By Jeffrey J. Denning

In some specialties and locations, it's becoming increasingly hard to attract new associates to practices wishing to grow or replace physicians who exit. Maybe they should rethink the offer package to be more competitive.

By Jeffrey J. Denning

In today's competitive environment, well-established practices still have sales value... if the conditions are right. That's because it's much easier for physicians to buy a practice and grow it to fit than it is to build one up from a dirt floor. But an unexpected and unplanned practice sale is likely to produce disappointing results.

By David B. Mandell, JD, MBA, Jason O'Dell, CWM

A medical practice owner should spend some of his/her time working ON the practice, not just IN it. We know this because we have been there ourselves, with our own practices. Even working "on" the practice, however, if a physician ignores one fundamental legal contract, all of his/her work may be in jeopardy -- as a single bad event could wipe out everything they have worked so hard to build.

By Christopher R. Jarvis, MBA, Karen Zupko

Becoming an employee at a hospital can be a great fit for many doctors. But, for many others, this decision could come at an unnecessarily high financial cost. Read this article and you'll understand how much more Net Income (net of overhead and taxes) you can achieve in private practice when you invest in better management and systems. Once you understand how good things could be for you, you will be able to more fairly assess the costs and benefits of giving up private practice for hospital employment.

By Shawn Michael Fisher

It's getting tough out there.

Walk around any medical conference and you'll see a lot of doctors starting to look nervous.

With insurance reimbursements taking hits across the board and operating costs rising every day, more and more physicians are expressing their concerns about the future of their practices. Many are already upside down, losing money every month (or barely breaking even), just hoping to wait it out, hoping it will turn around somehow.

But hope doesn't keep the lights on. And with an increasing number of physicians gravitating to managed conglomerates in pursuit of a modicum of security, and with those managed conglomerates hammering the market with all the might they can muster, the independent physician running his own practice is having a hard time surviving, much less thriving.

Or so it is for most doctors. Though not for all of them...

By Jason Eschbach

Where are we as a country with EHR implementations? According to a CDC 1/09 report, only 6.3% of practices had a fully-functional EHR system; 20% had some basic functionality. So, if you're one of the 80 - 93.7% practices who haven't implemented an EHR system, you're not alone!

By Jeffrey J. Denning

Health policy analysts predict efficiency and patient safety savings of hundreds of billions - up to $371 billion in one study.* That's an attractive prospect. So why do so many physicians still use the records their great grandfathers designed?

By Sheila Hall, Karen Zupko

It isn't 1994 anymore. Many physician's practices still have simple Web sites - often described as "Web 1.0." Your website may fall into this category, if it does not offer any business functionality. A static site with only office phone numbers and addresses exemplifies Web 1.0.

Upgrading to Web 2.0 can increase staff efficiency significantly, facilitate scheduling, and potentially increase revenue. Patients are discerning Internet users and are used to being able to use the Internet to get tasks done.

By Mary LeGrand, Kim Pollock, Teri Romano, Cheryl Toth

Physicians are usually in a hurry, and assume the EMR is going to do most of their documentation work for them. When the medical assistant is knocking on the door signaling "hurry up," physicians can take risky shortcuts.

By Josh Kaufmann

In a prior article, Secrets to Getting an Increase: Secret No. 1, I shared with you the first secret to negotiating an increase: As a provider, you have no value to an insurer.

I said, "You can argue all day long with an insurer about how great you are, about how poorly you're reimbursed, about this and this and that and that. And... when the day is over they will simply close out their email inbox and forget you."

In this issue, I'd like to life your spirits a bit and share the second secret to passing along an increase.