THE POWER OF THE DECISION
Thinking of Going into Private Practice ? - Advice from James Patrick Murphy , M . D . D . ( Medical Doctor Dinosaur )
I am a pain management specialist with a small office in New Albany , Indiana . I treat patients with my nurse practitioner colleague , Karen Doggett , with whom I ’ ve shared over 20 years of clinical partnership . We have an office manager who ’ s worked with me for over a decade , and her daughter works with us now as a medical / administrative assistant . My wife manages our accounting , oversees our billing and , thankfully , does practically anything else our practice needs her to do ( i . e ., it really is a “ mom-and-pop ” business ). We do good things here .
My medical practice wasn ’ t always so intimate . About 10 years , ago I had two busy bustling clinics , one in Louisville ’ s East End and one across the river in Jeffersonville . By some measures , it was Kentucky ’ s largest pain practice , and , like now , we did very meaningful work . I had amazing and talented colleagues , including three doctors , several nurse practitioners , a physician ’ s assistant , a clinical psychologist and a number of nurses and medical assistants . I also employed numerous “ team members ”
by JAMES PATRICK MURPHY , MD , MMM
to help manage the business side of the practice . And there were many “ out-sourced ” services with whom I contracted . It takes more than a village to run a large medical practice – it takes a whole city . I liked being my own boss then , and I like being my own boss now .
That ’ s not to say it ’ s always been a bed of roses . Over the years , there were a number of business , employee , regulatory and contractual issues that stressed me and cost hard-earned money . But overall , my private practices always reflected my values and how I wanted to treat patients – so for me , the ride ’ s been worth the toll . And honestly , I could not have done it without the love and support of my wife and family . No way . No how .
Over the years , I ’ ve worked in many diverse clinical settings with different types of “ bosses ” not named James Patrick Murphy . Decades earlier , I was in group partnerships – one practice was office-based pain management and , before that , a hospital-based anesthesiology practice . Farther back , I was employed by the Mayo Clinic ( by any measure , a very large group-practice ). And
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