How does owning a private practice work?

[beckson211]

First a little background:

I have been a medical assistant in a peds office for over 15 years. I am working on what direction I want to go with my medical education. I am 29 years old, I thought about medical school but I dont want to spend the 7 years before being able to practice on my own. Money or the suffix M.D/D.O are not motivating factors on why I want to practice medicine. The clinic I work is an inner city clinic and I 100% want to provide great care to underprivileged people.

 

My questions:

If you own your practice what type of hospital rights do you have? Can you admit and act as the attending? Here in Michigan, a PA can only write a class II in the hospital setting. What about if I wanted to open a peds clinic, would I be able to see newborns in the hospital?

 

Closing:

My wife is an N.P., and our dream is to work for ourselves and practice medicine.

[jmj11]

You can do some searches here, or read the ownership threads, and find out a lot of information.

 

As a PA you of course must always have a SP. That SP can be your employee if you choose to own. It is a little hard to find such a willing physician, but they are out there.

 

Regarding hospital privileges, well, it is apples and oranges. The hospitals each have their own rules and it isn't tied to state regulations (usually tighter) and they probably don't give a rat's *** about who owns the practice. They are very concerned about what happens within their walls. For example, we decided not to seek privileges because it was so complicated at our local hospital. If a PA admits . . . the SP must see the patient within 24 hours. Wouldn't work for us as my SP doesn't live on my island. Also, most hospitals require MD countersign notes within a short time frame (some within 24 hours). So those are the rules you must live with. If your SP is actually in your practice (mine is not) then these hospital rules shouldn't be any more of a hassle than for any PA.

 

You can dream about working for yourselves and you can work for yourselves, but PAs will be tied to the SP at least for the coming decades. So if any of your dreams see you without any connection to a MD or DO, you better shake your head a bit and then come back to reality. With that said, yes you can own your own sandbox and find fulfillment (and challenges) doing so.