Labor and Delivery of My New Practice: Joy, a Few Tears, and a Temperamental Printer

Well, we are finally open!  This “labor of love” has at times felt like actual labor, the birthing of a dream, and with the excitement of new beginnings come challenges as well.  To be honest, some were a little painful.  There were so many details going into this new practice, from the office space, to my wonderful staff, to decisions about the direction I wanted to take things, products and services, patient record management, and so on.  Anything truly worthwhile is never achieved easily.  The harder you work for something, the sweeter the reward.  And that’s how I feel about this wonderful new home away from home.

I am so proud of my amazing staff and their unified efforts to bring all the necessary elements together for the best possible patient experience.  Inevitably, though, things are bound to go wrong.  I know I am harder on myself than anyone else, and there really isn’t any such thing as perfection, but when it’s your name on the sign outside, you want everything to be just right.  Here are some of the delightful hiccups we experienced our first full week after opening:

•         Our printer ran out of paper so we couldn’t print patient receipts temporarily
•      The rest of our building is still undergoing remodeling with a lot of dust and debris
•          Our EMR system was experiencing some blips

So, you can see these are minor annoyances, not big problems, but it still irks me a bit that we have to deal with them. On the brighter side, most everything else has gone off without a hitch.  Patients absolutely LOVE the new office and surroundings, especially all of the little luxuries that make it feel like home, such as the coffee bar, cushy couches, and homey atmosphere.  The last thing I wanted my patients to feel like when they entered my practice is a cold, stark room with old magazines, dated décor, worn looking furnishings, and a disinterested staff.  I have to say if there is one thing I absolutely got right, it’s my incredible team.  They aren’t just my support staff; they are women on a mission to provide the very best care to our patients, whether that involves proper management of your medical records, or helping me during a procedure.  I couldn’t have handpicked a finer group of people anywhere.

If you haven’t heard, we would like to show you first hand our amazing new offices and have you come down and meet everybody during our Grand Opening July 28.  More details will follow in next week’s blog.  We can’t wait to see you!