The Truth Behind “Overnight Success” in Healthcare Entrepreneurship
As healthcare entrepreneurs, we often look at successful practices and think, “Wow, they made it happen so quickly!” But the reality behind these seemingly overnight successes tells a different story. Today, I want to share some personal experiences that highlight the true journey of building a successful medical practice.
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The COVID Crisis: When Success Meets Adversity
Early in the pandemic, our practice faced an unexpected challenge. We had accidentally ordered thousands of COVID test swabs instead of the intended hundred or so – a fortunate mistake that made us the primary testing center in our county. However, this success brought its own challenges. An ENT physician in our building tried to have us evicted, citing safety concerns about COVID patients. As a month-to-month tenant, this threat to our location was very real.
Thankfully, our fellow medical professionals – the dermatologist, neurosurgeon, and breast imaging center – advocated for us, understanding that treating sick patients was part of our collective mission. (Ironically, that ENT later lost his medical license for showing up intoxicated to perform surgery, but that’s a story for another day.)
Real Success Stories Take Time
My brother’s story perfectly illustrates this point. He recently sold his oil and gas company to a publicly traded company for $5.4 billion. While some called it luck, they didn’t see the six to seven years of 80-hour weeks he put in beforehand. Working from a cot in his office, he and his partners took a chance on buying mineral rights in dead oil fields in West Texas. Yes, they got lucky when fracking technology made these investments incredibly valuable, but that luck would have meant nothing without the years of grinding work that preceded it.
The Outside Perspective vs. Reality
Recently, a physician approached me about joining our practice but then decided to compete with us instead, saying, “You’ve exploded so much in the last 12 months, I think I can do exactly what you’re doing.” While I support entrepreneurship in medicine, this perspective overlooks the five years of challenges we faced:
- Navigating difficult Medicare reimbursement rates until we could negotiate better terms
- Surviving a billing service that nearly bankrupted us
- Managing staffing crises
- Weathering the pandemic’s impact on patient visits
- Dealing with payment processing delays that threatened our cash flow
From the outside, people see the new sports car and house. They don’t see the years spent answering my own phones, rooming my own patients, and working 100-hour weeks doing everything from plunging toilets to building our website.
Scaling Brings New Challenges
As we’ve grown from 1 to 30 employees, we’ve learned that success isn’t linear. What works with ten employees often fails with fifty. Each growth phase requires reinventing aspects of your business:
- Developing more structured protocols
- Implementing new management systems
- Adapting communication strategies
- Creating scalable processes
Keys to Long-Term Success
If you’re considering starting your own practice, whether concierge or traditional, remember these key points:
- Maintain a clear vision and stick to it
- Embrace problem-solving
- Be willing to do every job in your practice
- Develop resilience to hearing “no”
- Keep learning and growing
For DPC practices, expect to pitch 9-15 businesses before landing one contract. You’ll hear many nos before you get to yes. But if you love problem-solving and aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty, healthcare entrepreneurship can be incredibly rewarding.
Success in healthcare business isn’t about overnight transformation – it’s about consistent growth, learning from challenges, and maintaining optimism through the difficult times. Keep grinding, keep providing excellent care, and stay focused on your vision. That’s how you turn years of hard work into what others will call an “overnight success.”
