In healthcare IT and business support, there are a several important business decisions to make that will enable you to begin making money in this vertical market.  In any business, no decision is more important than deciding what the core of your business will be.  What will you center your business around?  For example, in healthcare, you could specialize in selling hardware, billing services, accounting services, or medical-based software.  Each healthcare business model offers its own unique set of opportunities and challenges.  Regardless, it is imperative that you identify your "main thing" before your business can really move forward.  You can't have two main things, or two cores, and expect to be truly successful.  In the words of the Holy Bible, "No man can serve two masters."

The Hardware-Centric Model.  If your business is centered around hardware-only, selling medical software can be an inconvenient after-thought or distraction.  It also may not make sense to 'specialize' in healthcare, as that would artificially limit your market and you would loose opportunities to sell.  Wiring a network for an attorney's office or a healthcare office is not significantly different.  It maybe wise to partner with a local reseller of medical software and each maintain your own "core."  If this is the heart of your business, specializing in healthcare is probably not the wisest of business decisions.  As you'll see, it may make more sense to change the heart of your business if you want to remain healthcare focused.

The Billing Service-Centric Model.  Should you choose to specialize in offering billing services to doctors, this can be an extremely lucrative model in the industry.  With this focus, however, it does not make sense to sell Office Management Software at all (even as a secondary option), as you would only be selling the software to a client in the instance where you failed to adequately convince an organization to outsource their billing to you.  Any secondary option based on the failure of your primary goal is something that will distract you and take your eye off of your core.

The Medical Software-Centric Model.  The medical software model offers the most flexibility with the highest level of value added services for the savvy healthcare IT business person or organization.  Your primary goal would always be to sell an office the practice management and/or EMR software that you specialize in.  As you know, however, software doesn't run well without hardware, training and support, as well as a number of other service you will bundle with the software.  Centering your healthcare business around selling software can be a wise business decision because of all of the secondary options that are directly related to your main thing. 

Here is a list of value-added services that compliment the core of the medical software-centric model:

 

Software Training and Support.  Making software your core means that you become "expert" at using, implementing, and training on your software packages that you sell.  Most vendors offer training and/or a certification program to help you in that goal.  The more you know and understand the practical application of your core software, the more you will be able to charge to train and support an office and the more satisfied your customers will be.

Sell hardware/networking.  Even if this isn't something you normally offer, you can partner with a local IT company that does.  Once your clients purchase your software package, the office will still need computers, virus scan and spyware protection, insurance card scanners, x-ray scanners, tablet PCs, printers, wireless networking, and more...  Additionally, many high-speed internet providers have a reseller program.  Find a reliable one and bundle them in order to receive other commissions from the sale.

Sell local support.  No matter what package you sell and no matter how good the telephone support of your vendor may be, offices will still need local support.  As you design your local support packages you may consider whether you will bundle hardware support, virus scan support, network support, on-site visits, billing support, local medical software support, and/or other software support.  These type of decisions are key to improving customer satisfaction and making sure that your clients have the best experience possible with the solutions you've provided them.

Add an EMR to your mix.  It should be noted that I adhere to the philosophy that there is no such thing as a “one-size-fits-all” EMR.  Practice specialty specific needs and the personal taste of each physician facilitate a need to have a secondary EMR solution at times.  The Software Comparison Matrix from last year and also the 2005 edition (released next month), can give you a good foundation for discovering which EMRs you may want to add to your software mix.

Sell data conversions.  Getting the data out of their old system and into a format that can be imported into your software is something the majority of your clients will need.  This is something that can be out-sourced to a data conversion specialist (who will undoubtedly ensure that you get some kind commission) or is a service that you can keep "in-house" if its something you or your staff have experience in.

Sell consulting, business management, accounting services.  Ancillary services that help a doctor to become more “business minded” are not only critical to a medical offices success, they are also one of the biggest weaknesses in our current medical system in the United States.  Doctors leave medical school with thousands of hours of medical training, but little or no business training.  Helping them run a successful practice - from making wise financial investments to providing them sound tax advice - is another group of services that should not be overlooked.  The practice management software you have sold the office should contain a plethora of reports that a business consultant or accountant can you to determine office weakness and help them make decisions to improve.  If this is something you don’t provide, partner with a local accountant and make sure to negotiate a commission off of the work that they do for your clients.

Sell other medical support and educational material.  Coding books, training books, accounting support software, drug interaction books, policies and procedures, HIPAA manuals, and other training and support material can also be a great source of income and can help an office to shape its own policies and procedures.  This is another valuable add-on and source of income that shouldn’t be over-looked. 

Don't Be Afraid to Change With The Marketplace.  I should note that often times we get stuck in old technologies because they are what we know.  How can we provide our clients with the best solutions possible if we are only concerned with the making money instead of the more important concern of providing them with the best solution?  We must be focused on selling proven, reliable products and services based on today’s technology.  If we do that, the money will always be there. 

I remember being a young sales rep for a popular medical software package in the mid and late 90’s.  We had released our windows product and were starting to try to convince our resellers that windows was not just the future, but the present.  There were a number of resellers that were unable to see the value in moving their clients to windows and those resellers eventually got swallowed up and left behind, because in a changing marketplace they were eventually unable to make any money selling DOS products.  Can you imagine if you were still trying to sell a DOS-Based package in today’s market?

Make sure that whatever business model you choose that you keep your eye on what's coming ahead, what business trends are available, and what the U.S. Government is doing so that you can help your clients to make wise business decisions.  If you always have your client's best interest in mind, you will never have to worry about money, because your clients will always see the value in working with you.

 

-- Kevin Burdick,               
InvestMedLLC.com        

 

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December 2005, TOP STORY:  The '05 - '06 Medical Software Comparison Survey

October 2005, TOP STORY: The Five Sales Fundamentals