How fast did you achieve a full patient panel?

[sabre24667]

In a major metro area is it viable to achieve a full patient panel by the time a one year guarantee salary is up?

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[VA Hopeful Dr]

In a major metro area is it viable to achieve a full patient panel by the time a one year guarantee salary is up?

Like busy all day every day? Possibly. Depends on how you set things up.

 

[sabre24667]

M-F 8 to 5. I am concerned about hearing stories of physicians who experienced a large drop in pay after their guaranteed salary went to production.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

M-F 8 to 5. I am concerned about hearing stories of physicians who experienced a large drop in pay after their guaranteed salary went to production.

Its more dependent on demand in your area and how you practice. If you're OK with lots of schedule drugs (chronic narcotics, benzos, and everyone who thinks they have ADHD and need Adderall) and antibiotics for the sniffles, you'll fill up fasting but likely not enjoy things as much.

 

[deleted87716]

Kinda depends what you mean by "full." I'm not full, but I'm busy enough. I took over for a retired doc 16 years ago, so I already had a decent-sized panel pretty much right from the start (it was Medicare-heavy, though). Currently, I have around 1600 patients in our system, some of whom probably aren't really active anymore. I see 20-25/day most days, and am still taking new patients. I live in an area with a lot of transients, and also have a lot of older patients, so between people moving away and dying off, there's a fair amount of turnover.

Depending on whether they're taking over for a retired doc or starting from scratch, a new physician in our group typically takes 2-3 years to reach a decent volume so they'll be making more than their guarantee once they're on production (our guarantee is for three years).

 

[simpler2]

Took about 4 years before my schedule maintained consistently booked and worked down to now show rate of 15% which is optimal for my area and the FQHC I am working at. Prior there would be days here and there that were slower. Empanelment has continued to elude our system so I can't say much in regards to how long it took to "fill my panel".

 

[FrustratedFamDoc]

It took me about 3 years until I was consistently seeing 16-22 patients a day. As has been stated, you'll fill up much faster if you enjoy writing scheduled medications without scrutiny, but you'd be part of the problem instead of the solution, so please don't do that. My market is relatively saturated with primary care docs and my hospital system did little to promote me so that is always a factor as well.

 

[oscardagrouch]

I've been at my current position for exactly 2 years now, and I am in the process of leaving because there are not enough patients coming through the door (aside from other issues like the practice being in financial ruin). I was on a 1-year guarantee and was extended for another 6 months. I see anywhere between 2-10 patients per day. I know that this form of paying is now common in our industry, but do take a good look at the area. I'm in a somewhat rural area, on the main road, but still, there isn't much coming through the door. A lot of my patients are young people in their 20's and 30's.

Some practices do offer a 2-year salary guarantee. Talk to other doctors in the area to get a feel for the population and how long it took them to get busy. I happened to know someone who works in this group, whom I knew from school, with an office about 2 miles away from mine and was extremely busy within 6 months.

 

[Bacchus]

I average anywhere from 25 to 40 new patients a month. I inherited a panel of 740. Now have 1075. About 50 were removed for inactivity. This is over 12 months. It's rare to have less than 15-17 a day. Sometimes I have less personally of precepting but resident numbers help me and we get a small wRVU adjustment for them seeing patients and billing under us.

 

[TableMD]

Very interesting. I was mostly busy in residency with my clinic panel, will be interesting to see how things are as an attending.

 

[Streetmath]

We moved into a full practice already which currently has over 3500 patients. The spot we took over had around 800 and a few left when we took over. We currently have around 1200-1500 just for us.