Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA
President and CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs
President and CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs
Published on July 27, 2016
As BIG MEDICINE gets bigger, the state of private practice is precarious and facing several existential threats. Regulatory, legal and IT mandates that don't work for small medicine further add to the burden.
While small medicine, independent, practitioners are gradually adapting, most have a "we v them" attitude and they are trying to carve out a niche based on varying business models and service excellence e.g direct primary care, using digital health technologies and pushing patient empowerment to improve the patient and doctor experience at lower cost.
As BIG MEDICINE gets bigger, the state of private practice is precarious and facing several existential threats. Regulatory, legal and IT mandates that don't work for small medicine further add to the burden.
While small medicine, independent, practitioners are gradually adapting, most have a "we v them" attitude and they are trying to carve out a niche based on varying business models and service excellence e.g direct primary care, using digital health technologies and pushing patient empowerment to improve the patient and doctor experience at lower cost.
More and more companies – from start-ups to incumbents– are taking a less literal approach to pursuing competitive advantage. They’re discovering untapped value potential by engaging industry rivals with a hybrid strategy of cooperation and competition, or “coopetition”. Coopetition can take many forms in sick care:
1. Integrating urgent care centers and retail based clinics into your care delivery model
2. Sharing information
3. A hybrid practice model where independent practices become part of a major integrated health system
4. Building cross referral relationships
5. Opportunities for educating and training medical students and residents
6. Translational research opportunities and human subject study patient recruitment
7. Finding common clients, like patients, and working together to lower costs or advance a mission
9. Cooperating to minimize inter-system hand off errors
10. Fighting unprofessional courtesies
Finding a middle ground is not just a practice strategy, but a policy strategy as well as we approach the November elections.
Fighting tooth and nail is one competitive strategy. "If you can't beat them, join them" is the other extreme. Coopetition might be a a reasonable and more practical middle ground.
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org and author of the free, updated Blogbook of Physician Entrepreneurship at www.hcplive.com/contributor/arlen-meyers-md-mba
No comments:
Post a Comment