Have you ever been forced into something? Something you hated? Something you really did not want to do? Something that you’d almost give everything up not to have to do?
Market consolidation – that’s what’s impacting medical groups of all stripes and sizes. Hospital wants to employ you. Other group wants to merge with you or simply take your practice. Obamacare. What were they thinking but it doesn’t really matter because you are afraid that your income is going to go down. The hospital wants to terminate your exclusive contract. Give it to the low cost guys who’ll soon be employing you or not employing you — if you’ll only take less.
Like that future? Many, maybe most, groups and individual physicians don’t.
The real question is what are you going to do about it.
It’s like you’re on a track and you’re headed into a tunnel and there’s a train coming the other way and you can see its light shining and getting bigger and bigger and you’re just a small train, like Thomas the Tank Engine and it’s the Super Chief.
But real life isn’t like that. You’re not on a track. There are many options. There always are. It takes time to consider them. To sort out the issues. To simplify the problems. To select a strategy. To implement it. To create choices. At a minimum to create leverage in negotiations. At a maximum to create real alternatives for your success.
The alternative is to stay on that track.
That’s probably where many will stay:
Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want
(Devo, Freedom of Choice, by Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh)
