Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Brittney Anderson, MD, FAAFP, on Building a Successful Independent Practice

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Brittney Anderson, MD, FAAFP, on Building a Successful Independent Practice · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Healthcare
• 0:02
  Podcast.
• 0:03
  I have the privilege today to visit with
• 0:05
  doctor Britney Anderson.
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  And doctor Anderson is both a doctor, but
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  she's also a coach of doctors and talks
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  to physicians about building the practices, hanging out
• 0:14
  their shingle,
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  having some independence and autonomy.
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  Doctor Anderson,
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  first off, tell us about yourself and your
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  background, and thank you so much for joining
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  us today. Thanks, Scott, so much. I'm so
• 0:26
  excited to be here and chat with you
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  today. So like you mentioned, my name is
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  Britney Anderson. I'm a family medicine physician. I
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  am in private practice in Alabama, an insurance
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  based practice.
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  I, this coming July, so July of of
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  twenty twenty six, I will have been in
• 0:41
  practice for four years.
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  I love practicing medicine.
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  I went through the the similar pathway to
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  most physicians. Right? We go through our medical
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  school training. We get into residency. I went
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  to a pretty large family medicine residency
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  here in Alabama. There are 15 of us
• 0:57
  in each class. And just like the other
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  14 residents in my cohort, we all went
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  out into employee practice because that's the model
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  these days. I feel like that's the model
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  that we're taught through our training. That's what
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  we get exposure in. So I did that
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  for two years.
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  I tell people there were times in employee
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  practice, it was me, a receptionist, and a
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  nurse in a in FQHC, a federal qualified
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  health center. And some days, Scott, there was
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  no nurse. It was just me and the
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  receptionist.
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  Some days, there was no receptionist. It was
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  just me and the nurse. And some days,
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  there was no nurse or receptionist.
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  It was just me. I was triaging patients.
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  I was answering the phone. I was doing
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  all the things. So as you can imagine,
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  that was not sustainable.
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  I did it. I loved the mission of
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  that practice and, again, loved practicing medicine. It
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  just it didn't fulfill me. It didn't give
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  me what I needed to be able to
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  have a long sustainable
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  career in medicine.
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  So I left that, went to academics, went
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  back to the institution that I trained at,
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  and anyone who has been a part of
• 1:56
  anything in academic medicine for any period of
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  time
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  realizes that sometimes you get to a point
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  where there are things that you wanna change,
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  but it's almost impossible to change them in
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  these big systems.
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  You know, wanting to to do something differently
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  for yourself, for staff, for patients, and having
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  to go through the different levels or layers
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  of of asking
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  was tough for me. So I buckled down
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  one day, went back to the thought that
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  I'd had when I was a pre med
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  student, when I was a high school student,
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  shadowing docs who were in private practice. And
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  and that is what I went to. I
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  did it,
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  you know, without a coach or without many
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  mentors and and error,
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  and, but
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  really marketed the practice like crazy and started
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  the practice with a full panel of patients.
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  Like, I use social media to my advantage.
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  I market it like crazy. And here we
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  are four years later with me practicing medicine.
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  I built the practice, really expanded it. Now
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  I I love coaching other docs and starting
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  their practices.
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  And I'm gonna ask you the tough question.
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  And you won't have to answer this, doctor
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  Anderson, if you're not comfortable answering this question.
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  Let me know if you're ready. Alright. Hit
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  it. Okay. So here is the question.
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  Duke versus UNC
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  Oh my gosh.
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  Who do you cheer for in the Duke
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  UNC game? It's not even you said a
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  tough question, and that is the easiest question
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  I've answered literally all day. It is Duke
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  every day, twice on Sundays. I am a
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  proud
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  Duke grad. I bleed Duke blue. I was
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  in here in Alabama, I was in Birmingham,
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  I think is where I was. It was
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  Birmingham. And there was a kid, and I
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  say kid, he was maybe 17, 18 years
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  old, but had on a UNC
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  sweatshirt
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  and me just in full Duke mode. This
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  was in March. And so I thought he
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  meant it. And so I see him, and
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  I say, like, every good Dukie to, someone
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  in a UNC anything, and I say, go
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  to hell Carolina.
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  And this kid looked at me, and it
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  was probably a sweatshirt that, like, his grandmother
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  had bought them or something. He had no
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  idea why I was screaming at him at
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  the gas station, but Duke every day, all
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  day, Scott. That is the funniest thing I
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  ever heard. So the thing is one of
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  my closest colleagues is a guy, Bart Walker,
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  who's a, you know, UNC grad. Another really
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  close colleague is a Duke grad, and I
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  have a brother-in-law who's a Duke grad. So
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  what what do we tell? Tell me again.
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  What do we tell the North Carolina grad?
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  To go to Hale in that.
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  That's fantastic. Got it. We've got it. We
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  will have that on. We'll have that to
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  him sometime today. I love that. Listen. One
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  year when I was there, maybe the provost
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  pulled out a whole ad in the our
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  like, at the the Duke, the paper
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  and about why we shouldn't do it, why
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  we shouldn't say that, how awful it is.
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  And it truly is awful to tell anybody
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  to get to hell. But how awful it
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  is, and then the students took out one
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  the next day, and it was like, you
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  know, sorry, sir. The devil made us do
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  it.
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  I I I absolutely love that. So talk
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  a little bit about
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  you've you've moved back to independent practice.
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  Congratulations.
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  And I see great physicians throughout the country,
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  you
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  know, wanting to go back to independent practice,
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  and and so many are scared to do
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  so. And and but at the same time,
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  if you go back to independent practice today,
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  there's such a shortage of primary care physicians,
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  internal medicine physicians. If you could figure out
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  the billing and everything else, you're gonna be
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  busy. You're right. Little bit about talk about
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  little bit about
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  what kind of did it take? Was it,
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  was it scary to go back to independent
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  practice? And what advice would you give to
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  others that wanna go back to independent practice?
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  Yeah. It absolutely was scary. It was scary,
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  and it wasn't easy. I tell people that
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  private practice is not for every for everyone.
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  It is hard, but we've done hard things.
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  We did organic chemistry. We did med school.
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  We did intern here. All those things, but
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  you're exactly right. And I love how you
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  use the term go back. Right? So I
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  was pulling up some stats, a couple weeks
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  ago in in, you know, 2012,
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  60.1%
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  of practices were physician owned. They're private practice
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  and physician owned. We're now in at 2024
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  where that number has significantly decreased
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  to 42.2%.
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  The AMA put out a really good article
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  here recently, and it goes back to what
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  I was saying earlier. I think that we
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  just don't get it in our training. One
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  of my new favorite things to do is
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  not just to talk to docs who are
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  decided that they wanna go into private practice,
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  but I've been going to residency programs. And
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  I went to one recently. They gave me
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  forty five minutes, and an hour and a
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  half into it, the residents were still asking
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  questions
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  because we don't get it in our training.
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  And because we don't get it, we come
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  out of our training or we get three,
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  four, five years into employed practice. We hate
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  it. We're completely
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  burned out, but we don't realize that there
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  is an option to go and do it
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  independently.
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  And as I mentioned earlier, it's it's not
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  easy, but it's possible. And it's even more
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  possible
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  when you,
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  you know, when you work through the process,
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  when you accept help, if help is there
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  in the start up of the process. But
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  most importantly, if you're realistic about what it
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  will take. If you're realistic about the timelines,
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  and if you're realistic in choosing your model,
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  are you gonna be an insurance based practice?
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  Meaning, are you okay with dealing with the
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  hassles that come with taking insurance and credentialing
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  and reimbursement
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  to know that, you know, that that reimbursement
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  is coming? Or and you have to see
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  a good number of patients who do that.
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  Or do you want a direct care practice?
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  Do you wanna be direct primary care or
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  direct specialty care? Meaning, you've got to get
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  out there and market like crazy in order
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  to get patients in the door, patients who
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  will pay that cash price that you set.
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  And so for docs who are thinking about
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  private practice, the first thing I would say
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  is that it is absolutely possible, and that
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  private practice is not dead. I am running
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  a very successful
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  7 figure practice,
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  insurance based family medicine in Alabama.
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  It can absolutely be done. It's just a
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  matter of changing that mindset so that we
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  are no longer, quote, unquote, just the physician,
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  but we are the physician and the owner.
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  We are the CEO
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  of the practice that we're building and that
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  we're running.
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  I I I think just literally literally fantastic.
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  And and talk about,
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  do you have to be concierge or you
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  can you do it without being concierge? Because
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  so many people are moving towards concierge today,
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  but, of course, not everybody can afford that.
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  But but you could do it either way,
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  can't you? You're right. You can absolutely do
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  it every way. And and I'm proof of
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  that. And I of the docs that I
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  coach, I do some one to one coaching
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  with docs and we work through this process.
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  I'd say that it's about half and half
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  and maybe even skewed a little bit more
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  to docs who were still good old traditional
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  insurance based medicine. You know, physicians and patients
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  are getting to a point where we're all
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  a little bit burned out with the idea
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  of insurance and the cost that come with
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  insurance, whether that is financial cost, cost in
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  in time, hassle, those kinds of things. But
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  the traditional model still in this country is
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  insurance based medicine.
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  One of the things that we've got to
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  realize as physicians, whether we are primary care
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  physicians, especially physicians,
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  is the importance of appropriately
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  coding and billing for the work that we
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  do for making sure that we stay on
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  top of our billing, that our front desk
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  is actually collecting co pays and and deductibles
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  and and things like that. And when we
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  can do that, when like I said earlier,
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  we take on that hat of being the
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  owner of a business
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  and not just the, you know, the seeing
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  patients, but when we really work this like
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  it's a business,
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  the the financial part comes. And and that
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  is the part that I think trips so
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  many people up and and what people go
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  to when they're thinking about making a decision.
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  They make that decision solely based on what
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  revenue would be or what they think, you
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  know, income would look like. And there's so
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  many other factors, including our own ability to
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  run a practice that we've got to think
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  about.
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  And how satisfying it is as well. I
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  mean, because it because you end up having
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  control of your own destiny,
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  not be somebody else's employee, and there's a
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  lot to be said for that. It's a
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  wonderful thing. Absolutely. I'm at a point, Scott,
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  that I do not believe I will ever
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  in life work for anyone again. I cannot
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  do it. I love the autonomy that comes
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  with it. My staff meets every Wednesday at
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  12:00.
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  We can make decisions, and at 01:00 when
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  the doors open again, those decisions go into
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  effect. Whether they are good decisions or bad
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  decisions, we'll find out later. But it's my
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  decision. It's our decision to make. But isn't
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  that the wonderful thing about a midsize or
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  small business? You could actually see point a
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  to point b in what you're doing
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  versus cascading through multiple layers and so forth.
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  And and and we all know sometimes big
• 10:17
  is needed for certain things, but it is
• 10:20
  much more satisfying. And quite frankly, you're doing
• 10:22
  it financially really well too to to be
• 10:25
  able to be the the size and be
• 10:26
  able to take your ideas and make them
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  go. I I just love that. Absolutely.
• 10:31
  Take a second on what are you most
• 10:33
  focused on and excited about currently?
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  I am most excited about coaching docs one
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  to one as they build their private practice.
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  I started off so I hold some leadership
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  positions within our state. I was the I'm
• 10:45
  the current chair and immediate past president of
• 10:47
  our Alabama chapter of the American Academy of
• 10:50
  Family Physicians. I serve on our state medical
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  association, and both of those put me right
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  in the middle of groups of physicians all
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  the time. Mhmm. Our clinic is very active
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  on social media, and so very often, Scott,
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  I've had docs come to me and say,
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  hey. I see your practice doing this. Hey.
• 11:04
  It looks like your practice is doing really
• 11:06
  well. I'm thinking about private practice. How do
• 11:09
  I do this? And what happened is I
• 11:11
  found myself answering the same questions over and
• 11:14
  over and over and over again. So I
• 11:16
  I created a podcast, and I said, you
• 11:18
  know what? That question is episode 17. Go
• 11:21
  check it out. Call me back if you
• 11:23
  have questions. And the call me back if
• 11:25
  you have questions continue to come. I realized
• 11:28
  that people wanted to dig even deeper than
• 11:30
  the things that I was addressing in the
• 11:31
  podcast. And so I, you know, hired another
• 11:34
  doc into the practice, which has been fantastic.
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  It's given me so much more freedom to
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  do other things, and I've been able to
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  open up a day where I can just
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  do one to one coaching with docs. So
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  the most exciting thing right now is really
• 11:47
  realizing that the pendulum is shifting a little
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  bit. I think we're you know, this generation
• 11:51
  of docs that are coming out, many of
• 11:53
  us don't wanna be employed. We want to
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  practice medicine the way we thought we were
• 11:58
  going to medical school to practice medicine, and
• 12:00
  private practice, independent practice is what gives that
• 12:03
  to so many of us.
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  It it is really remarkable what you're doing.
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  I I we're gonna invite you to come
• 12:09
  speak at one of the Becker's healthcare meetings
• 12:11
  and speak about what you're doing. I love
• 12:14
  what you're doing, doctor Anderson. I I can't
• 12:16
  tell you how much I appreciate you joining
• 12:18
  us today on the Becker's healthcare podcast and
• 12:20
  how inspiring you are,
• 12:22
  for everybody in terms of what you do
• 12:24
  and what you're doing. Just literally fantastic.
• 12:27
  Thank you so much for joining us. Thank
• 12:29
  you. I've appreciated this so much.