Framework for the Future of Physicians and Medical Groups

You Love Being a Doctor.  But a Business?  Not so Much.

It seems harder and harder to be the doctor you set out to be, that you want to be.

This 78-page guide to the new business of being a doctor is all about economics and work flow and business models—but all that is really about you, your passion, your practice.  My approach to practice management is about whether and how you can get back to being a good doctor working for the good of your patients.

Doctors are in a tough place. Many wonder whether their business model makes sense any longer.  Many have concluded that it doesn’t. Is this you?

Physicians are feeling burdened by the work overhead of dealing with refractory and opaque insurance companies, with complex coding requirements, HIPAA reporting, “pay for performance” reporting, quality reporting—and feeling forced into digitizing their practices in ways that are far too expensive, complex, and unreliable, and that actually interfere with their practice of medicine, rather than make it easier.  Are you seeing this in your practice, your group?

We are hemorrhaging doctors, with a majority of doctors in the country declaring that they plan to cut back on their hours, cut back on their patients, or get out of the profession entirely—at the very moment when tens of millions of Boomers are advancing through their 60s, a tsunami of diabetes and other chronic disease is threatening us, and tens of millions of new patients are about to get their insurance card.

How do you feel about the future of being a doctor?

I’ve been doing this a long time, and I don’t look at the froth of the moment. I look at the deep trends, the unstoppable, the systemic, and how they will play out in what we do every day, how we get paid, how we shape our careers, and how we care for people.

Here’s what I think: If somebody doesn’t pull a rabbit out of a hat some time real soon now, doctors—and all of us who depend on them—are in serious trouble. The good news is that there is a hat, and it has a rabbit in it. Handfuls of rabbits.

Here at Imagine What If, we do a constant scan of healthcare, through the published literature, online blogs and email, and through constant contact with many physicians, people who run healthcare institutions, people who run health plans, start-up entrepreneurs, and policy wonks.  A new shape for healthcare is emerging in a wide variety of new forms and models that not only “let doctors be doctors” and but actually drive healthcare to be both better and far less expensive than it is today. Yes, cheaper: Not just “bending the cost curve” to a lower level of medical inflation, but driving the cost downward.

This is not about rationing, or some Soviet-style commissions dictating what you can do and for how much. Nor is it about further waves of draconian reforms. It is about opportunities for physicians that are emerging out of the private market, inside the healthcare industry, and only partially in response to the reform. The demographic, economic, and technological pressures of the time have been building for years and will continue to create these opportunities. But you have to learn to see them.

In this report I lay out:

• First, the groundwork and background—the big factors re-shaping healthcare right now, so that you can see exactly where we are, how we got in this mess, and what kind of rolling maximum disaster the future will become for you and for all of us involved in healthcare if we don’t do something fast.
• Then some “Healthcare Economics 101” concepts, so that we are all on the same page about the mechanisms driving the market for doctors’ services—and you will begin to see why I believe there are opportunities everywhere around healthcare, but not necessarily in the places you would expect.
• Next: The opportunities that arise from five key strategic imperatives for physicians and physician groups. Take care of these five factors (and only these five) and you will survive and thrive in the new healthcare. You will find opportunities out of which you can fashion a better healthcare career and better health care for your patients at the same time.
• Finally, I will give you some resources for further study, and talk about next steps.

I am optimistic because I can see a path shown by innovators all across healthcare. Each piece has been tested and proven  by entrepreneurs, bold leaders, and doctors like you.  The new processes work in today’s system and I believe will only work better under the coming system changes.  When we come out the other side of this inflection point in history, two groups especially will be seen to be clearly better off: Patients, and the doctors who serve them.

Fill out this form and we will direct you to the free 78-page e-book Framework for the Future of Physicians and Medical Groups.

Then tell me what you think.