What Is Physician's Enterpreneurship

They further provide a short history of healthcare policy and structure and how it has evolved from
an unregulated industry to one that has become increasingly corporatized. They note the rise in
employed physicians and that :
Physicians might become less professional, but their professional role could increase as
their entrepreneurial role decreases

It seems to me there is confusion about physician entrepreneurship,its definition and whether it

represents a threat to professionalism.
1. Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity with scarce, uncontrolled resources. The goal of all
entrepreneurs, including physician entrepreneurs, is to create user defined value through the
deployment of innovation.
2. Innovation has both a qualitative and quantitative component. It refers to doing something new or
something old in a new way that creates user defined value that is a significant multiple of the
competitive offering. Sick care sorely needs innovation that is not incremental or sustaining, but
rather significantly adds at least 10x the present value to have an impact.
3. Physician entrepreneurship is not the same things as private practice nor is it fundamentally about
practice management. The increasing rate of employed physicians should not be interpreted, as
Prof. Fuchs implies, as decreasing entrepreneurial role of doctors and its consequent impact on
medical professionalism. To the contrary, when done properly, it enhances medical professionalism.
4. There are many different roles for physician entrepreneurs as small to medium sized business
owners, technopreneurs, social entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs i.e.employed physicians acting like
entrepreneurs, freelancers and consultants, and physician investors.
5. Employed physicians, whether academic or non-academic, have the potential to be no less
entrepreneurial than their colleagues who are in independent practices.
6. While medical educational reform is necessary, expecting medical students to master health
economics and population health is an unrealistic expectation. Medical schools need to be part of
entrepreneurial universities with the goal of instilling an entrepreneurial mindset in all graduates,
including health professionals. To that end, medical schools and their graduates schools should
rethink how they teach and practice technology transfer and commercialization and how they give
faculty innovators the tools, incentive and recognition for the scholarship of innovation they
deserve.
7. Physician entrepreneurship enhances medical professionalism, it does not degrade it, as long its
practitioners understand and resolve the conflicts between the ethics of medicine and the ethics of
business. Violating the patient or public trust by self dealing or undisclosed conflicts of interest
degrades any profession that has a fiduciary relationship with its customers or clients.
8. Physician entrepreneurs create value for patients in many ways other than seeing them face to
face for an entire professional career. The upcoming generation of medical students and residents
and scientists and engineers in graduate school understand that better than their school's faculty and
administrators and they have engaged in bottom up efforts to fill the gaps in their education and
experiences.
9. Every threat to the existing practice of medicine, whether, as noted, it be acute care to chronic
care, face to face care to digical care, or corporate care evolving into more patient centered care,
represents an opportunity for physician entrepreneurs to help patients by adding value.
10. Every industrialized country is facing the issue of how to provide their citizens with health
services with scarce resources. Innovation and entrepreneurship , fostered by rules that catalyze
them, will be the solution.
The "golden age" of medical practice is being replaced by the "golden age" of physician
entrepreneurship since there has been, arguably, no better time to be a doctor who sees the business
of medicine on par with the practice of medicine as another way to help patients.
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at
www.sopenet.org
http://www.sopenet.org/104-what-is-physician-entrepreneurship
10 Reasons Why Doctors Make Great
Entrepreneurs
Conventional wisdom has it that doctors are lousy businesspeople, and they should just take care
of patients and leave the business stuff to someone else. In my opinion, these beliefs are no longer
sustainable if doctors are to thrive in the new US healthcare environment. As someone who works
with physician entrepreneurs, I know that doctors have the potential to make great entrepreneurs.
Admittedly, only a small percentage of the 625,000 actively practicing physicians in the US have an
entrepreneurial mindset and even fewer are innovators. However, it only takes a few innovators to
disrupt the system and add substantial value.
Here are 10 reasons why doctors have the potential to be terrific entrepreneurs:
1. The know how to build clinical judgment. The process is the same for business. Learning from
mistakes is called experience. Learning from experience is called clinical judgment. Its the same
with entrepreneurship. Very few entrepreneurs have not had their share of mistakes of failed
startups. The successful ones learn from those mistakes and have judgment about pursuing the next
opportunity.
2. Entrepreneurship is about research and experimenting, something doctors do well. Doctors do
this every day, day in and day out, with their patients.
3. Doctors are used to dealing with uncertainty. Like businesspeople, doctors make decisions with
incomplete information. Sometimes they have to do things based on their gut. In fact, they do so
more than they would like to admit. Only about 25-35% of medical decisions are based on scientific
evidence.
4. Doctors have a bias to action. While obtaining a patients history, doing physical exams and tests
are a routine part of care, they are all a means toward an end of solving or relieving the patients
problem. Doctors are trained, admittedly sometimes unsuccessfully, to not do things that wont
make a difference in how they treat patients.
5. Doctors are excellent at pattern recognition. Doctors basically do three things: They make
decisions, communicate/educate, and do procedures. Decision-making, whether in dermatology,
pathology or multiple other specialties, relies on pattern recognition skills.
6. Doctors know how to question, observe, connect and associate: core entrepreneurial skills. In The
Innovators DNA, Christensen et al. noted the core skills of innovators are: questioning, associating,
connecting, experimenting and observing (credit hannibal). Doctors have them all.
7. Doctors know how to assess risk and make on the spot cost-benefit decisions. Every medical
decision is based on the risks versus the benefits.
8. Doctors can fulfill core entrepreneurial roles. They can be technopreneurs, market perceivers,
managers, and/or investors.
9. Doctors have access to patients and understand the clinical issues more than anyone else. They
live in a world of market opportunity.
10. Doctors have the courage to know when something wont work or should be ended. Doctors
deal with such circumstance on a routine basis when dealing with patients treatment.
So, the next time someone raises their eyebrows when you tell them you are a physician
entrepreneur, hand them a card with this list on the back of it. Maybe theyll offer to invest in your
idea.

http://miter.mit.edu/10-reasons-why-doctors-make-great-entrepreneurs/
Fundamentals of Medical Practice
Entrepreneurship
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs

Physician entrepreneurs have different goals and play different roles. Some are trying to get an
invention or discovery to patients. Some are social entrepreneurs trying to improve the human
condition. Some are intrapreneurs, employees acting like entrepreneurs. But, they all have
something in common- the pursuit of opportunity with the goal of creating user defined value
through the deployment of innovation.
Medical practice entrepreneurs are not different. Running a medical practice these days should be
about *medical practice entrepreneurship not medical practice management.
"Practice management" is an archaic, out-dated term that limits the scope of what 21st Century
physicians need to know and know how to do to serve the need of their communities of patients,
while making a fair profit doing it. While operations management is important, instead, the future
belongs to those who add user defined value through innovation. In other words, medical schools
and graduate resident education programs should offer mandatory courses, and require
demonstrating competencies, in medical practice entrepreneurship, not practice management.
A course in medical practice entrepreneurship should provide the knowledge, skills and attitudes
necessary for medical practice professionals to create and scale a medical professional services
organization. As we know by now, a medical practice is not a flower shop or a restaurant and it
requires particular entrepreneurial skills which are not taught in medical schools or during residency
training.
At a minimum,courses should include:
1. Revenue Cycle Management including coding, billing and collecting
2. Human Resources
3. Digital Health, Social Media and Information Systems
4. Innovation,Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship
5. Marketing
6. Personal Financial Planning
7. Basic Accounting and Financial Statements
8. Operations Management
9. The legal and regulatory environment of health
10. Comparative health care systems and alternative delivery channels
11. Business Models, Business Plans and business strategy
12. Exit strategies
13. Financing your new practice
14. Intellectual property
15. Product development and product line extension
16. Stress management and anti-burnout coping techniques
The future of medical practice depends on whether you see the glass half empty or half full. One
thing is clear, though, and that is that medical practice is changing and practioners need to adapt.
Here are some observations, resources and comments that might help you find your way:

10 Things Doctors Don't Get About Sales and Marketing

10 Myths About Physician Entrepreneurs
It's About Time
There are many ways to offer these courses and education through medical societies, business
schools, trade associations and non-profit educational and research foundations. However it is done,
practitioners need to use the information to evolve from knowledge technicians, to managers, to
leaders to entrepreneurs to leaderpreneurs. It will be the primary way for doctors to regain control
of our profession.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fundamentals-medical-practice-entrepreneurship-arlen-meyers-md-
mba-1
*medical practice entrepreneurship not medical practice management.

Stop calling it "medical practice management"

Take a look at the course catalog of the medical schools in the US or the ACGME competencies
following residency traingin and it is unlikely you will find a mandatory course or competency with
the learning objective of teaching attendees how to run a private practice profitably using a viable
business model, how to add value as an employed physician intrapreneur, how to be a social
entrepreneur or how to get an idea, invention or discovery to patients.
At best, those dwindling number of graduates interested in private practice are forced to take week
-end "practice management" seminars or courses at their national specialty society meetings. Many
focus on the IT- mandate- to- get- paid of the week by highly trained specialists, but, in many
instances, they are offered by the blind leading the blind.
"Practice management" is an archaic, out-dated term that limits the scope of what 21st Century
physicians need to know and know how to do to serve the need of their communities of patients,
while making a fair profit doing it. While operations management is important, instead, the future
belongs to those who add user defined value through innovation. In other words, medical schools
and graduate resident education programs should offer mandatory courses, and require
demonstrating competencies, in medical practice entrepreneurship, not practice management.
The pupose of these courses is to offer the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to thrive in the
contemporary and rapidly changing medical landscape at a sustainable and scaleable profit. At a
minimum,courses should include:
1. Revenue Cycle Management including coding, billing and collecting
2. Human Resources
3. Digital Health
4. Innovation,Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship
5. Marketing
6. Personal Financial Planning
7. Basic Accounting and Financial Statements
8. Operations Management
9. The legal and regulatory environment of health
10. Comparative health care systems and alternative delivery channels
11. Value proposition design
12. Business model design
It is extremely unlikely that medical schools will offer these courses. Doing so will devolve to other
independent or non-profits who embrace biomedical and health innovation and entrepreneurship
education as part of their mission.
The sooner we move forward, the sooner doctors will have the ammunition they need to re-
empower themselves, bend the private practice participation and cost curve, and add value to a
system badly in need of it.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stop-calling-medical-practice-management-arlen-meyers-md-mba
How to Convert Prospects to Patients
Personalized medicine is an emerging practice of medicine that uses an individual's genetic profile
to guide decisions made in regard to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. However,
when it comes to converting patient prospects to patient customers, there is nothing personal about
the process at all.

For hospitals, clinics, and, particularly, those who practice in elective surgical specialties, like
plastic and reconstructive surgery and dentistry, reproductive services or bariatric surgery, the
failure to convert a patient prospect to an actual patient who chooses to use your services can have
an eye-popping impact on your bottom line.

1. Start with casting a large net.

2. Qualify leads so you don't waste resources on those who are not interested in buying your
services.

3. Personalize your message using mobile technologies that are relevant, repetitive, redundant, and
relational.

4. Follow up in an appropriate and timely manner that results in a call to action. You are six times
more likely to qualify a lead if your follow-up occurs in less than an hour from the time the lead is
received. Think how many more prospects will move into your pipeline if you respond to 100% of
your leads in an hour or less.

5. Don't be annoying or stalk your leads. Contact them the way they want to be contacted and when
they want to be contacted. I've had four people from the same firm cold contact me on LinkedIn.
Guess what I told them?

6. Create a way to measure results.

7. Avoid conversion aversion.

8. Make it stupid simple for customers to take the next step or buy your product.

9. Use web analytics to differentiate prospects from leads to customers.

10. Understand the conversion process: attention, interest, desire, action.

The future of personalized prospecting and lead converting is as important and has as bright a
future as personalized medicine. Each will create a better outcome and user experience and add
more user defined value.

http://www.mdmag.com/physicians-money-digest/contributor/arlen-meyers-md-mba/2015/10/how-
to-convert-prospects-to-patients#sthash.narHRnFn.dpuf
4 Steps to Convert Leads into Prospects
By Andy Paul
For the small or medium-sized business (SMB) every inbound sales lead has the potential to
become not only an order, but also to transform itself into a satisfied customer that represents a
dependable stream of repeat revenue year after year. Todays guest blogger, sales expert Andy Paul,
shares the essential elements of effective sales lead follow-up.
The primary obstacle that stands between an SMB and converting an inbound sales lead into a
repeat customer is the simple act of lead follow-up. On the surface, lead follow up would appear to
be quite straightforward but this simple step is fraught with difficulties for most companies.
Industry research on sales estimates that roughly 50% of all inbound sales leads are never followed
up. And, when the leads are followed up, common mistakes are made that unwittingly doom the
SMB to lose the opportunity to convert that lead into an order.
Comprehensive and effective sales lead follow up is a simple step that every SMB can take to build
their prospect pipelines and grow sales without increasing headcount.
To develop an effective lead follow up process it is important to first understand what an inbound
sales lead is. A sales lead is simply a question. With their inquiry a potential prospect is asking a
question(s): What does your product do? How does it do it? Will it do what I need? What does it
cost? And the first seller with the answers wins.
Here are the essential steps that every SMB seller should take be the first with the answers and
maximize their conversion of inbound sales leads into orders.
1. Follow-up on 100% of Inbound Sales Leads
Every inbound sales lead is like a scratch-off lottery ticket. You dont know what you have until you
scratch the wax off the face of it and see what you have won. How many people buy a lottery ticket
and then wait until the next day to see if they have a winner? None. Inbound sales leads should be
treated the same way.
What this means is that every sales lead needs to be followed up. Make sure that all inbound sales
leads are entered into your CRM system as soon as they are received and that each one is assigned
to a salesperson for immediate follow up. Use your CRM system on a daily basis to check and make
sure that 100% of your sales leads are being followed up. If you arent checking, it isnt happening.
2. Follow-up all leads in less than 60 minutes
How much time should it take to follow up a lead? Less than you think. Research cited in the
Harvard Business Review states that you are 7 times more likely to shows that you are 6 times more
likely to qualify a lead if your follow-up occurs in less than an hour from the time the lead is
received. Think how many more prospects will move into your pipeline if you respond to 100% of
your leads in an hour or less.
Leads have a short shelf-life. Every minute that follow-up is delayed or deferred the value of that
lead drops. And if your competitors swoop in to respond while youre sitting on your hands and
provide the prospect with the answers to their question, then you are suddenly fighting for 2nd
place.
I worked with one client to streamline their sales lead follow-up process to reduce their response
time to inbound sales leads from 24 hours to 30 minutes. The immediate result was more qualified
prospects in their pipeline. The longer-term result was a doubling of their sales with the same
number of salespeople.
3. Provide Complete Answers Quickly
As discussed above an inbound sales lead is nothing more than a question. Being responsive to a
prospect means that you are providing a complete answer to their question(s) in the least time
possible. The best way to do this is to position your deepest product knowledge closest to the
customer. It is not enough to be the first to respond to the customer. You must also be the first to
answer their questions. The first seller to respond to an inbound sales lead with the complete answer
in Zero-Time will build trust, credibility and dramatically increase their chances of winning the
order.
4. Measure, Improve and Measure Again
You must continually work to improve your sales lead follow up process. As the old saying goes
You cant improve what you dont measure. So keep it simple to start with and measure the
following:
a) How many sales leads do you receive each week?
b) How long does it take to respond to each sales lead? (the time between when the lead is received
until a sales person talks to them for the first time)
c) What percentage of your inbound sales leads are converted into qualified prospects?
d) What percentage of your inbound sales leads are converted into orders?
Set goals for these metrics and then check each month to see if you are achieving them. If you are,
set new more aggressive goals and fine-tune each element of your lead follow up process to achieve
the new goal. If you arent meeting your goals, examine each element of your process in detail and
implement steps you can take to improve it. Then check your performance again in a month.
For the entrepreneur and SMB CEO/manager an effective sales lead follow up process is the easiest
way to optimize your ROI on your investment in lead generation. Use these simple steps to make it
happen for you.
Andy Paul is an authority on SMB sales and a leading expert on the speed of selling. He is the
author of the award-winning book Zero-Time Selling, 10 Essential Steps To Accelerate Every
Companys Sales.. For more information, visit his website at www.zerotimeselling.com. Contact
Andy at andy@zerotimeselling.com or 619-980-4002.
The 5 Stages of the Doctor-Patient
Relationship
The traditional notion of the doctor-patient relationship is under stress and people are searching for
ways to repair it.

It turns out there are 5 stages to a relationship:

The Romance Stage

The Power Struggle Stage
The Stability Stage
The Commitment Stage
The Co-Creation or Bliss Stage

In many ways, doctors and patients fail to progress and work through the issues and often wind up
getting divorced or standing in front of a judge or jury. The results are just as painful, injurious, and
enduring. Doctors and patients need to find a better way to get along. Of course, the doctor-patient
relationship varies from a romantic one in many ways, including the fact that the doctor has a
fiduciary relationship to the patient and is subject to tort remedies if they violate it. However, there
are things we might learn from the family and couples therapists:

1. They need to improve how they communicate with each other.

2. They need to take personal responsibility and not rely on someone else or "the system" to do it
for them.

3. They need to call a time out when things get rough and possibly call in a mediator or third party
to help.

4. They need to walk in each other's shoes and understand each other's issues.

5. They need to understand where they are in the Sick Care ecosystem and the unrecognized
elements that drive health behaviors, like nutrition, public health interventions, poverty, and
education

6. They need to understand that you are having a relationship with a family, not just a person. Care
teams take care of patient teams.

7. They need to learn how to cut their losses when it is evident it is time to pull the plug and move
on.

8. They need to learn to adopt to the changing rules of the power struggle.

9. They need to learn how to partner to be a team moving forward.

10. They need to accept the fact, that, like long-married couples, they stay together because they
want to.

Many of you readers are "in a relationship." Some just want to hook-up and others are looking for
more commitment. Doctors and patients need to understand that if we are to fix the deteriorating
doctor-patient relationship, it will take hard work and there will be many bumps in the road.

- See more at: http://www.mdmag.com/physicians-money-digest/contributor/arlen-meyers-md-

mba/2015/10/the-5-stages-of-the-doctor-patient-relationship#sthash.kuUa0t8c.dpuf
8 essential tips for physician entrepreneurs
Elizabeth Chabner Thompson, MD, MPH | Tech | June 19, 2014
While there are many creative people who go into medicine, the challenge of turning experience
into innovation can be stifling. My classmates at Johns Hopkins, fellow residents at Harvard, and
peers came from a wide variety of backgrounds. But medical school, internship, and residency dont
afford students much time to tinker around.

Free time in academic medicine means working in a lab with the publish or perish dictum
hanging over ones head. Yet there are many of us who are interested in what you might call the
white spaces in medicine: voids in the medical industry where the solution might seem obvious, but
doesnt yet exist. The problem is, of course, that between cost, time, and lifes various obstacles, its
hard to bring these ideas to life.
For several years, I worked with a reconstructive surgeon who invented a new tool to tie knots
during laparoscopic surgery. He built it during residency in his moonlighting hours. The prospect of
a $25,000 bill from his patent lawyer and then a $15,000 bill from his prototype maker turned his
tool into a paperweight. He just walked away from it.
An orthopedic surgeon, a neighbor, invented a better screw for a hammer toe repair. He convinced
his father and brother to bankroll a ten million dollar company. Between prototypes, FDA 510k
clearance, patent attorneys, and clinical trials, even ten million didnt go far enough. My friend
owns less than one percent of the equity in his company. His screw is being used, but hes still in
debt.

For the past eight years, since my own recovery after bilateral mastectomies, I have used my
moonlighting hours (late at night after a day divided between working in a practice and raising four
kids) as a medical entrepreneur working on a post-breast surgery recovery bra. Already, through a
program with Massachusetts General Hospital, Baylor, and University of Pennsylvania, its being
used in Botswana, where all women diagnosed with breast cancer undergo mastectomies.

By dipping into savings, I finally brought my idea to life. The smiles on the patients faces say it all.
Its why all the hours and stress of innovation are worth it, and why I would encourage any doctor
with an idea to take up the challenge. As I went through the process, I gleaned some insights on
what physician entrepreneurs might need to do in order to turn ideas into innovation:
1. Be the mouthpiece. Perfect your elevator pitch. If you cant get up in front of a group of people
and explain it clearly in 30 seconds, try again.
2. Dont spend money unless you absolutely have to. This is the time to barter, trade, and call in
the favors. Every penny is valuable to a self-funded innovator.
3. Ask for help. Ask your friends in finance for help. Also, consider hiring consultants in industries
that are essential to your innovation. This can actually save time and money in the long run.
Consultants have a wide network and can often steer you to others who will make critical
contributions.
4. Do reconnaissance work. Go to industry meetings and ask questions. Try to learn as much as
you can about your potential competitors and the space youre hoping to inhabit.
5. Borrow carefully. The sooner you take investors or sell portions of your innovation, the less
equity and money you risk having at the end of the project. Be sure you trust and understand your
backers and their terms.
6. Dont waste precious time. Be judicious about whom you meet with. A lot of people will come
out of the woodwork when they hear your story, and seeing every single one will stall the process.
7. Never give up your day job. Dont forget that your first passion was to become a doctor.
Your experiences with patients will be critical for feedback and modification to whatever you are
devising.
8. Be passionate, and follow your gut. If you havent tried it on yourself, forget it. My medical
school professor Sol Snyder injected himself with hundreds of drugs during his days in the lab.
Whos better to know that something works than you?
Elizabeth Chabner Thompson is a radiation oncologist and founder, BFFL Co. This article
originally appeared in The Doctor Blog.

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/06/8-essential-tips-physician-entrepreneurs.html
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/781488

https://wire.ama-assn.org/education/be-physician-entrepreneur-medical-and-health-care-innovation-
advice