The Threat of Consolidation to Private Practice Development: Strategies to Maintain Independence

Over the past two decades, the consolidation of healthcare practices across the United States has led to problems for private medical practice sustainability.

What can a private practice do when faced with these issues but wants to maintain independence?

Rockett Healthcare Strategies is well aware of the issues plaguing smaller, independent practices and works with these organizations to devise solutions to attract additional revenue streams.

How To Retain Autonomy in the Dynamic Field of Healthcare

Unfortunately, more and more private practicing physicians and specialists are falling victim to the ever-increasing threat of consolidation, costing them their independence in favor of their careers.

While this challenge isn’t going away, there are creative solutions for the right firms in the right marketplaces.

One of the biggest issues larger consolidated firms face that smaller, private practices do not is a preference for business growth over the physician-client relationship. A private practice that has been absorbed through consolidation can lose this important sense of direction that is critical to quality healthcare.

However, it can be confusing understanding what factors are at play when determining the feasibility of private medical practice sustainability. Factors include:

• Your particular healthcare market
• Business relationships within the market
• Where your practice is located
• Your referral network
• Weighing the savings of consolidation with the costs of independence

As you can see, there are a number of components at play when determining what strategies are effective in private practice development, meaning business independence may not be feasible for every organization.

However, Rockett Healthcare is committed to transparency when developing the methods to grow your private practice.

Employing Effective Strategies for Private Practice Development

Understanding the strategies Rockett Healthcare employs to effectively maintain revenue streams for private practices is critical in keeping independence. Let’s look at the key policies Rockett offers as a private practice consultancy agency:

• Arrangements with local services – A great way to see additional streams of revenue is to develop relationships with pathology clinics. For example, opening a revenue stream for anesthesiology can allow for greater autonomy as your practice hires the anesthesiologist and your own CRNAs. There are other options but this is the general idea.
• Work within regulations for independent benefit – Payor organizations such as the Blue Cross see the need for solutions against higher and higher consolidation, which can come in the form of state regulations. This is where the location of your practice heavily comes into play. Some states will pay a private practice as if they were a licensed surgery center because regulations don’t allow them to become centers in the first place.
• Negotiate mutually-beneficial arrangements with larger organizations – The healthcare system can be complex. There are a number of aspects that can go wrong, ranging from small to life-threatening issues. A local, private clinic can tell a hospital that the clinic will still refer patients with high-level health issues (like cancer). At the same time, the private practice can take the smaller, or highly specific problems on themselves. That way, everyone gets a share of the profit while having a very efficient system.

These are just some of the strategies Rockett Healthcare employs to help private practices hold leverage against larger conglomerated healthcare systems.

Rockett Healthcare Strategies: A Pro Private Practice Management Consultant

As the healthcare field continues to develop, the reality is that private practices across the country will face challenges in maintaining their autonomy. However, Rockett Healthcare has developed strong strategies and practices to help private practices maintain their financial and business independence.