The EntreMD Podcast

UnitedHealthcare Dropped Thousands of Doctors… Here’s What to Do Next

• Dr. Una • Episode 499

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In this episode, I talk about the recent news that UnitedHealthcare will be dropping thousands of physician-owned private practices—and why this isn’t the end of the story. Just like in a medical code, the first step is not to panic. Instead, we assess the situation, run diagnostics, and take strategic action.

I share how you can turn what looks like a major setback into one of the best things that’s ever happened to your practice. This episode is all about shifting from fear to empowerment and learning to thrive as a true physician entrepreneur, no matter what challenges come your way.

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SPEAKER_00:

The first thing a doctor does when there's a code is not to panic. The first thing they do is they look and say, okay, what's going on? What are the vitals? What are the ABCs? What are all these things? Like they're run diagnostics. I want you to rock this. I want this to be something that was thrown at you that was supposed to really be detrimental, but you turned it around and you made it one of the best things that happened to your practice. Hi Doc. Welcome to the Unchamp D 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. So thousands of private practices owned by physicians just got notice from the United Healthcare that they're going to drop them. And so I think it's from January. And, you know, I'm on here because I still know that you can thrive. And I want to show you how to thrive in spite of this. Now I'm not going to talk about how unfair it is and all of those things, even though it is true, because right now my number one focus is you. I want you to have the confidence and I want you to have the tools to navigate this. If you've been in private practice for a good amount of time, you have navigated a pandemic, you have navigated a recession, you have navigated the great resignation, you have navigated all of these things, and you're still standing. And I don't want you to stand, I want you to stand and thrive. I want you to rock this. I want this to be something that was thrown at you that was supposed to really be detrimental, but you turned it around and you made it one of the best things that happened to your practice. I want you to think like, what if this push by United Healthcare is a gift given to me to innovate myself and innovate my practice? So I come up with a practice that is 10 times better without them than with them. Okay. So, United Healthcare, many people are like, this is the death of private practice, right? United Healthcare will not be the death of your private practice. This move in the grand scheme of events, when you turn back and look at it, you'll find out that it was a gift because of the way you navigated it. I'm gonna give you five things to do. Five things to do to navigate this, okay? Okay, so number one, let's go into it. Number one, do not panic. You are a physician. I love it when I watch the movies. Okay, and I mean in real life, but you know, it's easier than movies because it's not a real person having a real problem. Okay. So I I love watching the movies where there's cold blue because this is what always happens. There's cold blue. The relatives of the people, of the person who's in distress, um, they're frantic, right? They're crying, they're asking questions, you know, they're all riled up. And there's somebody who is by the patient, who is calm in the midst of all the alarms going off, all the things going off, they're just calm. And I check the airway. Do this, get the different like it's just so cool. Why is that? Why is that? It's because they know what to do. Okay, so I'm gonna start by telling you don't panic. Okay, you wouldn't panic in a code. I don't want you to panic when the United Healthcare wants to force a code on your practice. Don't panic. Don't panic. I'm gonna show you what to do so you don't panic, but this is the decision I want you to make. Okay, take your chill pill. Don't panic. Don't panic, but look at your numbers, right? Like and so I want you to run diagnostics. Don't panic, run diagnostic. Don't panic, look at your numbers. So, for instance, what percentage of your patients are actually United Healthcare? Because it's 3%, we don't have a problem. Okay, like there may be a problem, but you don't have a problem, right? Okay, it doesn't mean you won't do the like you some of the other things you'll still do, but you're right. If it's 50%, you're like, okay, we need to take actions with surgical precision because this is 50%, right? And that's your your patient base. Now take a look. The patient base is one number, but take a look, what percentage of your revenue comes from United Healthcare? Okay, because you might have 50% of the of the of the patient volume, but maybe it's 20% of your revenue that comes from them. Either because you have other you know procedures or things that pay much better or whatever, you have a cashway vertical or whatever that is. Look at your numbers to assess what kind of problem are we looking at here? What kind of problem? And that's like you looking at the vitals. When you look at the vitals and you're like, ooh, the heart rate is, you know, the heart rate is 40. You don't panic, you're like, start compressions. You know what I'm saying? Like, but you gotta know what the problem is. So don't panic. Take a look at your numbers. Take a look at your numbers. This will inform the decisions you need to make. In fact, if you will do the uncomfortable thing of take looking at your numbers, you will almost immediately know what to do. Well, we like to run away from our numbers, but you can't do that, not now. Okay, number two, communicate quickly and clearly with your patients. Okay, so and I would put it on them, I would put it on United Healthcare, right? I was like, this is your monkey, you stirred up this stuff, this is all on you. Meaning, I will say something like, We are still here for you. We are not leaving you. Your insurance company is leaving us. So we're still here to serve you. And hint, hint, it's time for open enrollment. So if you still want to see us, these are your options. Number one, change your insurance. Number two, go with our self-pay um option. Number, number, number three, like give them options, tell them what that is, and tell them I'm here for you. They decided to leave. Not because of anything we did, but that they just that's what they want to do. Right? Okay, so that's the second thing. So do that. So email, text, social media, whatever it is you have to do. So that's number two. Number three. Number three is replace volume with strategy. So don't just think, okay, you know, uh this volume is gone. Period. No, it's it's they is is it's going, it's not gone, right? Because you can recover it with what you do with your patients and the other stuff. But okay, so what am I going to do to replace this this revenue that was coming from United Healthcare? One of the things you could do, for instance, if you have cash-based verticals, you can ramp that all the way up, right? Ramp it all the way up. If you have some hybrids, you ramp, you ramp that up. Um, if you have, for instance, if you go direct to employers, like you don't offer insurance, but we can have this package that you pay cash, and then you can have your employees come to us, right? So they just have to on their own get you know insurance for catastrophic events and stuff like that, right? And emergency events. So you can do things like that. So just it's strategy, like think it through. What could I do? And also take a look. Like, you really want to rank like all the services we offer. You want to rank them like this is the one that pays us the most, this is the one that pays us the least. Now, I know many physicians will say, Oh, I don't do that, I just do what the patient needs. Hello, you are a physician and an entrepreneur. You gotta do both. Okay, so nobody's talking about making decisions based on money, but you gotta do both. You gotta know. Because for instance, if you have something that pays you 2,000, you have something that pays you 150, what are you gonna spend your marketing muscle on? 2,000. Yes, ma'am. See, please and thank you. Right? Okay. So you wanna rank that. So you because you may find, oh, if I just turn up this like two degrees, we will make up for all this stuff we're supposedly losing from United Healthcare, right? So you gotta know these things. It's important. I had a client and we were doing an exercise, and I said, rank your services. Okay, and she ranked. I said, What's number one? And she told me what it is. I said, How much, how many per what percentage of your patient visits are for service number one? She's like, We only do like barely one a month. I was like, your highest paying thing. I said, Why? I just haven't promoted it. I was like, how about you do? And she's gone from barely one a month to I think she said three a day. Which imagine what that does to her bottom line for the same number of visits. It's your number of visits. Okay, anyway, let's go back. So you want to take a look, right? What is the strategy? What is the strategy? Number four. Um, you want to go, this is my favorite one. You want to go on full offense. So, what that means is let's say United Healthcare, you have a big panel, you had 500 patients that are United Healthcare. Okay. If I were you, I would play offense and say, what do I need to do to attract 500 new patients in addition to the regular cadence of new patients? So let's say you get 20, 30 new patients every month. Okay, let's say you get 30 new patients every month. And so you're like, okay, over the next three months, how do we attract 500 plus 90, right? Which would be the number of patients. So technically 600 patients. And I play full offense. If you stop talking to your referral sources, now is the time. If you have stopped asking your patients to write you reviews and refer their friends and family to you, now is the time. If you stop sending emails, marketing emails to tell people to book appointments and to refer to you, now is the time. If you're not leveraging social media, now is the time. If you haven't optimized your Google business profile, now is the time. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, if you don't speak in places where your people gather, um chamber of commerce, schools, churches, organizations, all of these things, again, now is the time. Okay, and you're playing full offense to replace what was quote unquote lost. Now I want you to think about this. If you don't panic and you look at your numbers, you communicate with your communicate with your patients, and some of them switch insurance, you replace the volume with the strategy, you get a high-level strategy that will replace the revenue that would be quote unquote lost from United Healthcare, and you play full offense to attract the patients that will probably go because they have United Healthcare. Do you see how you could be just fine? Will it be work? Yes. Is it good work? Yes, because this is a good thing for your practice, regardless. Regardless. So I know it's annoying. I know all of this stuff. The thing is this we cannot fight the healthcare industry until we become empowered, until we understand this business thing, until we build powerful practices, until we know how to thrive without them, where them saying that they're leaving is not a threat, where all of these things, like we have to become savvy entrepreneurs. Once we build a community, a large enough community of powerful, savvy physician entrepreneurs who are leaders, who know how to negotiate, who know how to talk on the biggest stages, who know how to galvanize communities and all that. Till we do that, we cannot win. So you doing this is you joining the fight, literally, because you're building a practice that's insured against this insurance company. So don't see it like it's not fair and all this. This is part of how you fight the injustice. And people see you do it, and they're like, oh my goodness, how did you do this? Okay, this is part of how we fight. So don't be so mad at United Healthcare that you kill your practice. Don't be so mad at United Healthcare that you let your practice die. Don't do it. Okay. All right. So that's number four. Number five, set yourself up to never let this happen again. Set yourself up to be such a savvy physician entrepreneur that you know how to generate revenue. You know how to build a stable practice. You know how to adjust in hard times. You understand, you're so you're like ambidextrous as an entrepreneur. Like if they close one door, you know how to flip another one open. How do you do that? You do that by becoming a savvy entrepreneur. You're not doing what you can do to run your practice, but you're the entrepreneur. You know how to set goals like an entrepreneur, you know how to build strategic plans like an entrepreneur, like a like a true entrepreneur. You understand how to lead teams, you know how to lead in challenging times. You understand the revenue creation system generation systems, you know how to create revenue. You have 12 ways to create revenue in this one way. So one way shuts, you're like, we're good. Let me tell you what happens in the entrepreneurial business school. When people say, um, ooh, I got fired, people are like, yeah, now you can do what you really want to do. When people are like, ooh, you know, I had a team member leave and all these things that throw people off. They're like, oh yeah, well, this referral source got cut off. Then they went and got another one. Like they are unstoppable. Why? Because they are not physicians who own practices, they are physician entrepreneurs who happen to own practices. They know what to do. They know what to do. Okay. All right. So never let set yourself up to never let this happen again. Become that. Become so savvy. Become a physic, a physician entrepreneur who's a weapon, right? Okay. So you can do that. The best way I know for you to do that is to put yourself in a container dedicated to helping you do that. And that's what we do in the entream business school. That's what it is all about, right? We work on helping you become a physician CEO. You don't become that because you started a practice. You become that because you become that. Where that is now the way you think. That is the way you set goals. That is the way you manage time. That's the way you handle challenges. That's the way you do all that. Your identity is I am a savvy physician entrepreneur. You let go of the hangups around money. You let go of the hangups around, ooh, this might be greed. You let go of all of those things. You understand that my role as an entrepreneur is to serve and to earn. We help you build a dominant brand that can stand, can stand whatever storm is thrown at it. We help you understand revenue generation systems. You know how to create money. You know how to create it. And we help you build profitable teams so you can expand your impact, expand your time freedom, expand your financial freedom. We have had people go from employed to multi-seven figures in revenue in two years, in three years. It is unbelievable the transformation happening. And they're not doing this and sacrificing family. They're not doing this and sacrificing their health. No, they're doing this and their family relationships are better and their finances are better and all of that. And let me tell you what they are doing with this storm. They will ride it, they will navigate it and end up better. That is exactly what is going to happen. Okay? So on traind.com forward slash call. You can book a call with my team, talk about it. We'll show you how we can support you and all of that. But this is the school for physician entrepreneurs who want to build profitable seven and eight-figure businesses. This is the school. It was built for you. There's a reason people joined it five years ago and have never left. Okay. There's a reason they created a hashtag that is EBS for life. And so even if you're like, I'm, I'm, if like the bottom line is if you're committed to your goals, this will be great for you. If you're committed to your goals and you're coachable, this will be great for you, right? So you can be committed, but you're not sure. That's okay. We'll show you pathways. You can be committed and a little fearful. That's okay. We'll show you how to think as an entrepreneur. You may be committed, but you're like, I've tried something, you know, I've tried to build a business and it didn't quite work. We have many people like that and they are thriving now. We will help you do that. What we need, like how you know this will be good for you, is you are committed to your goals. You're just like, I I had a dog tell me, she's like, Dr. Una, I I can do it. I just don't know what to do. I'm gonna accomplish it. I just don't know how to do it. I'm like, we got you. And she's crushing it. Crushing it. Okay. So if you are committed and you're coachable, like you, you can, you can think, you're like, huh, what if? Huh. Like you can listen to ideas, you are open to ideas, you have a growth mindset, not my way or the highway, and all I know what I know is true, and nobody else can tell me what not, like even show me what to do or show me something to explore. If you have these two things, you will thrive. You will thrive, and you will set yourself up where things like this don't throw you off track because you're like born for this. I know how to navigate it. Know how to navigate it. Okay? Okay, so that's what so for this episode. What I want you to do is take these five things, go do them. Go do that. Don't and and and pretty pleased with 17 cherries on top. If you know anybody who's in private practice, they're hurting right now. I want you to take this link and I want you to share it with them. If you're in groups where it's all private practice, take the link, share it with them. But do not panic. Do not throw away your practice. Do not panic. Do not throw away your practice. Okay. All right. So I want you to think about this. I want you to think it's a year from now. And we are all sitting together and we're having a conversation. Like, you remember when United Healthcare said they were gonna drop us? Oh my goodness. But look at where we are now. It is the best thing that happened to my practice. Because as a result of that, I did one, two, three, four, and we have not been, we have never been better. We've never been more um stable financially. I've never had more time off. I would never have brought this team on, I would never have discovered this vertical. Like this was awesome. That's what we get to have instead of the drama. So if United Healthcare wants to have drama, let them have drama. We're gonna win, and we're gonna continue winning. And when enough of us win, we're coming for them. All right, I'll see you on the next episode.