From down the street I could see the fortune teller’s shop.
Did she know that I was coming?
Go ahead, laugh. But if you’re a member of a 15 or more person medical group, do you have any clue, any clue at all, about your group’s future?
I’m a fortune teller of sorts. I can tell you that most groups that I’ve come into contact with are as clueless as you are as to the future. Chiefly because they’ve never sat down to consider it. And, even if they’ve done that, they didn’t take action to create their own path forward.
Instead they labor away at providing medical care. They may be very, very good at that laboring. But it doesn’t help them in preparing for the future.
The skill set that helped them get from the start of their careers to the present, improving their skills and building their practice, is a hindrance to getting beyond the present circumstances.
Digging in, being collegial, even protecting the group’s turf at Community Memorial St. Mark’s hospital or the referral relationship with the Jones Internal Medicine Group will, at best — and even then it’s a leap of faith — protect the group’s current situation. In other words, it’s a purely defensive move.
But the times (actually, any times) requires that you play offense.
Sure, you may develop a plan, implement it and fail. But failing forward faster is better than doing nothing and becoming a bit player in someone else’s future.
You don’t have to be a fortune teller to see that.
