Let's say I start planning to open a practice. I have 200k saved, will I survive a year. I'm not planning on opening up in any saturated metro. More like a college town.
You will do
fine adequately with a cold startup in a new area and without any exp working without training wheels or running an office.
As mentioned by
@heybrother , you will just have a
lot of inefficiencies and miss a
LOT of $ early on if you don't observe while working at an established podiatry office. The biz saying I always use is,
"There are two ways to learn: your mistakes or someone else's. One is quicker, and one is cheaper... and they're the same one."
Logistically, you could find an office and supplies. However, it's very hard to sign up for insurance plans and hospital privileges when you're still a resident (may not have full state license, not board cert, dont' have malpractice, addresses established in the area, etc). You probably have no idea what I'm even talking about or what the process for many of those things are, so maybe don't try to open up 6 months from now?? We haven't even gotten to office forms, equipment, staffing, marketing, supplies, and 74 other things. PS, you do
NOT get a second chance at a first impression of you and your office with PCPs and hospitals and other important local refer sources.
😉
It is better to learn a bit working at a fair/good podiatry office, realize the general needs and flow of an office, and
then apply that knowledge to your own... hit the ground running. Even if you have enough money to start an office (costs vary widely based on location and equipment), I would work a year or two or three and learn in or near your target location before taking the plunge.
Solo practice
can be done just fine right from residency, though... and PLEeEeEeNTY of DPMs have done it. Some do fairly well, but they are usually the entrepreneur types who scout and plan solo office for years and/or the type with family money/podiatrist and no real pressure of money or an established office they can just take over at their own pace. Those are the minority; for the majority of DPMs, solo startup will be significantly difficult. For better or worse, one *plus* side to the wretched podiatry pay and job market is that necessity is the mother of invention.
🙁
In most places, you could do it with about 50k-100k and line of credit or savings of another 50k-100. Wide ranges are because it's HIGHLY variable as to how much marketing you will need early, how many patients you will get and how quickly, how good your payers are. Some areas are highly saturated, and others are a bit more open and/or you can get a hospital to help with startup costs (typically in exchange for staying there awhile and implication of taking most/all cases and sending imaging/tests to them). Many startup PPs have to take ER call + bad insurances or do nursing homes or do tons of marketing or go without an assistant (scheduler only) or all of those things to make ends meet early on.
...So, again, I vote for work in a PP, then run a PP solo. It honestly works better that way for 95% of DPMs... and consider others on SDN: we won't have to endure years of threads and posts with you complaining about running a solo office, as you do right now with the job market. Tis the holiday season, so think of othersf?
🙂 🎅
🙂
