Time as Your Tool

Mt. Morrison and Convict Lake - 2019

Sierra Nevada, CA

Steps and Phases

The End of Career transition is a process that’s usually lengthy. It’s comprised of several phases that focus on tasks that should be accomplished in a particular sequence, so that each builds upon the previous one.

The most challenging of these phases, primarily for personal reasons, is usually the first. This is when you come to terms with the fact that your career will come to an end. For a variety of reasons, physicians’s reactions will vary widely from joy of anticipation to apprehension and stress.

Regardless of how you perceive this phase of your life, there’s an element of loss that you will probably feel and benefit by coming to terms with it. A very positive perspective is to think of this as what it really is: a transition, rather than a “retirement.” (See previous article on this topic.) The term transition emphasizes its purpose: to experience renewal and fulfillment.

Retirement closes doors; transition opens new ones.

To that end, it’s very beneficial to position yourself to take control of the process rather than finding yourself reacting, often late, to the challenges you’ll encounter.

At about this time, you’ll also have a new experience. For many years you’ve been comfortably familiar with practicing your profession with skill, experience and confidence. Now you’re at the beginning of a major life transition, discovering unfamiliar matters you have to deal with and wondering what else lies ahead.

The cumulative impact these concerns can have on you will often delay your decision to take the first step.

For these and other reasons, that first step is often the hardest to take. However, once taken, you will find yourself progressing solidly on your path.

The First Step

The first step is your personal acknowledgment of what you’re experiencing and the likelihood of additional, new challenges ahead. You’ll probably recognize, correctly, that this process requires a methodology that will naturally empower you to lead yourself, your family and your staff to accomplish your goals.

You’ll probably conclude that it’s wise to seek guidance from diverse professionals that will comprise your external transition team. It’s also necessary to create an internal transition team that is comprised of current members of your staff. This is also essential to get the support you need to accomplish your transition smoothly while you are taking care of your patients with excellence and safety.

Your transition is a process, not an event.The methodology to accomplish it consists of several plans and phases that build upon previous ones and flow in a natural, sequential manner.

The First Plan

This focuses on you: preparing yourself and your family. It’s best expressed by the creation of your Post Career Lifestyle Plan. This is undertaken privately with your spouse and described in writing. It should include a preliminary budget.

The Second Plan

Next is the creation of your Post Career Financial Plan, which is different from your retirement plan. This is best done with the advice of a financial professional, such as a Certified Financial Planner. Its purpose is to determine whether your financial resources will support your lifestyle plan.

If it does, you can proceed with confidence. If it does not, at the present time, you can make adjustments in your lifestyle plan and/or your financial resources. This latter concern may have a direct impact on your desired time to stop practicing, and whether you’ll do so completely or in a staged fashion.

The Third Plan

This is the End of Career Transition Plan. Its focus is to prepare your practice. Here I discuss the scenario of a solo practitioner who desires to sell his private practice. There are significant elements of this, which also apply whether you’re in a private group practice, or otherwise employed.

This plan is comprised of three phases.

The first is to undertake an objective, current evaluation of your practice, to ensure that it’s functioning optimally from an operational and profitability perspective.

The second is to consider ways in which you can optimize the profitability and value of your practice. This can be done in various ways to increase its present profitability and value, while also optimizing it for a prospective buyer. Examples are adding services, particularly those that are recurrent in nature.

The third is to prepare the practice to offer it for a private succession sale or to a private equity firm. This will include an evaluation and possible modification of physical space, staff, scheduling, etc. You will also need plans and preparation for the introduction of your new associate. Examples are various forms of credentialing, introduction to the community, etc.

In the case of a private sale or perhaps an institutional purchase, you will need to determine the criteria that will guide the recruiting of an associate as well as the general terms of a contract offer.

These tasks are essential to prepare your practice to “go to market.” At this point in time you will have compiled a wide variety of documents that are necessary for a prospective buyer to undertake their due diligence. It’s best to have this prepared in advance of announcing that you’re offering to sell your practice.

Your Time, Your Tool

Physicians employ a broad range of approaches for when they’ll begin their end of career transition preparations. Some delay too long so that there’s little time to prepare. This can severely limit their options. At the other extreme, there are those who will begin to plan years in advance. This will typically occur when they begin to foresee their end of career, often about five years in advance. In this latter instance, there’s a greater opportunity to implement a methodology in a timely manner with more options usually available.

To delay is to forgo the opportunity of using time to your advantage. To be proactive is to use your time as an effective tool to accomplish your goals.

Plan. Prepare. Prosper. _TM 

PS: Would you like to learn more about how to prepare yourself and your practice for the End of Career Transition? You may be in solo practice and wish to carry out a succession or outright sale; perhaps you are in group practice or are otherwise employed. I provide consulting/coaching services that are tailored to your specific needs. Click here to request a complimentary introductory conversation.

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