In the past couple of years, every plastic surgeon has heard about colleagues who are joining larger group affiliations backed by venture capital and private equity. To say it’s one of the major trends in plastic surgery in recent years is likely an understatement – it is the major trend as more and more surgeons realize the many benefits that can come from partnership and collaboration.
But is aligning your practice with a larger partnership really the way to go? What are the potential drawbacks you should consider while analyzing the benefits? Let’s take a closer look at what you might have to give up when joining a group of other plastic surgeons.
First, the Positives
There are many good reasons why plastic surgeons are getting on board the group affiliation model that has already swept through other medical specialities like orthopedics and dentistry. Being a smaller practice in a medical environment with an ever-growing list of challenges can make it exceptionally hard to have the time to focus on delivering excellent care. A private equity partnership can:
- Provide investment to grow and scale practice management
- Leverage group purchasing power for savings on supplies and consumables
- Take the hassle out of HR and payroll
- Optimize marketing and lead generation
- Free up time for more focus on patient experience and outcomes
Giving Up Some Autonomy
On the flip side of all these benefits, plastic surgeons need to recognize that by offloading decision-making, they are also inevitably going to lose some control and say over how their practice operates on a daily basis. If you are deeply invested in your practice running in very particular ways, this may become a source of friction as some decisions transition out of your control.
It’s important to keep in mind that not all partnerships are alike in how much autonomy a member surgeon is expected to give up. On one end of the spectrum, a partnership may remove decision making for almost all decisions that do not affect patient care. On the other extreme, member surgeons may be allowed to function as if the partnership is nearly invisible.
Doing Due Diligence
One thing plastic surgeons are always short on is time. Making a big decision about teaming up your practice with a private equity group is certainly not something that should be done on a whim. And with each company offering a different set of benefits and requiring different types of financial and management information, exploring potential partnerships can become quite time consuming.
Adding to the complication is the need to agree on a valuation for your practice. It often helps to arrive at a proper valuation by going through an assessment with several groups. This will help you to form a realistic valuation and feel that you are getting a fair deal, but the downside is that this will take even more time as you work through the particulars with several firms.
We encourage you to think carefully about the pros and cons of joining a plastic surgery partnership group. It’s an arrangement that makes sense for more and more practitioners, but it’s not for everyone. To find out if Prime Aesthetics Group may be a good fit for your practice, please fill out our secure online contact form.