Vantage Clinical Solutions is proud to partner with author and concierge physician, Dr. Steven Knope to present a one-day workshop dedicated to the concierge medicine model (also known as retainer medicine).  The workshop is titled, “Become a Doctor Again: Making Concierge Medicine Work for your practice,” and is intended for primary care physicians who are interested in learning about how the concierge medicine model works, how to determine when concierge medicine makes a viable business model, and how to ultimately transition a current medical practice to the concierge, or retainer model.

The concierge medicine workshop will be held Saturday, November 15th from 8am - 4pm in Phoenix, AZ at the Doubletree Phoenix-Gateway Center.  Early bird registration is $595 (received by October 17th) and regular registration is $695 and must be received by November 7th.  Registration is available online by clicking here, and phone/fax registration is also available.  Phone: (888) 827-5613/Fax: (541) 550-7356.

Dr. Steven Knope is the author of “Concierge Medicine: A New System to Get the Best Healthcare” and has owned his own concierge practice for 8 years (click hereto visit Dr. Knope’s website).  He is a pioneer in the area of concierge medicine and is cited frequently by publications and news agencies on the topic of healthcare trends, including the role that concierge medicine plays within our current healthcare arena.

Vantage Clinical Solutions is proud to partner with innovative practice owners and leaders such as Dr. Knope to educate and mold the healthcare landscape through the use of entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation.  We encourage primary care physicians who are interested in learning more about this innovative trend in healthcare business models to take this opportunity to learn from this dynamic and pioneering physician.

If you’re looking for a new (and easy) way to follow us at The Healthcare Entrepreneur, we’ve made it a step easier for those that Twit.  Our posts are now fed through Twitter, making it easy to catch us on the run from your mobile device.  So, if you want to catch us on the twit, click here.

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At Vantage Clinical Solutions, we recently published a number of free practice management tools intended for use by private practice owners and managers. 

The tools are simplified for quick and easy use and focus on 5 areas of practice management that we commonly address with our clients: the startup process, budgeting, productivity, breakeven analysis, and strategy. 

More detailed versions of the tools are available for purchase and Vantage offers a selection of consulting and management services that work hand-in-hand with the online toolbox in order to help private practices navigate our healthcare economy both efficiently and profitably.

So, check ‘em out and let us know what you think!

Last month, Vantage was featured on the cover of PT Magazine in an article that focused on the topic of “healthcare consumerism.”  Healthcare consumerism is the shift toward the treatment of patients as “consumers” of their healthcare services, rather than simply passive recipients in their care.  As a result, the focus of many [smart] private practice owners is on the development of services and environments of care that will create loyalty and satisfaction among their patients.

Here is a link to the article - Thank you to PT Magazine for their coverage of such a relevant topic to today’s healthcare environment.

In traditional industry, says Quatre, businesses compete for customers by either lowering prices or improving product quality-say, by building a better widget. “In health care it’s much different because you can have a different service based on your training, your staff, your expertise, and so forth, but can you charge more for that because the quality’s a lot better? Your hands are tied to some extent, unless you’re on a strictly cash-based model. To compete for the customer, what you really need to do is make it an experience with which they would prefer to be involved.”

We’ve been fortunate at Vantage Clinical Solutions to help some outstanding providers make the leap into private practice for the first time.  Pelvic Wellness Center is one such case, and they’ve done a great job of getting their name out in the press (see previous press here).  In this article published on July 5th in the Register-Guard, Pelvic Wellness Center owners Shannon Forrestall and Judy Hoar make mention of the services provided to them by Vantage during the process of starting their practice.

Owners Judy Hoar and Shannon Forrestall are physical therapists specializing in women’s health who have known each other for about five years. Forrestall has been a physical therapist for about 10 years and recently left her position as women’s health director for PT Northwest in Salem. Hoar has been a physical therapist since 1986, practicing with PeaceHealth Medical Group and other outpatient clinics, with a focus on women’s health…

…The women hired Vantage Clinical Solutions, a Bend consulting firm that helped with market research, financial projections and a business plan. Now that the clinic is up and running, Vantage is providing billing services and management support, they said.

Vantage was featured today in The Bulletin newspaper.  Here’s a link to the article which goes into detail about our services as well as a Q&A regarding how we position private practices for various economic conditions - Thank you to The Bulletin for the profile of our company.

The single best way we help medical practices originates directly from our mission statement, which is to “improve health care through entrepreneurship.” We believe that entrepreneurship has a vital role in health care, especially in today’s economy. … We always start with an entrepreneurial foundation with our client to make sure that they are heading in the direction of optimal opportunity for their practice and their community. This applies whether we are consulting, managing or helping finance a health care practice.

You’ve probably heard the adage, “there’s no such thing as bad press.”  I actually disagree with this statement (contact me offline for some really good examples of bad press being bad press), and think the adage should say, “free press is the best press.”

Free press enters the consumer’s mind as information, education and value - contrasted with advertising which enters the consumer brain with an asterisk that states something like, “great ad, but I wonder what the real story is…”

A client of ours, Pelvic Wellness Center, opened in Eugene, OR last week…and talk about free press.  The practice owners, Judy Hoar, PT, and Shannon Forrestall, PT have done an absolutely fantastic job of getting their name out there, and as you can see from this news clip from KVAL, even the newscaster is surprised at how quickly they are getting in front of a camera.

Kudos to Judy, Shannon, and Pelvic Wellness Center - readers take note…it’s just that easy (at least it can be).

The Pelvic Wellness Center is located at 295 W. Broadway, Eugene, OR 97401, and can be reached at (541) 515-6215.