How to Open a Cardiology Clinic

As a cardiologist, you may want to open a cardiology clinic to see patients privately. You may start off small at first, but you want to hire the right staff. This will enable you to expand in the future as your patient base grows. The right staff will keep your business profitable, your patients happy and your office running efficiently. There are many things to keep in mind when opening a clinic, but you can so successfully and fairly quickly.

Instructions

1. Find an office space that has a waiting room, office for you, area for medical files, medical closet, and examination rooms. Purchase examination tables, chairs and a scale for your patients. Smaller equipment can be acquired closer to opening day.

2. Hire an office manager. Find someone who is professional, has medical office experience and who is a leader. Make sure your office manager has experience in referrals, medical record law, medical insurance filing, and JCAHO compliance issues.

3. Purchase office equipment. You will need a telephone with at least two phone lines, a dedicated fax line, a photocopier (you can get away with a printer/copier/fax machine option if you're starting out small), and shelves to house medical records. You can use an appointment book for now. Purchase computers now or later with scheduling software. Your office manager can order your equipment along with office supplies.

4. Hire a back office person. This person can be a nurse, a cardiac technician or a medical assistant. Decide what level of expertise you need right now. A medical assistant that can take patient vitals and perform an EKG is sufficient.

5. Hire a front office person. This person should be able to answer the phone, schedule appointments, process paperwork, handle physician needs, and handle sick and grouchy patients. Until your practice grows bigger, this person can also handle medical records and referrals.

6. Decide if you want to do echo tests in your office or send patients to the hospital to get them. When starting out, it may be less work and expense to you if you send a patient out for an echo. As your business grows, you can always hire an echo tech later. This is also true for a nuclear medicine test and technician.

7. Determine what tests you want to perform in the office and what equipment you need to purchase. At minimum, you should purchase an EKG machine, pulse oximeter, hand held doppler, and blood pressure cuffs (several). If you have the capital available, you can also purchase a treadmill machine (if you want to perform exercise treadmill tests).

8. Contact fellow physicians and let them know that you've opened a clinic of your own so that they can refer patients to you.

9. Have your office staff contact drug representatives and get your office stocked with medicine samples that you want. Draft a drug rep policy to determine what regular access to you, if any, you will allow drug reps.

Tips & Warnings

• Your clinic will run effectively if you are on time to see patients. While the nature of cardiology involves emergencies, when you have the power be on time, please do so. Your patients and office staff will appreciate you for it.

• Don't start an office until you have gone through all the proper procedures. A delayed opening is better than a mismanaged one.