CNN article: Doctors Going Broke

[Seldon1985]

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Doctors Going Broke

An oncologist (albeit medical) quoted.

 

[Gfunk6]

Doctors suck at business. if you join a large group make sure they have a CEO (non-MD with an MBA) to run day to day operations and keep the business in the black.

Also your billing people need to be experts. Rad Onc reimbursement is an arcane mess, you need people who devote their full time towards mastering it so that (a) you do not inadvertently commit fraud and (b) you do not under bill.

 

[thesauce]

So the medonc was "$3.2 million in debt by mid 2010" and has "since halved his debt," but is "considering closing his practice" 😕

At the current rate, he'd have it all paid off by the end up this year and be pulling in ~1M/yr next year.

This guy is going to have a lot of offers to buy his practice.

Anyway, good to see these articles being published in major news venues, eliciting sympathy for our cause.

 

[subatomicdoc]

Doctors suck at business. if you join a large group make sure they have a CEO (non-MD with an MBA) to run day to day operations and keep the business in the black.

Also your billing people need to be experts. Rad Onc reimbursement is an arcane mess, you need people who devote their full time towards mastering it so that (a) you do not inadvertently commit fraud and (b) you do not under bill.

As a doc in a large group, I entirely agree with the latter point. However, on the first I have to disagree. We have a very flat organizational structure that works well without a CEO. While some in our group think it could be improved upon, we have done well in the current practice environment without concerns about being in the black.