Factors to weigh when considering a consultant for your urology practice

In this video, Amy M. Pearlman, MD, interviews Gia Ching of GCC Consulting regarding what physicians should ask when considering hiring a consulting firm. Pearlman is a urologist and co-founder of the Prime Institute in Coral Gables, Florida.

Transcription:

Pearlman: What are some of those important questions that doctors should be asking a consultant before deciding to work with them on potentially launching their own practice?

Ching: I think that that 1 of the common reasons to hire a consultant would be to avoid the common pitfalls of starting your own practice and getting swindled by a lot of the things that get thrown at you. A lot of people want you to buy into a lot of fancy equipment. A lot of brands want you to buy into this and that. You may think you need all these different things, but I think that a lot of my clients that didn't come to us first, maybe they did it on their own, or they worked with someone else, they come with a lot of regrets [related to] building out too quickly, or picking out a space that was well beyond their needs and now, a lot of their revenue goes to a high rent, or over staffing, and now a lot of that revenue goes to paying their staff instead of paying themselves. [In] working with a consultant, if you were to work with us or another consultant, I would want to first make sure that that consultant is going to work with you on what's called the forecasting and pro forma. You don't want to go into anything blind. You want to make sure that the numbers make sense. You also want to make sure that the consultant has a really, really strong idea of the market and really understands the going rate for procedures, cash pay and insurance, so that we can really realistically give you realistic revenue goals. And then secondly, if the consultant does both in house, [that] would be ideal, because simultaneously, while you're building out all these service menus and building out your referral network and everything that's going to be a part of the practice in terms of treatment and care, you also want to make sure that they're simultaneously doing your branding, your website, and all of your collateral, because all these high touch points together really are what equates into a really, really strong opening with a really, really strong presence in that area. I've heard it all. I've seen it all. I have clients come to me on their first, second, third rodeo, and I hear all of the regrets and a lot of the pitfalls that, if they were to work with someone like me in the beginning, would have completely been mitigated or even avoided. If you are a new provider looking to start a new practice, please do your due diligence, and please make sure that that person that you're entrusting to help you open your practice really has a strong track record with all of these things.

Pearlman: One of the things that my sister and I were doing before we met you is we were interviewing different consultants. I think 1 of the issues is we were interviewing people that had not helped doctors build their own concierge practices before. They may have helped businesses brand themselves, and they may have built websites, but they hadn't helped 2 doctors build a concierge practice, you know, both of whom are specialists. And then there was another company that worked with Fortune 500 companies. So when we were looking at building a website and looking at SEO, I asked them at the end of the meeting, are we looking at like, $100,000 over 6 months? Are we looking at $20,000? And because there are so many ways that you can spend money in that process, they really couldn't tell us the answer to how much we were going to owe them at the end of, let's say, a 6-month period. So I think we were looking at companies that didn't have a track record in our specific area, or helped really big companies, which is not helpful for my sister and I when, again, like you said, you want to keep the overhead low in the beginning,

Ching: That's really mitigating the pitfalls. Of course, there are start-up costs, It's unavoidable. There are build-out costs, even if we're subleasing or if we're doing our custom build out. My approach may not be the same approach as every medical consultant, but I really am a scalable person, so I always [think] it's better to start smaller, it's better to start conservative, and it's better to just start. Butwe just want to make sure we have all of our ducks in a row, and that's where working with a consultant is really going to help you make sure you're meeting realistic targets, and we're seeing a gross trajectory. But it's definitely not a one-size-fits-all, and the road to success is usually going to take 1 to 2 years minimum. So as a provider, you have to be willing to understand that you're not going to be seeing that profitability for the short run, but you will see it after the first year.

This transcription was AI generated and edited by human editors for clarity.