The EntreMD Podcast

How Private Practice Physicians Can Thrive in 2025

• Dr. Una

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August 13th marks National Private Practice Physician Day — a special day to honor and support the incredible physicians who own and run private practices across the country. Private practice is the backbone of accessible, personalized healthcare, and we’re here to help you thrive on this journey!

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Speaker 1:

There's a group of people who are committed to patients. There's a group of people who have an unbelievable capacity of putting people before profits. There are a group of people. They're the ones who are going to change healthcare, and that is us. Hi docs, welcome to the EntreMD podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, dr Imna. In the very first business book I wrote, which was called the Entremet Method, I made a statement there and I said the Calvary isn't coming, it is here, it is us. Okay, when you look at all the things going on in healthcare and you're like this is gone, it's so messed up, all of those things, I want to invite you to not be a part of that conversation, because nobody's coming to change it. The insurance companies can't change it. Big Pharma is not going to change the hospital system, for sure, they're not going to change it. But there's a group of people who are committed to patients. There's a group of people who have an unbelievable capacity of putting people before profits. There is a group of people and they're the ones who are going to change health care, and that is us. Ok, we, the physicians, we're the ones, we are the ones who took the oath. The relationship is called a doctor-patient relationship. Everybody else is a middleman, and it's time for us to go back to taking responsibility for that. Okay, and I want you to hear me out so maybe you're listening to this. You don't own a private practice or you own a private practice, but I want you to lean and I want you to hear this. I want you to share this with the doctors in your world. I want you to rise to answer the call, because that's what is going on now At the time of this, recording the day this goes live.

Speaker 1:

This is National Private Practice Physicians Day. Okay, this is a day that we created. Entreemd created last year. Last year was the very first one private practice docs to kind of acknowledge them what they're doing to make it a big day where there's a big boost for them, whether that's reviews that are coming in, referrals that they get, people sharing their stories of how they've been such a gift to them, and all of that. So it's a movement for, you know, private practice docs, a movement for physicians and a movement for physician allies. Okay, so what I want to do is kind of unpack you know what this is, so you can rise and you can be part of the cavalry, because if we have all hands on deck we will turn this right side up.

Speaker 1:

Now, before we created this day, I started getting very concerned because, you know, initially I had this whole focus of, you know, helping doctors thrive in private practice and all of that stuff which is good for everybody. But then I started seeing, on a systemic level, if we don't do this, we're going to run into some major problems. Walmart and their decision to close 50 of their stores, and I remember thinking about it like, just like that, just a corporate decision. Boom, we're going to close 50 stores and 50 clinics. Not 50 stores, 50 clinics. And I said, wait, hold on. I was like if they close 50, let's say, each one had a panel size of a thousand, that's 50,000 displaced patients in one state. That's like 50,000 displaced patients in one state, that's like 50,000. And so I think, you know, I'm like it's easy for them to walk away, but do we have the private practices that can absorb these people?

Speaker 1:

And then it wasn't only Walmart. Then CVS made their announcement and you know, and all these announcements started going. I'm like, oh my goodness. I'm like, if we don't help, private practice owners win, we're talking about real people not having access to care, real people having delayed care, real people having complications they didn't need to have. Real people dying right. And so this is beyond just. You know, I want my private practice to thrive and I want your private practice to thrive, and we've created resources so your private practice can thrive. But it's a little more than that. Like, the United States of America needs you. You're listening to this, it needs you. Okay, all right, so let's lean into this a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so last year we implemented this and you know we looked at the problems. What are the problems that people are facing in private practice? Because these are real problems. They're real problems. The first problem is the decreasing reimbursements and, as you know, this was a reason last year. Okay, this was a problem last year. And then this year, in addition to that already being a challenge, medicare decides to cut by another 2.83%. Okay, so is this a real problem? Yes, it's a real problem. The second problem is that, you know, the cost of delivering the service is so much higher. Like post COVID, it just went through the roof. It's so much higher to deliver the same care, and so, on one hand, you have that the reimbursements are less and, on the other hand, you have that the cost is more, so, which means for many, the profits have completely disappeared. Hang on, I'm going to show you something. Okay, I'm going somewhere with this. I'm definitely not going to leave you at the point of the problem.

Speaker 1:

The third thing is the administrative burdens. Oh, my goodness, right, there's always a new thing the prior authorizations, all of those stuff. So hospitalizations, all of those stuff. So there are doctors who talk about spending as much as 10 to 16 hours a week on non-clinical work, just catching up on all this stuff, and that's non-paid time, that's just time doing stuff in addition to what you really need to do, which is take care of the patients. And then, fourth, you have the corporate takeover, right, whether that's by hospitals I don't want to use the word intimidation, but it's very close to it right? Whether it's hospitals or private equity and stuff like that, some of them, you know, with very interesting practices and applying such a squeeze that private practices are finding it difficult to stay open. And the truth of the matter is, you know we are at a time where more private practices are owned by hospitals of corporate entities like private equity than actual physicians, okay.

Speaker 1:

And then the fifth problem, and this was a problem that came right after COVID, and that was the great resignation, and so you have it's more difficult to keep staff. Of course, you know salaries and all that stuff have gone through the roof and all of that. So it's been challenging. So I'm not denying the challenge. They're challenging, okay, and these challenges create cashflow problems, they create burnout, they create all of that.

Speaker 1:

And if you've listened to me for a while, you know what my philosophy is. And my philosophy is if we apply great business principles, we can build private practices that are thriving in spite of these challenges. Once we have enough private practices thriving, then we can come and go for the system. In our disempowered state we're not going to go for the system Like that's just not the way it works, right, that's just not the way it works. And so our first part is to take care of the owners, and once we have enough owners that we've taken care of, then we can go for the system. Okay, all right.

Speaker 1:

So we did a number of things. So last year, on the day of the National Private Practice Physician Day, we launched the Profitable Private Practice Playbook, which is a book that we wrote showing seven ways doctors, private practice owners, leave money on the table and how to fix that. And this is a book, it's not fluff, there's nothing fluffy about it. Like you literally read chapter one, go do chapter one, read chapter two, go do chapter two, and everyone leads to cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. Okay, and so we released that playbook and it was a way of you know, like we have the Entremet Business School. I know everybody's not going to come into the Entremet Business School, but everybody can buy a $15 book. Okay, it's $15.99. And I think the ebook is like $5.

Speaker 1:

And so now it's like everybody has at their tips what they can do to stop the bleed in their private practices. And so many practices have such significant bleeds that if they just apply this, it will feel like they gave themselves a raise. Okay, it will be like, oh, this is our best year yet Meanwhile it was the same number of patients because there's so much money left on the table. So that's what we did. So today the book is a year old, which is phenomenal, okay so. So we did, which is phenomenal. Okay so we did that right. But since then, what have we done? Okay, so we've sold thousands, hundreds and hundreds and thousands of copies of the Profitable Private Practice Playbook, which has led to transformation in the lives of real doctors.

Speaker 1:

In fact, I'm going to pull up here, I'm going to pull up here, some of the reviews that people have left for that book, because I want you to see and if you haven't got a copy, you can go to Amazon, it's called the Profitable Private Practice Playbook and get your copy. If you have any doctor in your life, anyone that you love, who owns a private practice, you want to get them a copy as well. Okay, okay. So this is the review section, and I'm just going to pick a few because I think that would be powerful for you to see. Okay, so this is Dr Sabo. She's a veteran. She's run her practice for decades.

Speaker 1:

At this point, she said running a private practice is hard in our current environment, where regulations, insurance, reimbursements all favor big institutions. However, the heart of patient care is in private practice, where patients are treated as a human and not a number. It is also where physicians can freely use their knowledge to prescribe the right medication and not dictated by political interests. This book is essential for the physician entrepreneur who, despite all odds out there, wants to serve and help patients in a financially sound way. I love the way Dr Una points out one by one the different departments in our practices to examine and where to make changes. This information was definitely a great summary and inspires me to audit my company and make changes immediately. Okay, so that was her. I love this.

Speaker 1:

This is Dr Deepak. Dr Deepak says as a physician in private practice and in this era where most of the physicians are employed or working for large healthcare systems, this book is like a guide, a step-by-step Bible on the how-to for your private practice, your business and for you as a physician. I have read the first 20 pages and I'm blown away with action steps implemented this week and witnessed instant results. Remember I told you it was no fluff. Internal and external marketing really was such an eye-opener. Buy it, read it and implement those actions. You will thank and love yourself for running your private practice successfully. And I could go on and on and on. There's so many reviews there, and so we spent the year working on getting this book in the hands of doctors so they can create all these transformations and create all these changes. There's rarely a day that goes by where somebody doesn't buy a copy of the book, right? So we have all of these things happening. So that's number one.

Speaker 1:

Then in December, so I spent time thinking like okay, what else can I do for private practice docs on a large scale? When you think about it, it's 123,000 primary care practices alone, not including specialty care, just primary care. And I'm like what can I do? And after you know, sitting with the team doing a lot of work and all of this, we came up with a profitable private practice movement. Okay, and this is a membership. It's less than a cappuccino day. It's $197 a month. I saw doctors going like you are nuts for doing that, like you could charge 10,000 a year for this thing. And I know, I know, I know, but there's a reason I did that and we created this membership and it's so simple. It's so simple.

Speaker 1:

Literally every Thursday, the doctors get together to work on their businesses. So sometimes once a month, it's a strategy session with me. I have taught them things like how to turn your business around in 90 days, how to create a seven-figure marketing plan, how to create a seven-figure referral base, how to make data-driven decisions like a seven-figure CEO, and so many great sessions like that. Then I also have doctors who are also running million-dollar practices come in and share their stories behind the scenes, answer questions, and so we've had a lot of phenomenal docs come in so, so phenomenal. We've had a big shout out. Dr Oluyemisi has come in. We've had Dr Anita Wanga come in. We had Dr Tulu. Dr Tulu talked about how to turn your current team into your dream team, and all of that. We had Dr Sarah Merritt. So we've had all these doctors come in, right, and so they'd come in. And then the other two weeks they're doing co-working sessions. So the things they've learned, they just come together, they're working on it.

Speaker 1:

So imagine this you have every Thursday you're getting world-class mentorship and then you're working on your practice. And so what people have done nuts, like people have built, you know, like so many reviews that now they have tons of patients coming through reviews. They've built referral bases. We've had patients who just started practices and the week they started they had referrals coming in. Like, I want you to think about that. You have referrals. We have people who are now training their office managers, so their office managers are now creating results. We have someone who's like I was finally able to take, you know, two weeks off, you know, because now I understand how to create revenue in my business. Had another doc who's like now I'm confident, as the CEO of my practice, I understand how to make money. Come on, guys Like so wild.

Speaker 1:

So so we built that very simple, not a lot of curriculum, not because we don't have time for that, okay, and and so they come in every Thursday. They work on their businesses, you know, do, do the work and create the results, then go see their patients, and all that come back next Thursday. I want you to think about this coming together once a week with such an amazing community of physician entrepreneurs and creating results in your business week to week. Okay, all right, so so we did that and it's been, it's been mind bogglingly phenomenal, okay, so that's that's that. You can check it out. It's it's ontrendycom forward slash movement, and if you're a private practice owner, oh my goodness, come join us. You have, literally you have nothing to lose, cause if you think about the value you get on, a podcast episode is more than $197 for the episode, and you get all of this for $197 a month. It's insane, it's beyond insane, so, anyway. So we did that, okay. And then we also launched a private practice specific YouTube channel where we just do the nitty gritty how to do those interviews, how to meet with your team for big results, how to fill up your panel in 90 days, one of your biggest referral sources. We did some stuff on AI, all of that Okay. And so if you go to YouTube at the private practice channel and then you'll see that there Again, what are we doing this for?

Speaker 1:

We need to see private practices thrive as many as possible. Some will pay us, some will pay us a little, some of them will be in the entrepreneur business school, pay us a lot, whatever, but we want to see everybody win, okay. So that's what we did. And so what have the results been? Over the last? Um, over the last year, we have seen private practices go from you know we're not making any money um to now, there's seven figure practices, multiple seven figure practices. We celebrated our first clients to have a first seven-figure month, first seven-figure month.

Speaker 1:

We've had people who were approached by private equity, who could comfortably say no, thank you, and take me off your list because they know what to do to make that One of them had taken. I think she did half a million last year and this year she had her first quarter where she did 275,000 for the quarter and so she's on her path to her first million. And so when private equity was like oh yeah, and she's like oh no, thank you, because she knows what to do to take it to a million. She knows what to do to take it to multiple seven figures, she knows it, she's on the path. A million she knows what to do to take you to multiple seven figures, she knows it, she's on the path right. Okay, we had so many doctors getting their time back for the like oh, my goodness, this is the first time I was able to take two weeks off, four weeks off, eight weeks off. I had a challenge in my family or a loved one who passed on, and I was able to just send my team a text and say, take care of it, I need to be gone. And they were gone and their practice was working.

Speaker 1:

We have so many people who have rockstar teams. Now they have nightmare teams. Now they have rockstar teams because they know how to lead their team. They know how to create profitable teams. Right, because that's one of the places where, in private practice, all profits go to dies with the team, because it's the biggest expense, if you will, but there's no ROI. And so they're building these rockstar teams and they're just loving it, and so we've had so many of those things happen and we're so grateful so many new practices launched, so many of them growing really well, so many of them scaling, because we support everyone, support everyone, grow, launch, you know, launch, grow, scale. The whole gamut and you know. So those are the things that we've seen and we're so excited about it. So we're so excited about the tools we've built.

Speaker 1:

So we've built the YouTube channel, we've built the Profitable Private Practice Playbook, we've built the Profitable Private Practice Movements, which is a membership, and then the entrepreneur business school and the entrepreneur business school. We have the tier. We have the first tier, which is like grow, and we have the second tier, which is like skill. So the doctor is doing who have crossed the million dollar mark, that's where they come to scale and all of that stuff. And so we were so committed, guys, what I'm saying is we're so committed to seeing private practice owners win. We're so committed and I want to invite you, okay?

Speaker 1:

So today's National Private Practice Physician Day is all about the physician who owns a private practice. I already told you the challenges they're having the decreased reimbursement, the increased cost of living, the administrative headaches, the cashflow problems, the burnout, like. All these things are potentials and even for the ones who don't experience this, it is a Herculean task in our time to build these practices. We show them what to do. They're getting it done, but they're doing it against odds. They're doing it because of their commitment to patients and healthcare and all of those things, and I really want us to make today special for them, okay, okay. So here are some of the things you can do, okay.

Speaker 1:

So one is if you're a private practice doctor, your private practice owner is a physician. I want you to share your story. Share your story Now. You use the hashtag shared on social media NPPPD, right? National Private Practice Physician Day NPPD. So use that hashtag, hashtag NPPD, but share your story, right? You know, this is who I am. This is who I take care of. This is why I'm so excited to be a private practice doctor.

Speaker 1:

Today's our day. I'd love it if you celebrate, you know, in the comments. Let me let us know how our practice has served you or how I've served you, or whatever. But share your story and if you tag us, I will reshare your stuff. I'll come there and promote you and do all of that stuff because I want to see you win. So share your story, right? Share a story. You can share a story of a patient's life. Who's better and you're like. This is why I do what I do and, yes, it's one of the most challenging times, but I'm here and I'm here for the long haul, right, and so do that and put the hashtag there and invite your patients to share their stories. Share why they continue to come back to you, be so surprised and sometimes in the days that is challenging. It's good to have that to look at. Right, it's good to have that, okay.

Speaker 1:

Second thing, whether you're a private practice doc or not, I want you to shout out another private practice doc, because guess what? I know you have a doctor, okay, so chances are you have a primary care if your woman has also have an ob-gyn. You may have a dermatologist, you may have a gastroenterologist, you may have whatever it is, but, oh my goodness, do a post, shout them out. Tell them thank you, like for somebody. And let me tell you practice dogs they get so much coming at them that it is so fun for them to be able. It is so helpful. It is so meaningful for them to read that what they do is working, that the sacrifices they're making it's even worth it, okay.

Speaker 1:

So, whether you're a dog or not, a private practice dog or not, celebrate another private practice dog or not a private practice doc or not, celebrate another private practice doc. Tag them. Tag their practice. Share a meaningful story with some meat to it, of how they changed your life or how they turned something around. Tag us hashtag NPPPD right, because I want to come there and make some noise too, my team and I. But tag them so they can see it, so other people can see it, and stuff like that. Right, that could be the way you shout out. Or go leave them a Google review. Stop thinking in your heart oh, they're so amazing. Like. Go leave them a Google review.

Speaker 1:

If there's somebody like oh, this will be a good doctor for this person, do a referral, right, like there's so many things. If you're someone who does videos all the time, do a video. Do a video and say this is how this person changed my life. But, my goodness, put a smile on some private practice physician's face. Let them know it's worth it. Encourage them to keep going because all of us, all of us need them. Okay, all of them need them. So give them a good day. Give them a great day. Maybe for you, it's a handwritten card you're going to send to them and you're going to say, oh, my goodness, this is how you made a difference for me or my parents or my sister or my child or whatever. That is okay, but do it. Do it and tag me. Okay, I want this tag, I want this hashtag trending because of the number of people doing this. This is important. Okay, I want to invite you to join the mission. If you're a private practice doc, come join us.

Speaker 1:

Entremdcom forward slash movements. Why did we build? Why did we build a membership that's less than a cappuccino a day? Because we want you to easily, easily, have access to what you need to be profitable, to thrive. Okay, now you know you get all that stuff going. You want to come join us in the Entree MD Business School? Come. But my goodness, yeah, right, like, come join the movement. We built it for you, we built it for you.

Speaker 1:

And if you know any leaders of physician communities and you're like, oh man, dr Una, this will be a good connection for you. Maybe you could do a workshop there, maybe whatever I don't know what it is, but we have tools that can help private practices win, and for the last seven years we have been helping them win, right. And so there are communities that you can connect us with. There are organizations that have, you know, like a hundred private practice docs or whatever. Connect us with. If you're part of an association, you're like, oh my goodness, and you can get us on stage, whatever. If there's any way you can help us amplify the message, please connect us. Okay, please connect us.

Speaker 1:

You can connect with me on social media email druna that D-R-U-N-A at entremdcom you know, and then share the resources. Listen to me. You have a private practice doc. Get them a copy of the Profitable Private Practice playbook it's 15 bucks. Like, get them a copy. Say, hey, doc, I was thinking of you. I found this resource. I think it would be great. People are raving about it, right? These are the challenges I'm running by private practice. Share the YouTube link with them, share the movements with them.

Speaker 1:

But today is one day. Take 30 minutes, take an hour and do something that is going to radically shift the narrative for private practice physicians. I can't do it alone, you can't do it alone, but together we can make a big difference. So I want to invite you to do that, to share this episode as well, and let us make this a magical day for private practice. Like, let one doc have like 10 people, 12 people you know, tag them and tell them stuff. You're like whoa, what's going on? You're like happy National Private Practice Physicians Day, right, so let's do this. Let's make it. Let's make it a theme, right, so let's do this. Let's make it a theme. Let us encourage the people who are taking care of our health, because we're going to need it, we need it, we desperately need it. Okay, and yeah, let's do that. Let's do that.

Speaker 1:

I'm a private practice doc as well, right, but for today, I just want to make it a magical day, magical day for every private practice doc. So do your part, put in the time, put in the work. Just know that what you're doing will lead to so many private practices you know, figuring out how they can stay really profitable in such a way. It's meaningful for them, so they don't need to shut their doors and they don't need to go get extra jobs, because you know they're not making any money in their practices and people can be cared for and these practices have longevity and sustainability. Okay, we can do. We have it's within our power to do so. Let's use our power. Today We've complained, we've felt bad about it, we felt stuck, we felt like victims.

Speaker 1:

Today's the day. I want to invite you to feel empowered and take all the tools at your disposal to make things so much better for private practice docs Rooting for you. Thank you so much for being a part of the Calvary. Okay, I'm going to end it the way I started it. The Calvary is not coming. It is here. It is us, you and I. All right, let's go do it. See you on the next episode.