When physicians don’t work together, who wins?  Recently I meet with a group of physicians to discuss some planning strategies and was quite surprised that they did not have a strategic business plan to assist in organizing their practice.

I asked them a few questions that had them slightly puzzled: 

What makes your practice unique in a way that is valuable to your patients?
Are the benefits of your practice apparent to your patients?
What is the actual cost to the practice for each new and existing patient?

If your practice does not have a strategic business plan to deal with the above questions, I suggest you consider developing one and updating this plan every year via an annual practice retreat.  (A topic for another time).

Developing a strategic business plan involves a process of examining and evaluating your
current practice, adopting goals and objectives, and determining options for the future of your practice.

According to Sandra E. D. McGraw, JD of the Health Care Group, your strategic business plan should include a five step process:

Analysis: Your plan should address and assess some the following:

• Current practice and it’s environment, i.e., “what do we want the practice to be like in one year, three years, five years?”
• Evaluate your patients (demographics), and referrals, actual profitability of services compared to hours of operation.
• Determine profitability of managed care contracts.

Goal Formation: A medical practice can take certain steps that will assist in organizing and setting goals for the practice.  Some ideas are:

• Vision setting or defining the mission of the practice.
• Decision making or do you develop a niche practice, downsize, upsize, merge with another medical practice.
• Adopting a management process to assist in operating your practice.

Development: How does your practice get to the next level? Some ideas:

• Know your competitors
• Know your current and future market and environment
• Identify critical success and failure factors
• Adopt a written document

Execution:  Once your plan has been adopted, implement your goals, objectives, and especially your action plan.  Consider some of the following strategies:

• Quarterly meetings to assess your progress
• Annual retreat to assist in reviewing the previous years plan and develop next years plan along with reinforcing practice goals and mission statement to your employees

Adjustment: If you are not meeting your goals, find out what went wrong and fix it.  Be flexible and adapt to your environment.  Think outside the box.  Be willing to receive feedback from your employees and especially patients via communication through interviews and surveys.

There are steps you can take to improve your practice.  Developing a solid, organized, and flexible strategic business plan is a good first step.

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Rick O. Helbing is a Certified Financial Planner, Chartered Financial Consultant, and Partner with Suncoast Advisory Group. Mr. Helbing specializes in practice management of Medical and Dental practices and designs comprehensive financial plans for individual physicians and dentists.