Most, "business friendly" specialties

[DD214_DOC]

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I couldn't think of a better title, but which specialties lend themselves more to those interested in running private practices? Which fields have promise for growth into a decent-sized practice of 1-5 physicians, some midlevel providers, and nurses?

Just curious what matches up to my current interests.

 

[docB]

Obviously primary care type specialties offer the best opportunity to run your own business as you can start at any level (solo on up) and go from there. As for $$$ opportunity probably Derm or plastics so you can get into cosmetics. Surgeons can get into ownership of surgi centers (there's a related thread on this in the DrsLounge Everyone forum) and there's money to be made there. Optho can get involved in surgi centers and can do a ton of procedures in the office.
Things that are less business friendly are things like ER where you have to either sign on with a group that has a contract or you have to form a group and try to get a contract. Path and anesthesia where you have to join a group or independently get all the surgeons to use you which would be really difficult.
Some subspecialties are geography dependant. Eg. GI, ENT, cards, etc. If you try to start in an area where there are lots of your specialty around you have to take referrals away from the other, more established docs. Very tough to do. If you go to a small town and are the only ENT around they’ll all come to you.

 

[docB]

I've been thinking about this for a few days and I came up with one more. The thing is I don't know if they make a lot of money or not but I'd think the potential is there. PM&R. I bet those guys can own and run their own rehab centers with RPTs working for them. That's gotta be a cash cow. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully someone will chime in.

 

[NinerNiner999]

Keep this in mind too - anyone with an MD is considered a licensed physician and entitled to practice any aspect within the law. That being said, it is not unheard of for the Internist to open a start-up business doing hair plugs in his/her off time, or for the FP to do collagen and botox for a premium. I'm not advocating that Joe Shmoe FP should start branching out into liposuction or breat implants, but the option of medical "side businesses" is always there. I would advocate that in this scenario, the fields that offer the most free time (anesthesia, EM, pathology, etc) would be the ones with the most lucrative alternatives...

 

[chauffeur]

I've been thinking about this for a few days and I came up with one more. The thing is I don't know if they make a lot of money or not but I'd think the potential is there. PM&R. I bet those guys can own and run their own rehab centers with RPTs working for them. That's gotta be a cash cow. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully someone will chime in.

i don't know much about cash cows, but my understanding is that the nature of PM&R allows one the potential to work with and join many different types of practices. i've heard of physiatrists starting up their own general msk rehab practices, joining sports-ortho practices doing emgs and pain-interventional work, and also consulting in hospitals. it may be difficult to start from scratch b/c much work is spent educating primary care physicians about what you have to offer, but these physicans are always very satisfied.