Start Here: How To Start Out Strong In Private Practice

Private Practice life is very different to the working life you may have if you’re still employed by the NHS. Yes, you’ll have patients (and hopefully lots of them), but for the first time, you’ll need to be both a clinician, and the ‘CEO’ of your practice.

You should think of Private Practice as being a long-term venture, rather than something to dip in and out of whenever you have some spare time the diary.

With this in mind, I’m going to encourage you to think about the future.

What kind of practice do you see yourself building?

Will it be a small, very part-time practice, or could you see yourself moving full-time into private practice?

Any business needs effective systems, processes and leadership. You need to be that leader. (We’ll help you build the other two).

Doctors who are successful in private practice have learned the importance of nurturing the right mindset.

Whatever the reason you became a doctor, chances are, at the core of it, there will have been a desire to help people. The NHS is a way of delivering that help – for free (or a least there will be no pressure on you to collect payment for it).

At the heart of private practice is an exchange of help, for money. Many Doctors have awkward feelings about mixing money and patients when they first start out. Even talking about money can bring about feelings of anxiety. This is very natural, but there is a solution.

Instead of thinking about how much your appointment/arthroscopy/guided injection is costing the patient, think instead, about how much value your care is bringing to the patient.

Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine how they are feeling, and what their experience of a particular problem might be (both physically and emotionally).

For instance, if the patient had discovered a lump, and she feared the worst, think how ‘valuable’ she would find your one-stop breast clinic, which she was immediately able to book into. Patients frequently cite speed and convenience as they reason they choose to purchase a health insurance plan, or self-fund treatment.

Patients also greatly value expertise. Private practice will enable you for the first time, to truly be able to choose which patients you really want to treat, and to develop your niche. This niche expertise is hugely valuable to patients looking for a second opinion (or even a ‘last-chance saloon’ opinion) about a condition that may have been distressing them for years.

Private practice also means embracing marketing. I’m going to encourage you to think further than the familiar examples of marketing (such as Google Ads and waiting room leaflets). Patients are on-line researchers and you need to reach out to them as much as your reach out to potential referrers.

One of the best ways to do this is through content marketing. This means producing really, excellent education ‘content’ (be it blogs, Vlogs or social media postings), that helps patients to solve a problem, or educate them about their condition. This kind of content enables patients to find you on-line, and it helps to demonstrate your knowledge and your style of care.

Being the CEO of your private practice means ensuring you make time to grow your practice, as well as seeing the patients. If you start out with this intent in mind, and put it into action, your practice will flourish.