Why I Will Never Close to New Patients

Closing a medical practice to new patients is like cutting off the very top of a tree. It’s the beginning of the end. The top of the tree, the crown, is where the newest leaves are. It’s also the part that continues growing ever upward, at least until it reaches it’s maximal genetic height, depending on environmental factors like the availability of water and sunlight (both of which also depend on how many other trees are competing for them nearby.) When you cut the top off a tree, the tree will die. Not right away. Sometimes not for many years. But its death is now inevitable. (By the way, see here for a discussion of why “topping” — basically killing your trees — is never a good idea, despite being widely practiced.) I don’t believe in a “closed panel” of patients. (I don’t even really know what that is.) Patient populations ebb and flow. No matter how good I try to be, there are a certain number of patients who, due to circumstances beyond my control (and often beyond theirs) leave the practice. Whether moving away, transferring for work, switching insurance plans, getting pissed at me, or even, yes, dying, there is always going to be attrition. New patients are the lifeblood that keep those numbers up. Active patients generate the office visits, which produce the billings that brings in the money. I know some people with a subscription-type practice model who have a “full practice” and a ̶...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs