GUEST POST from Arlen Meyers
Michael Gerber , in his book The E-myth Physician, says that doctors can assume three basic roles: technicians, managers or entrepreneurs.
A 2013 AMA report notes that 53.2 percent of all physicians surveyed were self-employed, and 60 percent of physicians worked in practices wholly owned by physicians. Less than half of practicing physicians own their own practice, according to 2016 data collected in a nationally representative survey of 3,500 U.S.-based physicians who provide at least 20 hours of patient care per week and are not employed by the federal government.
2016 marks the first year in which physician practice ownership is no longer the majority arrangement. According to data drawn from the AMA’s Physician Practice Benchmark Surveys, 47.1 percent of physicians are practice owners. The same percentage of physicians are employed, while 5.9 percent are independent contractors.
More and more doctors are becoming employees of hospital systems. Most of the latter will be technicians. Most of the former, independent physicians, will have to move up the value chain, being entrepreneurs, to thrive,let alone survive.
Technicians are doers who play by the rules and are concerned with generating revenue by doing things to solve problems. Given the evolution of medical cyberintelligence, knowledge technicians are a dying breed.
Managers are resource optimizers who make the rules and are concerned with maximizing efficiency. They do things right.
Leaders provide vision, direction and inspiration. They do the right thing and are guided by personal values and exhibit emotional intelligence to succeed.
Leaderpreneurs lead innovators, not manage innovation systems.
Entrepreneurs innovate, making the old rules obsolete by creating new business models and are concerned with building equity. They create user defined value through the deployment of innovation using a VAST business model.
Any of the above five can be leaders, but their focus and objectives are different and require different skill sets and aptitudes. Unfortunately, since few physicians have an entrepreneurial mindset, let alone a leaderpreneurial mindset, those dwindling numbers who elect to go into private practice without an entrepreneurial mindset will continue to struggle and have a hard time adapting to a rapidly changing and challenging healthcare environment. Innovation starts with mindset.
The entrepreneurial mindset is different from the clinical mindset.
Knowledge technicians are an endangered species and must evolve from domain expertise to credibility to leading execution, engagement and alignment to strategic thinking, leading organizations that have organizational ambidexterity i.e. simultaneously creating the now, the next and new.
Thoughts drive emotions and emotions drive behavior. It is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy. The key to survival in today’s private practice is not in squeezing another nickel out of your overhead. It’s adopting an entrepreneurial mindset. Most likely you won’t learn that in your formal training.
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