What NP's Need to Know About Business with Nurse Barbara C. Phillips

Have you ever hesitated with starting a new role because of fear? Or have you seen other try to do something new, such as open a business or practice and they "failed"?

If so, let's talk about it!

Please click here to listen, I would LOVE your thoughts!

On this episode of Solutions by Amelia, we hear from Barbara C. Phillips, who has committed her career to helping NPs and RNs be successful in business, particularly when starting their own practice. Barbara started her own practice out of necessity, and when she reached out to find the resources that she needed, she found that there were not any applicable resources out there. In fact, people started reaching out to her for advice after she had opened her practice, so she started blogging in response to the nationwide inquiries.

No matter how far in the future you plan to open your own practice, it is of utmost importance for you to observe the market and pay attention to trends. This will give you an incredible head start and help you determine the type of practice and clients you would like to serve. If possible, get to know as much about the operations of your current practice as you can before embarking on your own endeavor – from the documentation to coding to revenue generation.

Be sure to thoroughly vet your vendors and ask them very detailed questions about their operations, experience, customer service practices, methods of handling various situations, and so on. Barbara offers an extremely helpful course on billing as well as recommendations and other resources here: http://npbusiness.org/resources-clinicians/.

When it comes to marketing your new practice, be sure to put your business on the “local business search engine” pages on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, as well as creating Yelp and Facebook pages. She also recommends that you provide your practice’s information to other practices in town who are not accepting new patients, so that they can point clients your direction. You can also alert your local social services, emergency departments, and emergency dispatchers that your practice has opened so that they can refer people your way as well.

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