Practice Advice

Started by PGY2
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PGY2

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Hello,

I have been asked to provide pain management services to a regional hospital. They want me to set up my own pain clinic. I was wondering what would be the best way to set this up.

1) What type of relationship should I establish? Independent practitioner who contracts to provide services to the hospital vs. hospital based practice (exclusively work at the hospital's clinic only) vs. joint venture with the hospital.

My gut feeling is to just be an independent practitioner, that way I could also branch out to other locations instead of being restricted to one location only.

2) Since I will be providing interventional services, is it more beneficial to take the procedures to an ASC and buy a stake in the ASC or can I negotiate part of the facility fees with the hospital? Is this illegal (anti kick-back or anti Stark)?

The situation now is that they said they would offer an income guarantee to be paid back over x amount of years until I am profitable. However, I dont want to get stuck making my entire income off physician fees only while the hospital is making a killing on the facility fees.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.