The Biomechanics of Business – The Initial Assessment

Have you ever had a patient come in to your office complaining of pain in a small area, but upon assessment you realize that there is a way bigger and more complex underlying cause? Well, in a way, this is one of those stories…

Ask any healthcare professional worth their salt and they’ll probably tell you that their list of skills reads as clinician first, business person second. Often, it can fall even further down the list than that. Understandable, given that of all the things they taught us in university, business savvy was not often one of them. My only recollection of education regarding private practice was a single, rather scary lecture where the guest lecturer put the fear of God into us about the repercussions of incorrect billing. We left the lecture hall feeling as though in a few short months, in terms of practice management, we were going to be handed a blank canvas and be expected to paint a masterpiece… armed with nothing but a small tube of blue paint.

My personal strategy after graduating? Get into the workplace first, learn the ropes from peers and colleagues and then maaaaybe attempt to open my own practice. To be honest, for many years I had absolutely no intention of opening one. But after ten years in the clinical setting, a Master’s degree and seven wonderful years in one of the best workplaces anybody could hope to work, the next step became abundantly clear. One can grow and be challenged only so much in an environment that we have become accustomed to.

While I felt considerably more prepared to take the leap than I would have starting directly after university, nothing can prepare you for the first-hand experience of opening a business. If private practice was the Olympic-sized swimming pool, I was the toddler with water wings and a ‘can-do’ attitude.

As I near the end of my first year, it struck me just how many times I learned something new about business and practice management by trying things out, by word-of mouth from other practitioners or just simply winging it. Where was the ‘survival kit to private practice’, or the ‘tips and tricks for running a business while maintaining your sanity’ manual I had hoped to find at the beginning of this yellow-brick road? Funny story… there isn’t one.

So here we are, starting a series of what I hope will be helpful blog posts in which I share my experiences of my first year as a private practice owner. Through my assessment of the biomechanics of this past year, I hope I can help you feel more prepared when you eventually decide to start your own practice. If you are already a practice owner, maybe there are some lessons you can learn from my experiences (work smart, not hard). If you are none of the above and just here ‘for the vibes’, I hope my posts can shed some light on why your doctor/physio/occupational therapist seems slightly haggard and with a manic glint in their eye at the end of the month. Who knows, perhaps I can even score some sound (if unsolicited) advice in the comments section. There will be laughter, there will be tears but most importantly, there will be physiotherapy puns. ‘Psoas I was saying…’