PA Owned Locums company

[sas5814]

Well I have made a decision. I had to leave my current job at a community health center. I was just miserable with the amount of regulation, rules, meetings, forms etc I had to deal with. It was also a very difficult transition from working , essentially, for myself and then joining this highly regulated environment. I have some longer term plans to start a practice but that is going to have to wait until Feb or March next year.

I am starting a one man, for now, locums company and will be selling my services on a temp basis. I have formed a PLLC and am currently marketing myself locally and in the surrounding area to a medical community I know and, for the most part, knows me. At some point I may add some folks to the pool and see if I can make a few bucks placing others. I am going to put up a simple web page with my story and a downloadable CV and contracts and contact information.

To say I am a little anxious is an understatement. I am excited to be the captain of my own ship again but have bills to pay so ramp up and cash flow need to start quickly. I am blessed to have a wife who supports me completely as well as a number of friends in the medical community who are going to help me market myself. My fingers are crossed...which may be why I can't sleep at night.

So My last day at work will be 24 Nov. I am taking a quick trip to Georgia to see my family at Thanksgiving and then when I get back to Texas I'll be unemployed.... or self employed. More to follow. Suggestions and comments are welcome and appreciated.

[RuralER/Ortho]

I don't have much in the way of advice, but good luck! I hope you are successful in your new endeavor.

[jmj11]

I have to admit, as I am toying with the idea of giving up my PA-Owned practice and transitioning back into the role as an employee (doing that one day a week right now) I am having second thoughts about that transition.  With all the misery of being a business owner these days, there is a lot to be said about being the captain of your own ship. It is worth more, in my opinion, than tens of thousands of dollars in salary.  My SP and I decided yesterday, rather than closing my practice at the end of December, to try it until April to see if we can survive.  The problem these days is horrible reimbursement for small, independent practices.  I see Heaven now, as a place where you practice in a cash-only practice. We are a hybrid practice now and would love to move into cash-only, but I don't think that model is reasonable in our location. I see Hell as a dark place, where you work in a chain gang in a mine with the insurance companies (who have horns) as your slave masters.

 

Good luck in your endeavors. The best advice that I got before I opened five years ago (from a PA who has owned a practice for years) is to do your business plan, then double your estimated expenses and halve your estimated income. That will be more reasonable. My personal lesson is to remember than a;; vendors, software and personnel will disappoint you. You just have to live with that and avoid being lured by the promises of software and etc.  No software "pays for itself in increased productivity" even though they all claim that.  I would be better off to day if I had written all my chart notes on a 3 by 5 card using a kindergartner's pencil. 

[sas5814]

I'm sorry to hear your travails. I'd rather every one of us were successful. I am considering my own practice but there are about a zillion things that have to be discussed and planned. I have a huge leg up because I have been in this rural area for a long time and am well known. I also have the support of a few physicians (one of whom will be my SP at no cost while I am getting started) in the area and some friends who have opened and continue to operate their own successful practices and are freely sharing their experiences and their resources including helping me apply for insurance contracts and medicare numbers for next to nothing. But that is a distant plan right now. I need to keep the lights on and working for me is what I want to do. I have been miserable these last 2 years working for a (dis)organization.I flip and flop and don't sleep worrying about the bills but it will be worth it if I stick the landing.

[sas5814]

Quick follow up.... I got my little company going and, via professional referrals alone, have booked December and January nearly full. I am still working hard to get things lined up to open my own clinic but the numbers are a little daunting. The long delay between opening and getting all the insurance contracts and a Medicare number has me stuck. I know I can back bill a lot but getting to that point is an expensive proposition.

[Guest Paula]

sas: You may end up liking having your own personal locums company in the long run and stick with it. If that is done right , you will be hired to fill in for absences of other advanced practitioners, etc. and will have a say over where you take a job or not.

 

A physician who provides locums services to my employer (he is retired) comes and goes on his own schedule, travels on vacation when he wants, and makes what he wants.  He works more in the spring and fall, canoes and hikes in the summer, and winters in a warmer state when he wants to.  It is a nice gig.  He is incorporated as his own company.  He avoids all the politics of working as an employee, comes to work, does his job and goes home.   I end up at times doing the follow ups for patients to have the consistency and to make sure the patient isn't dropped down a crack in the sidewalk, but that is the job of those who are the employees anyway. 

 

Good luck.

 

Paula