Adding Botox to your Practice: Cash Based vs. Insurance Based Services
As Physicians, you want to move away from reducing insurance reimbursements and actually get paid for what you do! I love the analogy of, what if you walked into Target and only paid for half of the items you left with? Well, you would probably get arrested! However, this happens to physicians every day. You submit all those forms to insurance companies, and often you are lucky if you get paid for half of them. This is one of the many reasons physicians want to add aesthetic medicine procedures, like Botox, to their medical practices. The nice thing about these procedures is that they are not covered by insurance, and the patient needs to pay cash (debit or credit) when these procedures are done.
If you are looking at adding cosmetic procedures to your practice, I want you to first ask yourself this question … why? Why do you want to get into aesthetics? Is it the money? Seeing fewer patients, but actually getting paid for all of the ones you do see? Are you looking for a change? Are you tired of being on call? Do you want to spend more time with your family?
Once you have decided why you want to add aesthetics, you should create a vision of what you want this new practice to look and feel like in 3 years. Don’t worry about how you are going to do this, instead, focus on the end result, the vision of your successful aesthetic practice. Take your time here, think about everything you want to see in this new practice. Remember, nothing is off limits here, if you want a practice where you are not there but have a PA running things, that is ok. What do you want to achieve in 3 years? Once you have this vision, I want you to think backwards from that date and come up with a plan on how you are going to make that vision a reality. Who will you have working there? How many hours will you work? What procedures will you do? Now, I want you to jump to today, think about what you need to do today to start on that journey. Is it training? education? evaluating the equipment you will need? thinking about who you know today who will be part of that “dream” team working at your aesthetic practice. The important thing to do now is to take some action that will get you headed towards your goal. I’m sure you already know you need to make a change, today is the day to start down that path.
So many physicians jump into aesthetic medicine without thinking about why they are adding aesthetics to their practice. Don’t just react to external events, I want you to be proactive and plan for the future. I hope this simple exercise helps you get a clearer vision as to what you want in the future, and what steps you need to take to get you there! This content was was taken from an exercise I give physicians who attend the Aesthetic Practice Startup Workshop, which is part of the IAPAM’s Aesthetic Medicine Symposium.
