Articles Written By Our Practice Brokers

Regular and well-administered staff meetings are vital to the management of any healthcare practice. Especially as practices grow and diversify these venues become increasingly important. Wise practice owners can use these opportunities to gauge key factors before making adjustments to business practices.

When is the best time to sell my practice?
The decision to sell can be driven by a variety of factors: retirement, career change, lifestyle desires, or financial concerns. Addressing personal timing in conjunction with financial considerations is crucial when trying to obtain full value for the practice. From a financial perspective, the ideal time to sell a practice is during a period of solid earnings. The value of a practice is largely driven by recent performance.

The bundling of hardware and software packages into multi-functional EMR solutions is occurring at a rapid pace (American Medical News). The push for facilities to adopt electronic records is increasing and vendors are ramping up in anticipation of rising demand. Mandates by Medicare and federal stimulus money will make EMR solutions virtually unavoidable in modern practice. In light of these changes, the need for packages geared towards smaller facilities and physician practices is immense.

Many practices and med spas that offer a variety of cosmetic and aesthetic treatments have come under scrutiny for certain practices. Among these, is the delegation of patient care tasks to non-physician providers. Practice owners must carefully manage the medico-legal and ethical aspects of their practice by following clearly established guidelines. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery have a joint guiding principles on the supervision of non-physician personnel in physician practices and medical spas.

An article regarding the use of benchmarks in ophthalmology practices appeared in the April issue of Ophthalmology Times. The author makes a good point regarding the use of a single benchmark versus a collection of benchmarks. The use of a combination of relevant and effective benchmarks can be a more reliable way to gauge the ongoing health of an ophthalmology practice rather than the use of a single "favorite" standard.