I made a pretty major move about six years ago, uprooting my decent little practice and moving into an outpatient surgical center to join a buddy and colleague who is an orthopedist. In the beginning everything looked great; I was to handle all the postsurgical rehabilitation for my buddy and the other six orthos he was sharing space with.
It was kind of a dream setup, with the built-in referrals and the prestige of working with all these surgeons in a little "mini hospital." Little did I know the economy as we knew it was about to head south and my "buddy" (plus his referrals) would end up moving to greener pastures.
Even with the economy on the skids, I still thought I would be able to pull some referrals out of the orthos who stayed, which would help my practice grow. But all of the referrals I thought were going to be lined up at my door basically never materialized. On top of that, my existing private patients found the surgical center to be just a little too far for them to keep their consistent visits going. You can guess the rest; my practice was slowly withering away before my eyes.
My previous 14 years (before moving into the surgical center), I saw anywhere from 125 to 150 patient visits per week. Midway through 2011 we were lucky to see 100 patients visits a week. Then one day, I opened my mail to read that my rent would be doubling as soon as my lease was up. The owners of the building might as well have sent me an eviction notice, because there was no way I could or would pay that much for what I was getting in return. Things really didn't look to good for me at that point.
An Awakening
My state of shock (over being forced out) faded away shortly after I started looking through the overabundant inventory of vacant office space in my area. At the end of 2011 there was more money being spent on "For Lease" signs in my neck of the woods (Orange County, Calif.) than being spent on health care. I had my pickings. It was like shopping for my first car all over again, but this time the lot was full, I had good credit and everything was 50 percent off. The timing couldn't have been better. Even though my practice production was down, the surplus of space was so cheap it tilted things in my favor. All I needed to do was find a place to plant my roots.
As many of you know, moving your practice can be just as difficult on your staff as it is on you. I waited a couple of days before I sat down with my office manager of eight years, Marilyn, to break her the news. Marilyn is pretty sharp; it only took her about five seconds (compared to my one week) to realize this was the best news she'd heard since I gave her a raise about five years ago. For you rookies out there, it's always good to hire staff who are smarter than you.
"Battle Plan"
I thought it was good idea to draw out a "battle plan" to help figure out where we might land our new office location, which maybe was going to be my last office location. All change is hard, but there is just something especially frightening about moving your family's main source of income. It completely shakes you up. I'm not too tough to admit I was nervous, but I wasn't so afraid that I was paralyzed. During this entire process, I actually remember being the most alert that I've been in some time. I guess the fear of failure cleared my head.
After I bought my new 48"x48" AAA map, I taped it to the wall outside our office break room so all the staff could see it. I started sticking colored thumbtacks into the map, marking where our staff lived and where my gym was.
[pb]Then I marked the locations of the largest companies that had referred patients to us. Each day I had Marilyn add tacks for our patients who lived or worked the farthest from the surgical center. I took four green tacks for the biggest shopping malls in Orange County and stuck them in. I circled a five-mile radius in red around my existing office to signify how far I thought our local patients would be willing to drive to see us.
Slowly, an area started to jump out of the map. This small, triangular area right in the middle of our three main freeway arteries just kept pulling my eyes toward it. I wasn't yet 100 percent convinced that this was the spot we needed to move the office, but I definitely started getting a very good feeling about it.
Including the Patients
We started to let our patients know we were "probably" going to move in a subtle way. We would say "Hey, guess what? We're moving." Almost everyone gave the same response: "Oh, no! Where?" I told the staff to tell everyone, "Well, where would you like us to move?"
We kind of made it a game and our patients really enjoyed thinking they had some control over where we were going. As all of this input started streaming in, that same triangular spot kept popping out on the map, but this time the reasons it was emerging were making clearer business sense. The point on the map was almost exactly five miles southwest.
The drive time from the old office was maybe seven minutes, but because this new location was closer to all three major freeways, it was easier to get to than where we were. When I looked at the thumbtacks and took our patients' opinions into consideration, I knew where we had to go.
With my broker's help, we found a dream location. The new building is beautiful and clean. Our new property manager bent over backward with tenant improvements. They gave me three months free rent plus five more months at 50 percent off. The new office is larger. The new area is safer for my patients and staff. I can make it to my kids' practices and games in half the time it took before leaving the old place. My wife loves that I'm closer to home.
The new office is surrounded by businesses and little-to-no "For Lease" signs. We're closer to our patient base, which has set off a chain reaction we could have only dreamed of: patients lined up again for treatment. We have hit all-time records in weekly (201) and monthly (803) patient visits. I have always had a personal goal to break a certain number in annual income (which only my wife knows about); we should hit it before the end of November.
Hindsight is 20-20 and now that we're here, I could just kick myself for not doing this sooner. All of our numbers are on the rise and it doesn't look like it's going to slow down any time soon.
I failed to respect the one universal law of "Location, location, location." Thank god there was some dumb luck involved in this whole ordeal. At first it might have looked bad, but ultimately, maybe the chiropractic gods were shining their pen-lights down on me.
This entire experience proved to me that if things aren't going well where you are, maybe a change in environment can be that huge boost in the arm you need to help overcome your situation.
Now maybe soon I'll lose weight and my grey hairs will turn black again. Is it a miracle?
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