Skip to main content

Can Private Practice Survive?

Image
By


Just read another article forecasting the demise of private practice, which is the model I practice in.  We certainly feel the squeeze here in Cleveland, where our small gastroenterology (GI) practice is suffering from some breathlessness as surrounding health care institutions suck up oxygen in the community.

Now, being deprived of oxygen isn’t necessarily fatal.  Many patients suffer from diseases that result in low oxygen levels in their blood.  Folks who live at high altitudes don’t have the same concentration of oxygen available as do those who reside at sea level.  Yet, they live active lives.

How do these folks survive?  Do they have lessons for my GI practice?

Take a Deep Breath...

Here are some options that help individuals with low oxygen levels breathe easier.
  • Receive supplemental oxygen using an oxygen tank.  No analogous solution for my medical practice here.  For us, the ‘oxygen level’ can’t be artificially increased.
  • Reduce activity level to minimize oxygen requirement.  This is why folks with respiratory conditions tend to remain sedentary so they can function at a lower oxygen level.  Not sure if there’s a lesson here for our practice.  Do we move more slowly in the office?  Do we see fewer patients?  If we doctors used oxygen tanks, would this inject more vitality into the practice?
  • Attack the root cause of the oxygen assault.  If the cause of a patient’s low oxygen is pneumonia, then prescribe the right antibiotic to reverse the injury.  If the doctors in our practice attacked the proximate cause of our oxygen deprivation, we could go to jail. 
  • Train at a high altitude locale for athletic competition in the lowlands.  Marathoners seek out high altitude training courses to build endurance in preparation for the big race down below.  Perhaps, we should move our practice to high altitude Colorado for a year.  After doing colonoscopies there for a year, imagine the increase in our performance when we returned to Cleveland?  I will place this on the agenda of our upcoming practice meeting. 

Great choices for us.  Breathe less, do less or move.


Labels:

Comments

  1. PedlungAugust 27, 2014 at 12:04 PM

    Interesting analogy Dr. GI specialist. Particularly this was to me, since I practice Pulmonology and I am in the process of opening a practice in a hilly area. Hopefully this will give me endurance increasing my Hb and cope with hypoxia that you now experience. If you move to high altitude of Colorado, the development of your compensatory polycythemia will make you tolerant to the hypoxia . The later which will help you transiently. when returning to Cleveland. However you may experience same Oxygen deprivation again unless if you keep steady running during your practice :) ...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Becoming a Part-Time Physician

By
Next month my schedule will change.  I will henceforth be off on Fridays with my work week truncated to Monday through Thursday.   I am excited to be enjoying a long weekend every weekend.  And while the schedule change is relatively minor, this event does feel like an important career moment for me.  It is the first step on a journey that will ultimately lead beyond my professional career.  It is this recognition that makes this modest schedule modification more significant than one would think it deserves.  As some readers know,   my current employed position has been a dream job for me.   Prior to this, I was in a small private practice, which I loved, but was much more challenging professionally and personally.   My partner and I ran the business.   Working nights, weekends and holidays were routine for decades.   On an on-call night, if I slept  through until morning, I felt as if I had won the lottery.   And w...
15 comments
Read more

When Should Doctors Retire?

By
I am asked with some regularity whether I am aiming to retire in the near term.  Years ago, I never received such inquiries.  Why now?   Might it be because my coiffure and goatee – although finely-manicured – has long entered the gray area?  Could it be because many other even younger physicians have given up their stethoscopes for lives of leisure? (Hopefully, my inquiring patients are not suspecting me of professional performance lapses!) Interestingly, a nurse in my office recently approached me and asked me sotto voce that she heard I was retiring.    “Interesting,” I remarked.   Since I was unaware of this retirement news, I asked her when would be my last day at work.   I have no idea where this erroneous rumor originated from.   I requested that my nurse-friend contact her flawed intel source and set him or her straight.   Retirement might seem tempting to me as I have so many other interests.   Indeed, reading and ...
69 comments
Read more

Personal Responsibility for Health

By
One of the advantages of the computer era is that patients and physicians can communicate via a portal system.  A patient can submit an inquiry which I typically respond to promptly.  It also offers me the opportunity to provide advice or test results to patients.  Moreover, the system documents that the patient has in fact read my message.  Beyond the medical value, it also provides some legal protection if it is later alleged that ‘my doctor never sent me my results’.  I have always endorsed the concept that patients must accept personal responsibility.   Consider this hypothetical example. A patient undergoes a screening colonoscopy and a polyp is removed.   The patient is told to expect a portal message detailing the results in the coming days.   Once the analysis of the polyp has been completed, the doctor sends a message via the portal communicating that the polyp is benign, but is regarded as ‘precancerous'.   The patient is advise...
3 comments
Read more