Opening a private practice and helping patients must be more than just a job — if it isn’t, you’ll never push yourself…
While many doctors start chiropractic school with the dream of opening a private practice, the hard truth is not everyone is cut out for clinic ownership. If you’re considering buying a clinic, it’s important to be aware of your own limitations and choose the path that works best for you.
We’ve identified a few key characteristics that we see in the buyers who go on to thrive in clinic ownership. But also keep in mind that most things worth doing have a learning curve, and they also tend to get easier over time. So, consider your fit for clinic ownership in the context of your current abilities and preferences, and also those areas you plan to develop over your career.
1. You’re Not Paralyzed by Risk
The chiropractic world is just like the regular world: risk and reward go hand in hand.
Chiropractic practices are small businesses, and around 20% of small businesses fail within the first year. Only about half make it past year five. Buying a practice is one of the best ways to mitigate some of this risk. If you choose wisely, you’ll step into a clinic using a proven business model in a location that can support your income. The systems and employees are set up and ready to go.
No matter how strong the fundamentals, circumstances and markets will change. The risk of opening a private practice will never completely disappear. But good business owners understand that risk and change also create opportunities for growth.
Being comfortable with risk is step one of owning and growing a clinic. Successful clinic owners are able to roll with the punches, adapt to unforeseen changes, and turn risk into considerable reward.
2. You Have (or Can Learn) Management Skills
Patient care is only one aspect of running a successful clinic. The goal of every buyer should be to turn their clinic into a valuable asset that can be sold when they’re ready to move on or retire.
That’s a realistic goal, but it means learning to manage more than just patients. Operations, finances, marketing — all of it matters just as much as treatments. For many first-time buyers, this sounds overwhelming. You don’t need to have this expertise from day one. Most buyers won’t.
What you do need is a willingness to learn and a desire to develop your own business acumen. As you expand your skill sets, your clinic will grow, and you can turn the knowledge you acquire into added value.
3. You’re a People Person
The majority of successful clinics are not run by a doctor alone. Even when they are, it makes for a challenging sale down the road — buyers are hesitant to step into ownership with limited support.
Well-run clinics rely on good employees. A good employee is well trained, well suited for the role, and willing to stay. To maximize the success of a practice, you need to find those people. In order to attract and retain good employees, a clinic owner must be committed to their growth and development. If you can help your employees grow alongside your business, value multiplies.
In other words: to make your dreams come true, you need to help others achieve theirs.
4. You’re Motivated
The most successful clinic owners take a high level of pride in their work.
When you own your own business, no one else will hold you accountable. Opening a private practice and helping patients must be more than just a job. If it isn’t, you’ll never push yourself to keep your clinic thriving and growing. The moment ownership becomes a burden is the moment most doctors should start to think about selling.
Your livelihood isn’t all that’s at stake in clinic ownership. Patients, employees, family — they depend and rely on you. A good buyer needs the motivation to keep their clinic on track in order to support themselves as well as the people they serve and work with.
At times, that may mean sacrifices. Especially in the first year or two, clinic ownership requires extra work to get up to speed. A good owner needs to be proactive and ready to work harder than their employees. When that work turns into growth and stability, owners get to reap the rewards.
5. You Set Boundaries
As important as it is to work hard, it’s just as important to use your time and resources wisely.
The world is a busy place and owning a business place doesn’t make it any quieter. The best business owners understand how to preserve balance in their lives. Burnout can be a problem for overworked doctors, and clinic decline usually isn’t far behind.
Opening a private practice places a variety of demands on your time. Not all of them are essential or valuable. Being an entrepreneur means prioritizing ruthlessly so that you can spend your time on the things that matter most — including your loved ones.
This is another reason why buying a clinic is a shrewd move. An established practice minimizes the time that you need to spend developing clientele, staff, and marketing. You can put that time toward growth, stability, and enjoying your life.
6. You’re Willing to Ask for Help
If business ownership were easy, everyone would do it. Every aspect of financing, equipping, marketing, and developing your clinic can be tweaked and optimized. Some changes will yield substantial gains, but it can be difficult to know which ones, and even more difficult to execute effectively.
You may be an expert in caring for patients, but no one is an expert in everything. Good entrepreneurs get help from experts when needed. This is a good idea right from the beginning, when experts can help you jumpstart your growth. When your business hits roadblocks, consult the people who are most likely to solve your problems.
Technology in particular is a growth opportunity for many clinics. From practice software to online marketing, properly harnessing technology has the potential to drastically improve the efficiency and efficacy of your clinic. If you don’t have the time to acquire this knowledge yourself, hire someone who already has it.
Choose these experts carefully. Plenty of consultants will be happy to take your money, but not all of them will justify the cost. Make sure that the experts you work with have a proven model that will justify your investment and provide you with concrete returns.
7. You’re Self Aware
This may be the most important characteristic on this list. No business owner can cover all the bases all the time. Every good entrepreneur needs to understand their limitations as well as their strengths.
If you love patient care first and foremost, you’ll need to build a practice management team to handle the administrative side and keep you informed. If you love working on the business end, you’ll need support with patient care. Doing both rarely works. Many doctors spend too long struggling to do it all before accepting that they need support. The problem with that attitude is that no one will stop you. When you’re in charge, you have the final say. That’s a form of freedom, but it comes with responsibilities to your patients, your practice, and yourself.
For those who do take the leap, the benefits are considerable. In addition to the financial side, owning a clinic provides the intangible reward of captaining your own ship. Instead of being shackled to an associate’s salary, clinic owners can pour their efforts into building value in a practice they own. When you’re ready to move on, you can sell to another motivated buyer.
Opening a private practice– the sky is the limit
Note that the characteristics listed above don’t include anything about age, background, or specialty. Clinic owners don’t necessarily need to have huge savings or previous ownership experience.
Instead, what a business owner needs is to avoid analysis paralysis, stay focused on their goals, remain open-minded and adaptable, and preserve their passion throughout. If that sounds like you, the sky’s the limit.
CRYSTAL MISENHEIMER is the co-founder of Progressive Practice Sales. Their team harnesses the power of today’s technology to help doctors sell and acquire clinics, and save them time, money and effort along the way. She can be contacted at (888) 508-9197, crystal@progressivepracticesales.com, or through progressivepracticesales.com.
