The EntreMD Podcast

5 Urgent Signs You Need to Hire a New Doctor for Your Private Practice NOW

• Dr. Una • Episode 495

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How do you know it’s time to hire another physician in your private practice?

This is a conversation I’ve had with so many physicians, and I decided to dedicate this episode to it because when this decision is delayed, it leads to burnout, lost revenue, missed opportunities, and practices that stall instead of scale.

If you’re consistently overbooked, working through lunch, skipping CEO time, or feeling like your exit is a million miles away, this one’s for you. I’m walking you through the five urgent signs that it’s time to bring in another physician now. Not six months from now, not next year, but NOW.

These are the signs I’ve seen over and over again in private practices that are stretched thin and stuck, and I’m here to help you get unstuck.

So tune in, take notes, and then get to work because the sooner you hire, the sooner your practice (and your life) can thrive.

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Key Takeaways: 

  • 00:00 Intro 
  • 02:15 Are you consistently overbooked?
  • 04:52 Do you have a patient acquisition system? 
  • 06:22 Is your practice financially stable?
  • 07:44 Do you have time for CEO activities? 
  • 10:06 Are you actively working on your exit?
  • 17:28 It’s time to hire another doctor
  • 18:10 Outro 

Additional Resources:


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SPEAKER_00:

When you're overextended, chances are you're not doing that stuff. You're no longer visioneering. You're not setting goals. You're just going day to day, like surviving the day. You're no longer hiring strategically. And if you're not doing that stuff, then your cash flow is having an issue. Hi dogs. Welcome to the OnTraMD 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. Umna. I have consulted with doctors where it is obvious in their private practices they need to hire a new physician, ASAP. A SAP. Okay? All right. And I decided to come on this episode to show you five signs you need to hire another doc, like immediately. Now, when I say immediately, of course you're not just gonna go, you know, pull somebody off the street and bring them into your practice because that's not the way it works, but that means you're working this process and you're treating it as a matter of urgency. Question then becomes why? I could hire whenever. I mean, I've been managing going through what I'm going through and all of that. This is especially important for the physician who owns the private practice. Okay. When you have a physician who is at a point where their practice needs another doctor, like as a matter of urgency, chances are that that physician is overextended as a physician. And if that physician is overextended as a physician, that means that they've given up a lot of their CEO roles. Okay. And when you have a doc who's given off a lot of their CEO roles, what that means is the business is suffering. I can almost guarantee that the cash flow may be good because they're so busy, but it's not nearly as good as it could be because now there's so much waste. I can also guarantee that there are probably growth opportunities that are coming that the doctor can't take advantage of. The doctor herself or himself is so burnt out that if they had a way out of their practice, they would run away. Their personal life is probably suffering. And all of these things, like is just, hmm. Okay. All right. So let's talk about this so we can go ahead, you know, get these physicians. Okay. All right. So the first sign that you need to hire another doctor as soon as possible is that you're consistently overbooked. You know, I'm gonna take some time to explain what I mean because a lot of times as physicians, we love to help people. We don't tell people no, especially when it comes to their health, because of course we're going to help them, right? And we would do whatever it takes, and we don't understand the personal cost to us. Now, am I saying don't take care of your patients? Because the thing I'm describing, I've done it. Well, what I'm saying is the way you say no to doing that is you either shut it all down or you get somebody to take care of this stuff, right? Okay, so how do you know you're overbooked? Well, let's say that the way you built your schedule is that you want to see 10 patients in the morning and 10 patients in the afternoon. Okay, that's the schedule that you've built to yourself. I'm not recommending this schedule, I'm just saying this is schedule built because I know people see at different extremes and all that stuff. That's the schedule that you've had and you've built it out that way. You know, like new patient visits are an hour, this is that, all those kind of things. But then this is happening multiple times a week where they're like, well, this person called, and you know you can tell them come in a week. Well, your schedule for a week is booked. You can tell them come in three days, and your schedule for three days is booked too. So what do you tell them? Oh, just put them in at 11 o'clock, right? Just put them in at 11 o'clock. No, just put them in at three o'clock, right? Or you put them in such a way that you know you work through lunch, right? Lunch is maybe 12 to 1. And you're like, yeah, just put them at 12. And they call you for another person. Oh, just put them at 12:15. You know, you're staying later, or sometimes you tell them to put them earlier. So you're coming into the office earlier. You're doing all kinds of stuff. And these are not one-offs. These are things you're doing every week. You're doing multiple times a week for some of you, every day. I mean, like, first of all, like you're overbooked, you're overextended, you're probably burnt out. The familiar symptoms of burnout are showing up again. You're not able to spend time with your family. You have a lot of guilt if you're a parent that you're not spending time with your kids. And the people in your life are beginning to resent a little bit what you do, making decisions like I'm not going to be an entrepreneur, I'm not going to be a doctor because this sucks. So that's the first sign. If that sign is there, I want to invite you to decide to hire. I want to invite you to decide to hire. And you can be as creative as you want to be. You can bring on someone full-time, you can bring someone who works two days a week. And we have never had the amount of flux we have in the physician community as we have now. Like you will find somebody to work for you two days a week, right? And take that pressure off while you do what is required to systemically handle the pressure. Okay. Okay. So that's number one. Number two, sign that you're ready to hire as soon as possible. This goes with number one. Okay. So your patient acquisition system results are consistent and controllable. So you have a system for acquiring new patients, right? You're like, these are the referral sources that we're maintaining relationships with and all of those things. This is what we do online. This is what we do with our Google reviews, our social media, and all of these things. This is what we do with the recaller. Like you have a whole system. So you can, you can, you can crank it up as you need to to get more people in. Like you know what to do. You have this wait list, you know what to do with the wait list when, and all of those things. And so there's evidence that you can fill another person up based on what you have, maybe it's a wait list and stuff like that, and what you can do because you built this system and you know how to crank it up, right? And so when you're consistently overbooked and you know how to fill your schedule, you're you're probably telling, you know, like reforal sources, like you're hoping they don't send you more people in a way, because you're like, where are we going to put them? Right? Where your system works that well. So when you have that and you know how to crank it up, wrave it down, crank it up, write it down, then oh my goodness, you're ready. You're ready because you can get another person on and you can get them busy. Okay. Number three, what is the third sign that you're ready to hire another physician as soon as possible? Is in addition to number one and number two, because if number three doesn't exist, you're still not ready, right? Number three is that your practice is financially stable and your cash flow is strong. Okay. Which means, like in another way of putting it, is you're getting paid for the work you do. The reason why this is so important is because I have met people who have hired doctors because they're overextended, they're overbooked, and all of those things. But their billing departments and their internal collections in the office are like such a mess that they're not getting paid for the work they do. Right? Their AR is just like completely out of control, right? Okay. So if that's the case, if you have cash flow problems, you still can't pay the new doc you bring in. You can get them all the patients in the world, but you can't pay them. So if you have your practice financially stable and your cash flow is good and you're getting paid for the work you do, then you're ready because you can pay them. You can pay the person who comes on. And the people they see, well, you get paid for them too. Right? If you have it where your cash flow is a mess, your billing department is a mess. Guess what's gonna happen? When the new doc comes in, your billing department is still gonna be a mess. All right. So now you're not getting paid for the work you do, they're not getting paid for the work they do. So that is more financial pressure. Third sign, your practice is financially stable, your cash flow is strong, you're getting paid for the work you do. Number four, sign you need to hire another doctor. And I think this is the most expensive sign. Is the most expensive sign. And that's this your CEO activities are left undone. You're not doing them. No, no, hang on. This is so important because as a clinician, you see patients. You don't get paid because you saw patients, you get paid because you saw patients and then you did the business stuff. So the part of you who's gonna meet with the biller, hold them accountable, make sure your numbers are looking right, review your profit and loss statement, all of that stuff. That's the CEO. And while you're overextended, chances are you're not doing that stuff. And if you're not doing that stuff, chances are they're not performing the way they need to perform. And they're not performing the way that you need to perform they need to perform, then your cash flow is having an issue. Guess who was all about building the brand? The brand that is driving the practice?

unknown:

You.

SPEAKER_00:

And so now you're no longer paying attention that the Google reviews are happening and they're favorable. You're no longer paying attention to the strength of your Google business profile. You're no longer paying attention to what is happening on social media. Maybe you used to show up and it was part of your engine, right? It's part of your engine. And now you're not doing that anymore. You're no longer visioneering. You don't even remember the vision of your practice, you're not setting goals, you're just going day to day, like surviving the day. You're no longer hiring strategically. Maybe your office needs an office manager, needs another, you know, the dot, you don't have the bandwidth to do it because you're overextended. Maybe there are growth opportunities as a vertical you can put in your practice that will totally knock things out of the park. You don't have the time to look at it, you don't have the time to lead the team to pull it off. And so your current revenue based on the work you're doing is suffering. The revenue you could be generating if you took advantage of these growth opportunities is suffering. And so when you look at this, you need to hire another doctor. So you can make out CEO time because you need time to think, you need time to strategize, you need time to do those activities that will move your practice forward. Like one of the greatest gifts you can give your practice is your CEO time. So it's so expensive not to have this time. And if bringing on another doc is what it takes to do that, then so be it. Right. Like it is such a game, it'll be such a game changer for you. Reason number five. And reason number five is something, you know, I wish every doctor would take very seriously. And it is if you're actively working on your exit. Now, when I say this, people are like, I'm not exiting. I just started my practice three years ago. I started my practice 10 years ago, I haven't done 10 years in me, all of those kind of things. Okay. I'm not trying to say you should walk away from your practice. I'm not trying to say you should walk away from medicine. I'm not even trying to say you should sell your practice. But but the best way to build is to build with the end in mind, right? Because we're gonna get to the end. Must have been Warren Buffett or someone was asking, like, what is the thing that makes people most likely to succeed, right? And I don't remember the context of it, right? Because that would determine the answer. But he said long-term perspective. It was either him or Brian Tracy, long-term perspective. The longer your perspective, you know, where you're looking from, the better decisions you make today. I'll give you an example. Like if I think about, you know, I'm going to a class reunion and I want to look good for my class reunion, I'll kind of work out. I may not work out. I may just really work out and really eat right, or maybe even fast the month before the reunion and I'm done. Okay. And this is a reunion coming up in 90 days. Do what I need to do and I'm good. I could also have a different goal. Like when I'm 90, I want to be able to carry my great-grandbabies. I want to be able to bend over, lift them up, throw them up in the air, like, oh, grandma loves you, right? I want to be able to do that. That's long term. I'm 46 years old. Okay. So we're talking 44 years from now. Now, because I had that long-term perspective, if I truly own that goal, then it means that I will work harder at eating clean now. It means that I will strength train multiple times a week. Well, it means that I will learn to manage my stress. It means I will go for all my screenings. It means so many things. And my body will be better today, five years, 10 years, all the way to 44 years, because of my long-term perspective. If your perspective in your private practice is a 90-day goal, right? We set goals in my programs, we set goals, you know, by the quarter, by the month, all of those things by the year. In fact, at the time of this recording, we're getting getting ready to do our vision retreat for the entrepreneur business goal, where we'll be mapping out 2026, right? We start our year in October. So yeah, we'll be mapping out the entire 2026. If you have that, it will make you behave a certain way. It will make you pay attention, you know. So you had a revenue goal, you do what you need to do to get the revenue goal. Maybe you figure to hit this revenue goal. I need to bring in an office manager, you do the work to get an office manager, your practice will be so much better, your practice will be thriving and all of those things. If, on the other hand, in addition to that, you then say, after I've run this practice for 20 years, I want to set the stage for a seven-figure or multiple seven-figure, maybe even crack a record and have an eight-figure exit from my practice. And so if you have that, you're gonna come back today and you're gonna behave very differently from the person who only has one-year goals. And it doesn't have to be 20 years. You may want to exit in five years, you may want to exit in three years. Okay, I don't really recommend less than three years. I'm like, come on, guys, it's a process. Okay. So three years, five years, seven years. It doesn't have to be 20 years, but you have a longer-term perspective. What that does is now I build my brand intentionally. I build the brand that supports the practice intentionally because I know that's an asset that will affect the valuation of my practice. I build my team in a certain way because I know that if I'm the main driver, it destroys the valuation of my practice, right? So which means I need I can't be the only doctor, I can't be the only manager, I can't be the only one driving revenue, right? You see what I mean? Okay. It also means where in 12 months I can get away with not doing SOPs. I don't need to do SOPs. But if I'm going to exit, I am going to need SOPs. So the sooner we figure this SOP business out, the better. It also means people are going to look at my books. I've talked to people who exited their practices and they describe it as a colonoscopy, like the financial auditing that they do. And so if they're going to look at my books, I keep clean books. I keep clean books because I'm going to make an exit. And I know they're going to look at at least three years' worth of data. That happens there as well. I can say, hey, what is something that I can do as an insurance-based private practice that's cash pay, that lends itself to scalability to increase the valuation of my practice? What could I do? Now, would that revenue be good while I own the practice? Yes. Would it be great for an exit? Yes. I want you thinking like exit, because we're all going to exit. We're either going to pass it on to your kids, which most people don't do, right? Or you are going to sell it, okay, which many people can't do because they didn't set it up that way, or you're just going to shut it down. And so if you've worked at your practice for five years, 10 years, 15, like why would you shut it down when you can get a payday, when you can let it live on, right? So anyway, if you're actively working on your exit and you have any of these other things true, you're overbooked, you're drop, you're not doing your CEO stuff and all those things, or you have a great engine, you have a great patient acquisition engine. It affords you that you know luxury of hiring hiring another doctor, and you hire another doctor. It's very painful when you're like, oh, you know, but you it would take them three years to pay for themselves or whatever. But when you build it in such a way that they can start paying for themselves, like almost immediately, then where's the risk? Right? Where's the risk? And so if you're actively working on your exits, you do not want to exit a practice where you are the doctor. That makes it tough because you're the doctor and you leave. And that's why they put in all these very interesting clauses of you now, you have to stay for two years or three years. And so you go from an employer to an employee, which is no fun because most entrepreneurs are not employable. Most of us are not. We just are not. Okay. So you want to bring that in so you're not the one, right? Like there are other people who are pulling their own weights, who are bringing in their own people, and all of those things, which puts you in a better place. You know, I always tell the story of the doctor who wanted to sell her practice. I must have been two years into private practice at the time and went to look at it, and there was nothing to buy. The doctor was the only doctor there. The doctor still had paper charts. There was nothing. There are no SOP. There was nothing. There was nothing to buy. And I think at the end of the day, she shut it down. And instead of making money from that, she lost a lot of money because you're going to pay to store those charts. You're going to pay. It's like it's expensive to shut down a practice. You don't just close the doors. So if you're going to do that, then yeah, you want to work on bringing a doctor in and start making yourself less and less relevant. And by that I don't mean less relevant as a human, but like to your business. And some people are like, but I'm the person, I'm the secret sauce. Yes, you are. And you can be a CEO level secret sauce. I mean, there could be other doctors pulling their weight. And so when you want to exit, you can exit. Like if I wanted to exit my practice today, me being the owner is not an issue because it runs without me. It runs without me. I wish that for every physician. So it's not about leaving medicine, it's about putting yourself in a position to exit because you will exit. You can exit on your terms or you can exit as life forces you to. So if you have these five signs, these five things in place, my friend, you are ready to hire a doctor and you're ready to hire a doctor right now. And if you just want to get to work, and when I say get to work, what I mean is make that job ad, put it where you need to put it. Let everybody know that you're hiring, start interviewing. Don't stall on the process. Like start today. Literally put out an ad today, right? Okay, fine. You may need some time to work on it. 48 hours. That's it. Put it out. Start interviewing. You might be like, I'm nervous about yes, but figure it out as you go. And we have a lot of resources on this as far as how to do, you know, create job description, ideal ads, all of those things. And again, if you are in private practice and you're like, I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to do that, especially as it relates to filling your schedule, getting paid for the work you do and building a profitable team. I want to invite you to reach out to my team on traind.com forward slash call. We have multiple programs specifically for private practice owners. We can support you so you can win because that's our mandate is to help you win. So rooting for you, go get this stuff done. This is a great episode to share on social media. Say, oh my goodness, if you run a private practice, you need to go watch this, you need to go listen to this. And I will see you, my friend, on the next episode.