If you’ve been a physician for any period of time, you’ve likely experienced or talked with folks about how to sell your healthcare practice. In fact, over the last few years, there has been an uptick in physicians trying to sell and hospitals or other groups looking to buy medical practices.
So, you might start to ask yourself, “how do I sell my healthcare practice?” Whether you are ready to sell your healthcare practice ASAP or want to get ahead of things you should be thinking about, we provide 5 things to keep in mind when it comes time to hang up the white coat.
1. Manage the ‘Business Side’
This includes the administrative, financial, and operational work to set yourself (and your future buyer) up. You want to be thinking about putting money away for future upgrades, saving for unexpected expenses, and putting together a forecast.
When buyers come to talk to you about your business, they will want to see detailed, accurate, and ‘clean’ financial statements that are easy to understand. By maintaining high operational standards and being able to show that to a buyer, it will streamline the sale process.
2. Review Your Billing Practices
Many physicians struggle to keep up with the medical billing for their practice. It’s an ever-changing world and physicians would rather do what they do best – provide care to their patients.
Make sure you’ve identified and set up a medical billing provider for your practice. When deciding on a medical billing provider, you want to review their technology (are they easy to use?) and their fee structure (are they fixed fee or do they take a percent of collections?).
3. Negotiate Your Reimbursement Rate with Insurance
One of the areas that practices overlook is negotiations with insurance payers. Don’t be one of these practices!
Find a negotiator who can be an advocate for your practice. A great negotiator understands your practice inside and out and your market. Finding somebody who can take on the insurance companies for you can add significantly to your bottom line.
4. Do Quarterly Practice Reviews
With the daily medical care that is taking place, it’s easy to forget to check in on the business side of the practice. That is why we encourage you to set up quarterly check ins where you review the financial statements, how you did vs. your forecast, and what you’re seeing in terms of patients coming into your practice.
5. Determine Your Future Income Streams
Outside of managing your practice, you should talk to a financial advisor to do a comprehensive financial assessment of your unique situation. Your financial advisor can help identify passive income you can use to cover your monthly expenses once you’re ready to retire. This will likely include some combination of stock investments, IRAs, 401Ks, annuities, or other investment vehicles.
To achieve a comfortable retirement, it all starts with a plan. By getting ahead on these things when it comes to selling your practice, you can look forward to a retirement on the beach knowing you got the best value for practice. When you are ready to sell your healthcare practice, talk to the experts at Aptus Exchange.
