant who worked in the practice from 2000 to 2003, suspects Angela sometimes spends the night there. Continued...
