“How can I get patients into my clinic fast?”

We understand, because most practice owners have been there at one time…

You invested time, money, and energy into opening your doors… and now you need patients, and you need them fast!

And while there are many ways to market your practice, including a website, social media, paid advertising, email marketing, and more, none of those necessarily produces patients fast.

If you want to create momentum quickly, one of the best things you can do may seem old-fashioned, but it’s free, and surprisingly simple:

Get Out Of The Office And Get In Front Of People

For a new local healthcare practice, getting in front of people can often accomplish what online marketing cannot do nearly as quickly.

It lets people know who you are, what you do, and that you are available to see patients.

A common mistake new practice owners make is assuming that opening the doors will somehow bring in patients.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Don’t wait for people to discover you. Be proactive and let the people in your community know about you and your office.

You may have a beautiful office, an excellent website, a Google Business Profile, and years of clinical experience.

But none of that helps if people in your community don’t know you exist.

When you are new, your first marketing job is not necessarily to persuade someone to choose you.

It is simply to make people aware that you are there and open for business.

And that means introducing yourself to the community instead of waiting for the community to find you.

Start With Other Providers

One of the easiest places to begin is with other healthcare offices in your area.

Think about the physicians, specialists, therapists, pharmacists, chiropractors, urgent care centers, home health agencies, and other healthcare professionals who regularly encounter patients who may need services they cannot provide.

Some have long wait times, some may not accept certain insurance, and some don’t accept new patients at all.

Visit their offices and introduce yourself. Explain what your practice does, who you serve, and how patients can reach you.

You don’t need an elaborate presentation or a polished sales pitch. In fact, a simple conversation may be much more effective.

You can say something like:

“I recently opened a practice nearby. I want to introduce myself and let you know we’re accepting new patients. My office provides the following services  _______.

If you have patients you can’t accommodate, or who need the services we provide, we’d be happy to see them.”

Leave behind a business card, brochure, referral information, or simple one-page description of your services.

The goal is not to pressure anyone for referrals, but to make sure they know your office exists.

Get in Front of Your Local Emergency Department

Depending on your specialty, another place to introduce yourself may be the local hospital or emergency department.

Emergency departments often see patients who need follow-up. Others need a primary care provider. Some have difficulty finding someone who can see them promptly.

So, if your practice can meet those needs, let the ER or hospital know.

Find out who handles discharge planning, case management, social work, community referrals, or provider resource lists.

Again, introduce yourself and your practice and explain:

“We are accepting new patients, and if you have people who need appropriate outpatient follow-up and are having difficulty finding a provider, we would be happy to be considered as a resource.”

Again, you are not asking anyone to guarantee referrals. You are simply making them aware of another option.

You are making yourself known as an available option.

Talk to Local Organizations

While this option is not as fast as the ones above, you should consider it. Healthcare happens in communities, not just medical offices.

Think about where the people you want to serve already meet.

Depending on your practice, that might include:

• Senior centers
• Churches and faith communities
• Schools
• Daycare centers
• Gyms and fitness centers
• Community organizations
• Employers
• Retirement communities
• Chambers of commerce
• Support groups
• Local nonprofit organizations

Introduce yourself to the people running those organizations and get in front of their members. Offer to speak to them about a health topic that fits your expertise and is of interest to them.

Participate in community health events. Attend local business gatherings. Volunteer to participate in community programs.

This gives you broad exposure and lets you become a familiar healthcare professional in the community.

And familiarity matters when someone later needs care.

Consider participating in community events regularly; it’s a great way to get in front of people, provide useful information, and build your practice at the same time.

Tell People Who You Can Help

When introducing your practice, don’t just say:

“I just opened a new clinic.”

That doesn’t tell people anything.

Instead, help them understand who you are, what you do, and who they should think of when they hear your name.

Instead of giving bare-bones, useless information, you could say:

• “We’re accepting adults who need a new primary care provider.”
• “We work with women going through menopause who are looking for ongoing support.”
• “We’re happy to see patients who are having difficulty getting a timely appointment elsewhere.”
• “We provide psychiatric medication management for adults.”

The clearer you are about the patients you serve, the easier it becomes for someone to recognize and make a referral.

People can’t refer the right patients to you if they don’t understand what your practice actually does.

A Low-Tech Marketing Strategy

New practice owners sometimes believe marketing has to begin with complicated strategies. But that’s rarely the case.

Social media, search rankings, funnels, advertising campaigns, and content marketing all have a place in building a practice.

But when your schedule is empty, and you need patients now, your fastest marketing strategy involves nothing more sophisticated than comfortable shoes, a stack of business cards, and some friendly conversations.

Here’s What To Do Next…

• Use AI to make a list of 20 or 30 organizations and healthcare offices in your community.
• Then start introducing yourself.
• Do a few every week.
• Follow up periodically.

Build relationships instead of making a single visit and disappearing.

Over time, people will begin to recognize your name and understand what you do.

And when someone says, “Do you know anyone I could see for this…?” your practice has a much better chance of being remembered.

And Finally, Don’t Confuse Fast With Instant

There is one important caveat.

Getting in front of people may be one of the fastest ways to build awareness for your new practice, but that doesn’t mean patients will immediately start filling your schedule.

Relationships, referrals, and trust take time… especially in the beginning.

Don’t hide behind your computer waiting for your marketing to work; go where your people are!

So when someone asks, “How do I get patients fast?”, our answer stays the same…

Get out there, introduce yourself, and talk to people.

Scroll down a bit and tell us what you think – leave a comment…

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog.

The post Need Patients Fast? Get in Front of People! appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

While this shift is immediate, your mindset takes longer to catch up.

Frequently, NPs who become owners think of it as clinical practice with greater independence.

Now they can:

• make their own decisions
• choose how they care for patients
• and create an environment in line with their values

Clinical aspects are important, but they’re only part of the picture.

Opening a practice comes with additional responsibilities, including the financial, operational, and strategic health of the business.

While you become the legal owner in a single day, with the stroke of a pen, learning to think and act like one is a gradual transition.

Clinical Autonomy Is Not the Same as Practice Ownership

Wanting greater clinical autonomy is why many NPs consider starting a practice.

They want more control over patient care, scheduling, services, and the overall patient experience.

But clinical autonomy and practice ownership are not the same.

• Clinical autonomy gives you greater control over how you practice.
• Practice ownership gives you the responsibility for creating and maintaining the business in which that care occurs.

As a practice owner, you must think about pricing, expenses, cash flow, marketing, patient acquisition, policies, technology, vendors, compliance, staffing, and long-term planning.

You must decide which services to offer, how to deliver them, what they cost, and whether the practice can provide them sustainably.

While you may be comfortable making independent clinical decisions, you may feel unsure about making business decisions.

That’s normal, and to be expected.

And it doesn’t reflect badly on you, nor does it indicate a lack of ability. All it reflects is a lack of training and experience in an area that’s new to you.

Clinical experience prepares you to care for patients, but it doesn’t automatically prepare you to run a business.

Why the Transition Feels Uncomfortable

As an NP, you’ve spent years developing your clinical knowledge and skills.

However, moving into new territory, like practice ownership, can make you feel like a beginner again.

Initially, your new responsibilities will feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Negotiating contracts, evaluating vendors, understanding financial statements, setting fees, marketing your practice, enforcing policies, and making impactful decisions… takes adjustment and a shift in mindset.

While the discomfort can cause some NPs to question whether they’re cut out for owning a practice, it usually just means they are learning new skills and getting used to their new role.

Just as you had to develop your clinical skills through learning and experience, you will, in due time, develop your business skills in much the same way.

You Must See the Whole Picture

As a clinician, you’re trained to focus on the patient in front of you.

As a practice owner, however, you must continue to focus on the patient while also considering how each decision affects the practice as a whole.

Here’s what I mean…

• Waiving a fee may help one patient, but repeatedly making exceptions will weaken the practice’s payment policies and hurt the bottom line.
• Offering extended availability may be convenient for patients, but it may leave you exhausted and frustrated over time.
• Adding a new service may sound promising, but more activity doesn’t necessarily produce more income for the practice.

As the owner, you must consider patients, finances, operations, compliance, staff, and personal capacity… all at the same time.

Owning a practice as a clinician requires a broader perspective and makes for responsible ownership.

Because if the practice struggles financially, becomes difficult to operate, or depends entirely on the owner’s personal sacrifice, it will be unable to serve anyone in the long run.

But when you protect your practice, you also protect the services it provides to the community.

Still Acting Like an Employee?

Starting your own practice will not erase habits shaped by years of employment.

As an employee, you worked with systems created by someone else.

Someone else determined pricing, established policies, negotiated contracts, maintained technology, dealt with finances, and planned for the organization’s future.

But once you become the owner, those responsibilities do not disappear. They transfer…  and become yours.

Sometimes, new practice owners continue to focus almost exclusively on clinical work. It’s where they feel at home; it’s where they feel most competent.

And all too often…

• Administrative tasks are treated as inconvenient interruptions.
• Financial reports are avoided.
• Marketing is postponed.
• Policies, if they exist,  are handled inconsistently.
• Planning is pushed aside by whatever feels most urgent at the moment.

But the practice cannot manage itself while the owner concentrates only on patient care.

If the practice owner is unwilling to pay attention to cash flow, pricing, marketing, workflow, or expenses, someone else has to step into that role.

You don’t have to do everything yourself, but you must ensure that the important work gets done.

Accepting Two Professional Roles

Becoming a practice owner does not require you to abandon your identity as a clinician; it means expanding it.

You now have two legitimate, distinct, and necessary roles.

• As the clinician, you protect the quality and integrity of patient care.
• As the business owner, you protect the viability and direction of the practice.

Sometimes, these roles may seem to be in direct conflict…

For example…

• You may feel uncomfortable discussing money with patients
• Enforcing cancellation or financial policies
• “Firing” a patient from your practice
• Limiting after-hours access
• Discontinuing a service patients appreciate but the practice cannot afford to provide

However, being mindful of revenue, expenses, policies, efficiency, and profitability does not diminish your commitment to patients.

Your practice must stay financially and operationally healthy to stay in business and provide care to the community.

Your clinical mission and business objectives don’t have to be opposing forces.

Remember, it’s the business that makes the mission possible!

Growing Into the Owner Role

The transition to your new role begins when you accept that business knowledge is necessary and must be learned, just as clinical knowledge was.

It begins…

• When you start setting aside time to work on the practice, not only in it.
• When you start reviewing financial and operational information regularly.
• When you create workflows and systems rather than handling everything as a unique event.
• When you take a proactive stance to deal with problems instead of ignoring them.

Don’t shy away from getting professional help when specialized expertise is needed, while recognizing that the final responsibility for the practice remains with you.

At times you will have to make decisions without having all the answers.  Some decisions will work; others will need to be revised.

A poor result does not automatically mean you are a poor decision-maker; oftentimes, you’ll gain insights that help you make the next decision.

Over time, you’ll notice that now you’re anticipating problems instead of reacting to them.

You’ll start asking how a decision will affect the entire practice and become more comfortable reviewing the numbers, enforcing policies, changing ineffective systems, and seeking help before a problem becomes a crisis.

These are signs that you’re developing as a practice and business owner.

In Summary…

Practice Owner… is a role you grow into.

Starting a practice gives you the title of practice owner, but becoming confident in your new role takes time.

There’s no need to stop thinking like a clinician. After all, your clinical expertise and experience are essential to your business.

What is required is expanding your perspective and developing the skills required to operate a business.

Your practice and patients need an outstanding clinician, while your business needs an engaged and capable business owner.

When you learn to care for your business with the same intention you bring to your patients, your business becomes better and stronger.

We want to hear from you; tell us what you think, leave your comment below…

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog.

The post Starting Your NP Practice Changes More Than… appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

It always has and always will be …

We accept the cycles of nature, which bring us ongoing change:

• the day-night cycle
• our circadian rhythm
• seasonal changes
• life cycles
• and many others

Most of us adapt effortlessly to nature’s rhythms, while some struggle to fully adjust.

But this is not the kind of change I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the changes imposed on us by external forces; some of them are difficult, if not impossible, to escape.

Take Artificial Intelligence as an example …

Even though alarms have been raised about the current lack of oversight and regulation, AI is here to stay.

AI is with us, ushering in life-altering changes we have to adjust to.

So…

What does all of this have to do with cheese?

Well, everything, if you’re Hem, Haw, Sniff, or Scurry, the characters in Spencer Johnson’s book, “Who Moved My Cheese.”

It’s a book about change, and how we deal with it.

For the heroes in the book, cheese represents everything worthwhile in life.

While it may not be cheese we cherish, we may value safety, status, power, more money, a big house, another degree, or a new car.

But then life throws us a curveball (or two), changing our trajectory, and instead of dealing with the new reality…

Some of us hem and haw rather than embrace change, while others sniff out change, scurry along, and move forward.

The book is a delightful, short read full of lessons to help us deal with change. See for yourself here …

Here’s The Problem We’re Left With …

In the past, change moved much more slowly, making it easier for us to adapt.

But today, it happens at breakneck speed…

And it shows up everywhere, in our personal and professional lives.

Why Is It So Difficult To Accept Change?

If change is one of the few things we can count on, why is it so difficult for us to accept that?

By default, most of us assume that things will stay the same. So when change is forced on us, we naturally resist it.

And it makes sense, because when something is working, there’s little motivation to question or change it.

Change disrupts our routines; what was once predictable is no longer.

As humans, we like and need routines and predictability. Being able to “predict” what will happen next reduces fear and makes us feel that we’re in control.

Our habits and routines reduce fear and remove the anxiety that comes when facing the unknown. They free us to make better decisions, focus on important work, and deal with the more challenging tasks in our lives.

Add to it the fact that change is easier to recognize in hindsight than when it is happening, and it’s clear to see why change is hard to accept.

Most significant changes begin gradually:

• A once-reliable source of income becomes less reliable
• New platforms are free until they slowly move to paid
• A consistent referral source makes fewer referrals
• Insurance companies make small changes in reimbursements
• Rules, regulations, and laws get challenged and change

Because early warning signs that things are changing are often small, they are easy to overlook or dismiss altogether.

Are You Resisting Change?

While resisting change is often interpreted as stubbornness, it usually has deeper roots.

For practice owners, change may mean taking on financial risk. New systems, employees, or marketing strategies often require investment without a guaranteed return.

Change may also impact clinical routines.

As a healthcare provider, you value accuracy and consistency; they are essential to providing quality patient care. However, they can also make exploring new business processes and opportunities feel uncomfortable.

There may also be a fear of making the wrong decision. Perhaps you worry that change will disrupt your team, upset your patients, reduce your revenue, or waste already-limited resources.

Often, resisting change is disguised as procrastination, skepticism, or repeated requests for more information. Hiding beneath may be the need to avoid the feeling of loss.

But there’s also real resistance…

Practice owners may resist when change comes from the outside, when it’s imposed on them by insurers, regulators, vendors, technology companies, or larger healthcare systems.

Even a necessary change may result in resentment when it feels there is little choice or control.

Threats To Identity And Competence

Change doesn’t happen in isolation; it affects the entire person.

Change affects how we see ourselves.

If you’ve spent years developing excellence in your field, you may feel threatened by new methods, systems, or expectations you may not fully agree with or understand.

Required transitions can feel uncomfortable…

You may have to learn new skills, ask questions, be open to making mistakes, and admit that your current knowledge may no longer be enough.

A new billing requirement, technology platform, marketing strategy, or compliance rule may suddenly make an experienced clinician feel like a beginner.

Identity may also be tied to a job title, business model, leadership role, or long-standing routine; when that changes, people may feel that they’re losing more than just the process.

The Cost of Waiting

While not reacting to the change, waiting may feel safer than moving forward, but it comes at a price.

Often, the longer people resist change, the fewer choices they are left with.

• A business ignoring changing customer needs may lose revenue
• Employees who resist upgrading their skills may find it difficult to remain competitive.
• The professional who resists adopting necessary technology may be forced to choose under pressure

When people embrace change early, they can try different approaches, gather information, and take time to make well-informed decisions.

But when they wait until they must adapt to change, they may have to move quickly, with fewer alternatives and fewer resources.

But the biggest danger and trap may not be changing itself, but spending too much time living in a reality that no longer exists.

Waiting may feel cautious, but not moving forward can create even more risk.

• A practice that ignores patient preferences may lose patients to competitors who offer more convenient hours.
• A practice owner who delays reviewing expenses may allow financial problems to grow and get out of hand.
• A business that postpones technology upgrades may eventually face operational or security problems.
• Staffing issues may worsen. Revenue may decline. Compliance gaps may become more serious. Necessary changes may become more expensive and disruptive.

Recognizing and responding early to an upcoming change allows you to try out different solutions and find one that best suits your business.

Responding late, however, often leads to rushed decisions and less optimal solutions.

When practice owners respond early, they can test new systems, gather feedback, train staff, review results, and make adjustments.

But when they wait until the situation is critical, they may have fewer choices and less money available to solve the problem.

How To Be More Adaptable To Change

Being more adaptable does not mean welcoming every change or abandoning good judgment. However, it means developing the ability to respond to changing circumstances.

First, you must stay alert and pay attention. Monitor reimbursement, patient behavior, staffing patterns, expenses, denials, and competitor activity.

Stay abreast of major shifts in technology and monitor your practice’s financial condition. Small changes in these areas can provide early warning.

Don’t wait for a crisis; try to notice the small changes so you can respond appropriately.

When you notice any changes, acknowledge them and question whether your current habits, assumptions, and strategies are still producing the best outcomes.

Next, question your assumptions. Ask yourself whether the practice relies too heavily on a single referral source, payer, employee, service, or process.

Adapt to the change by taking small steps…

• Test a new scheduling process with a limited group of patients.
• Pilot a service before expanding it.
• Train one team member before changing the entire workflow.
• Small experiments reduce risk and provide useful information.

Allowing time for experimenting, developing new skills, and revising your routines can provide useful information without requiring a complete rework.

Finally, accept that change will be uncomfortable and treat it as part of the process. Confidence develops when you take action, even if it feels uncomfortable.

How To Help Others Adapt To Change

Others don’t always welcome change.

To minimize resistance, regardless of whether they are family members or staff, get them involved.

Keep them informed, ask for their input, and be transparent.

• Communicate early rather than waiting until decisions are final
• Explain why the change is occurring
• Listen and acknowledge legitimate concerns
• Don’t be dismissive
• Break large changes into smaller steps
• Provide training, time, and practical support

Most everyone will be more willing to adapt when they feel heard, respected, and supported.

In Conclusion …

Change is a constant, whether we welcome it or not.

While we cannot predict what will change or how, we can stay alert, open to change, willing to adapt, and learn.

Safety and security don’t come from keeping everything the same.

They come from knowing that when things change, we can recognize them, adjust our thinking, develop new skills, and move forward.

Always remember:

• Change happens
• Anticipate change
• Adapt to change quickly
• Rinse and repeat …

What is your comfort level with change? How do you handle it in your business?

Let us know, leave your comment below …

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog.

The post Who Moved The Cheese? appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

Unsure what it was, I asked ChatGPT, “What is ChatGPT Health?”

ChatGPT:

“ChatGPT Health is a dedicated space inside ChatGPT designed for U.S. users 18 and older to securely connect personal medical records, wearables, and wellness apps. It helps you understand test results, prepare for doctor visits, and track fitness data with extra privacy protections.”

At first glance, it may sound like a good idea to some. However, I see major problems with it.

To learn more, I went back to ChatGPT and typed in the following:

“Apparently, your company just made ChatGPT Health available to all US users. As you may determine, most medical professionals will not be overjoyed by this move.”

And here is the response I received from the AI:

ChatGPT:

“OpenAI announced on July 23, 2026, that Health in ChatGPT is rolling out to eligible U.S. users age 18 and older on Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans.

It is available on web and iOS, although OpenAI says the gradual rollout may take several weeks to reach everyone.

Users can ask health questions without connecting anything, or they can connect supported medical records and Apple Health data for more personalized responses.

And yes, many healthcare professionals are likely to have a strong initial reaction.

The announcement touches several sensitive issues at once:

• Patients may treat an AI-generated explanation as medical advice, even when the product says it is not a substitute for professional care.
• ChatGPT may become the first place patients go with symptoms, laboratory results, medication questions, and treatment concerns.
• Clinicians may have to correct inaccurate conclusions, address anxiety created by AI responses, or explain why their clinical judgment differs.
• Patients may arrive with lengthy AI-generated lists of diagnoses, tests, or treatment requests.
• Connecting medical records raises understandable questions about privacy, consent, data access, security, and patient comprehension.
• Some professionals may see it as another step toward replacing or devaluing clinicians.”

While the AI acknowledged the potential concerns of healthcare providers, it noted that ChatGPT Health will change the patient-provider relationship but will not eliminate the need for skilled clinicians and presented the following arguments:

ChatGPT:

“AI can summarize a laboratory report, suggest questions for an appointment, identify trends in connected information, or explain unfamiliar terminology.

OpenAI explicitly promotes uses such as preparing for appointments, understanding test results, tracking wellness goals, and identifying questions to discuss with a healthcare professional.

But it cannot independently perform a physical examination, reliably recognize everything a patient has failed to mention, assess nonverbal cues, assume legal responsibility for care, or build the kind of therapeutic relationship that influences whether a patient accepts and follows a treatment plan.

The real question is not whether patients will use ChatGPT Health. They will. The question is whether healthcare professionals will help patients use it safely, or leave them to interpret its answers alone.” (Emphasis added by ChatGPT.)

My follow-up question to the AI was this:

“Who will reimburse healthcare professionals for their time explaining to patients how to evaluate what ChatGPT tells them? Will it be OpenAI?”

This was the response I received …

ChatGPT:

“No—there is currently no indication that OpenAI will reimburse clinicians for that time.

OpenAI positions Health in ChatGPT as a tool that helps people become more informed and prepare for conversations with healthcare professionals.

It also states that the product is intended to support, not replace, medical care and is not intended for diagnosis or treatment. But its public materials do not describe any mechanism through which OpenAI would compensate an NP, physician, pharmacist, or other clinician who must review, correct, contextualize, or explain its output.

That leaves the cost where healthcare has traditionally placed it: on the clinician, the practice, the payer, or the patient.

A clinician may sometimes be able to include this work within a legitimate E/M service when reviewing the information is medically necessary, affects assessment or treatment, and the visit otherwise meets the applicable coding and documentation requirements.

Medicare recognizes E/M services furnished by physicians and eligible non-physician practitioners, including NPs. However, simply explaining how to evaluate ChatGPT answers would not automatically create a separately reimbursable service.

Coverage would depend on the clinical circumstances, code requirements, payer policy, documentation, and possibly time or medical decision-making.

Nor does the existence of an AI-related CPT code necessarily solve the problem. The AMA notes that a CPT code does not guarantee coverage, reimbursement, or payment, and it describes the payment environment for health-related AI as still unsettled.”

The AI acknowledged the problem central to the release of the “Health CPT,” stating:

ChatGPT:

“A technology company can give millions of patients individualized health explanations, but the healthcare system may expect clinicians to absorb the cost of correcting, interpreting, and managing the consequences.

Consider what may happen in a typical practice. A patient brings in several pages of ChatGPT output. The provider must determine what information the patient entered, identify unsupported assumptions, correct inaccuracies, address the patient’s anxiety, explain why a suggested test may not be appropriate, and redirect the discussion toward the patient’s actual clinical needs. That could consume a meaningful portion of the appointment.

The AI company does not pay for that time. The insurer may not pay anything additional. Yet the provider still carries the professional responsibility and liability for the advice ultimately given.

This does not mean every patient conversation about AI should generate a special charge. Patients have always brought information from Google, family members, television, and social media.

But ChatGPT Health may change the volume, personalization, and apparent authority of that information. Reviewing a customized AI interpretation of medical records could require substantially more work than answering a quick question about something a patient reads online.

ChatGPT Health may be free or inexpensive for patients, but it is not necessarily cost-free for healthcare. Some of its hidden costs may be transferred directly to clinicians and small practices.

To what extent are AI companies creating additional uncompensated clinical work while leaving healthcare professionals responsible for resolving the uncertainty their products generate?”

Here is the irony of it all …  below the AI response, there was the following disclaimer, in small print:

“ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info.

ChatGPT Health leaves us with many unanswered questions:

• Who is accountable when the information is wrong, misinterpreted, or misunderstood?
• Who pays clinicians for the additional time?
• What safeguards exist for vulnerable or low-health-literacy patients?
• How will the GPT be monitored and evaluated for harm?
• Why should a technology company be able to add to healthcare-related workload without sharing responsibility for its consequences?

At times, ChatGPT is known to hallucinate and make up stuff. Compared to other AIs, it tends to provide responses geared toward pleasing or not upsetting the user.

While I am not aware of attempts to regulate or provide safeguards for such powerful AI, I think it is necessary to include them.

It appears that little or no thought is given to how this will impact an entire industry, let alone the patients who have no clinical training to evaluate the detailed information they will receive.

I regard OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT Health as highly irresponsible.

While this may be good for the company, it is not so good for the rest of society. 

What are your thoughts? Please share them with us in the comment section below.

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog.

The post ChatGPT Health: Benefit to Society or Just OpenAI? appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

Every day you’re at work, you assess, diagnose, treat, educate, and advocate for the patients you work with.

What’s an issue for many NPs, however, is whether they’re ready to run a business.

Most schools focus on clinical training alone and don’t include even basic business education.

While business skills are not especially difficult to learn, they do take some time to pick up through “on-the-job training.”

The good news: you don’t need an MBA to open a practice. However, it’s to your benefit to have a basic understanding of a handful of core business functions.

Here’s what matters most.

1. Finances

You don’t need to become an accountant, but you do need to know how money moves through your practice.

At a minimum, you need to understand the four terms that get used loosely but mean different things:

• Revenue (what you bill or take in)
• Expenses (what it costs to operate the practice)
• Profit (what’s left after expenses are paid)
• Cash flow (the timing of money moving in and out of the practice)

Here is why it matters …

A practice can be profitable on paper and still have no money in the bank.

Even though your schedule is full and your claims are submitted on time, insurance reimbursements may be slow, and your bank balance is low, even though the business is technically healthy.

That’s a cash flow problem, not a demand problem, and it’s a distinction new owners often miss.

So, before you open your doors, learn to read a financial statement. Understand how to project your monthly expenses and find your break-even point.

Gain a realistic sense of how long it’ll take for the practice to break even and pay you consistently.

2. Marketing

Many NPs dislike the word “marketing” because they associate it with hype or hard selling.

In practice, however, marketing is just communication: telling people who you help, what you offer, and why they should choose you.

If patients and referral sources don’t understand what your practice does, they can’t choose it, no matter how good your care is.

The strongest marketing in healthcare tends to be the least “salesy, using clear, honest, patient-centered language.

The more clarity you have, the better:

• Can you describe the problems you solve in plain terms?
• Can you explain what makes your office different?

Clarity serves two functions: it markets the practice and builds trust at the same time.

3. Systems and Operations

A practice can’t run on memory alone; to run smoothly and effectively, it needs systems.

Even simple systems like checklists and templates reduce errors, save time, and ensure a consistent, predictable patient experience.

At a minimum, you want to create processes and systems for:

• new patient intake
• scheduling
• payment collection
• insurance verification
• claim follow-up
• lab results
• handling refills
• patient messaging
• cancellations/no-shows and
• scheduled financial reviews

Without these, every situation becomes another decision, which is exhausting and produces inconsistent results.

Systems keep your practice running smoothly, even when you’re not managing every detail.

4. Human Resources

If you plan to hire, even just a front desk person, a medical assistant, or a part-time biller, HR becomes a real function rather than an afterthought.

That includes job descriptions, interviewing, onboarding, payroll setup, employment law basics (overtime rules, at-will employment, required postings), and performance conversations when something isn’t working.

This is an area where many owners underestimate the time and liability involved. A single misstep, misclassifying a contractor as an employee, skipping required documentation, or handling a termination poorly, can cost far more than the time it would’ve taken to do it right.

If you’re bringing on staff, it may be worth a short consult with an HR professional or employment attorney before your first hire, not after your first problem.

5. Decision-Making Without Perfect Information

Your clinical training emphasizes careful assessment before making decisions and taking action.

Business ownership rewards something different: the willingness to decide with incomplete information, take actions, and correct later.

Most likely you’ll:

• Pick software before you know your workflow.
• Set fees before you know demand.
• Choose vendors before you know how well they perform.

The skill isn’t avoiding imperfect decisions, but is noticing when something isn’t working and taking corrective action.

A billing service that looked fine on paper but has poor follow-up six months in isn’t a failure on your part; it’s part of practice ownership and needs to be corrected.

6. Time Management as a Business Resource

As an employee, your schedule was mostly set for you; as a practice owner, that’s no longer the case.

Now, time is one of your most precious and scarce resources, and to a large degree, it’s under your control.

Clinical hours are only part of it. Administrative work, billing questions, prior authorizations, supply orders, and bookkeeping all take real time, and new owners consistently underestimate how much.

If you don’t plan for that work explicitly, it will eat into your evenings and weekends.

Before opening, think through what you’ll do yourself, what to outsource, what you can automate, and what deserves a standing block of time in your calendar.

7. Knowing When to Get Help

You know that you don’t have to do everything yourself. Trying often costs more in time, money, and opportunity costs than it saves.

An accountant, attorney, billing professional, and business coach can be worth the expense long before you feel “ready” to afford one.

Bringing in help isn’t a sign of weakness or that you’re unprepared. On the contrary, it’s usually a sign you understand what business ownership actually involves.

8. Staying a Learner

No one opens a practice knowing all of this on day one.

The practice owners who do well tend to be the ones paying attention to their numbers, their patients, their own strengths and weaknesses, and their mistakes.

They adjust as they go, stay open to improving their skills, and learning new ones.

To Sum Up …

Clinical skills are the foundation of your practice.

But your business skills are what keeps it open, organized, and financially sustainable long enough for your clinical skills to matter.

You don’t need to master all of this before you open the doors, but it’s worth starting to work on them now.

We’d love to hear from you…

Tell us what you think; join the conversation by leaving a comment or question below

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog and author of “Smart Business Planning for Clinicians.”

The post The Business Skills You Need Before Opening Your NP Practice appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

You spend less and less time with patients and more on administrative tasks.

Decisions that affect your patients are made by bureaucrats who have never met or spoken with the people they are affecting.

Disillusioned and disappointed, a recurring thought keeps coming back into your mind: “Why don’t I start my own practice?”

It’s not uncommon to ponder starting a practice after a challenging stretch of time at work.

After all, owning your own practice offers you autonomy, more flexibility, and the opportunity to build something aligned with your values.

But not so fast …

While starting a practice has many benefits, ask yourself this:

Do you truly want to start your own practice, or are you tired of a job that no longer works for you?

The distinction is an important one ….

Are you moving toward something you truly want, or are you running away from something?

Dissatisfaction Makes a Poor Business Plan

Frustration is a powerful motivator, but it’s hardly enough to start a business.

Feeling dissatisfied and unhappy in your job may help you recognize what you no longer want. You may realize that your current role is too restrictive, too stressful, or no longer aligned with your professional goals.

However, realizing that you want to leave a job is different from knowing that you want to start a business.

Perhaps you feel exhausted by the constant productivity expectations and pressures baked into the organization you work for.

You imagine that once you’re in your own practice, you’d be able to spend more time with patients and get away from everyday corporate pressures.

While that’s possible and achievable …

Your practice will have demands too. There will be:

• bills to pay
• employees to manage
• marketing to fill the practice
• billing to deal with
• policies to enforce
• systems to build
• financial decisions to make

Starting your own practice will remove some employment frustrations, but it also comes with its own set of responsibilities and headaches.

I don’t say this to discourage you from starting a practice, but to encourage you to choose with your eyes wide open.

Wanting Independence Is Not the Same as Wanting to Own a Business

Most NPs are drawn to practice ownership because they want independence.

They want to decide how to care for their patients, exercise control over their schedules, choose which services to offer, and determine the overall patient experience.

All good reasons for starting a practice.

However, when you own your practice, you may have more control, but you also carry more responsibility.

You’re no longer “just” the clinician.

Now you’re also the decision-maker, problem-solver, planner, financial reviewer, marketer, policy-setter, and sometimes the person who takes care of whatever did not get done.

Gaining independence is empowering, but it can also be challenging. The question is not whether you want more freedom and independence, but whether you are willing to accept the responsibility that comes with it.

Before You Start, Ask Yourself…

Before you decide whether to start a practice, take a good, honest look and examine how ready you are.

Start with your finances
Do you know your personal financial obligations?

Do you know how much money you need to live on each month? Do you have savings or another source of income to help you through the startup period? Are you prepared for the practice paying you inconsistently in the first few months?

Consider the Risks
Starting a practice is not the same as acting recklessly, but it does require tolerance for uncertainty.

Your patient base may grow slowly. Expenses may be higher than expected. Your cash flow may feel like a roller coaster before it stabilizes.

How comfortable are you with uncertainty? How do you respond when outcomes are not guaranteed?

Lifestyle Considerations
Some NPs view practice ownership as a path to greater life balance, which it can deliver in due time.

However, the early stages often require extra time, resources, and emotional resilience.

Are you prepared and willing to work on the business after clinical hours? Can you tolerate the extra time and energy it takes to build the practice before it feels stable?

Consider Responsibility
When you own your practice, “the buck stops with you.”

The decisions you make come back to you; you own them. That includes decisions about money, policies, patient expectations, staffing, marketing, and compliance.

While you don’t need to know everything before you start, you need to be willing to learn and take full responsibility for your decisions.

Before You Commit

… first test your idea.

Get clear on the type of practice you want to start. Who would you serve? What problem would you solve? What services would you offer?

Would your business model be insurance-based, cash-pay, hybrid, telehealth, mobile, specialty-focused, or something else?

If possible, talk with other NP practice owners and ask about their startup experiences; what were their biggest challenges, what surprised them most, and what recommendations and advice do they have for you.

Consider getting some basic business concepts under your belt.

Learn to estimate startup costs, understand the credentialing process, research local demand and competition, and create a simple business plan.

Develop an understanding of basic marketing, finance, and operational concepts.

Evaluate your interest in owning and running a business by how you respond to business tasks.

Are you curious about marketing, finances, operations, and systems? Or do they feel that’s something you’d prefer to avoid completely?

While you don’t need to love every aspect of business, you must be willing to engage with the business side enough to make informed decisions.

Not Sure If You’re Ready?

Feeling unsure about starting a practice doesn’t mean you should abandon your idea altogether.

In fact, some uncertainty is healthy. Starting a practice is a big decision; it will affect your finances, time, family, professional identity, and future options for years to come.

The goal is not to eliminate every fear before moving forward. The goal is to listen to and understand what those fears are telling you.

Some fears tell you where you need more information. Others point to skills you need to develop.

Some may let you know that the timing is not right yet. And some are simply the natural unease that comes with major change.

Feeling ready doesn’t mean you have all the answers. But it means being willing to ask better questions, prepare, and take responsibility for what you are building.

A Better Starting Point

If your biggest reason for starting a practice is, “I cannot stand my job anymore.”

Stop, and pay attention to how you feel.

However, escaping employment is not a good enough reason to carry you through the demands of practice ownership.

A stronger starting point sounds more like:

“I want to start my own practice. I see a need I want to serve. I understand that ownership includes both freedom and responsibility. I am willing to learn about the business side. I accept there will be uncertainty and ups and downs. I want to build a sustainable, thriving practice.”

That’s a very different starting point!

Practice ownership can be a rewarding path …

It can offer autonomy, creativity, and the chance to deliver care in a way that reflects your values. And that decision deserves careful thought and preparation.

We’d love to know your thoughts on starting a practice… Please share your comment below.

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog and author of “Smart Business Planning for Clinicians.”

The post Are You Ready to Start a Practice or Just Tired of Your Job? appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

For our profession, it’s an opportunity to think about another kind of independence: professional practice authority.

To this day, nurse practitioners across the US do not all practice under the same rules.

In a little more than half of states, NPs have full practice authority.

They are free to independently evaluate patients, diagnose conditions, order and interpret tests, and initiate treatment, including prescribing medications.

However, in the other states, NPs still face reduced or restricted practice requirements, often requiring physician collaboration, supervision, or formal agreements, even though they provide the same services as NPs in full practice authority states.

Which begs the question …

How is it that an NP may be trusted to practice independently in one state, while just across the border, that same NP may be required to maintain a contractual relationship with another professional to provide similar care?

It doesn’t make much sense, no matter how you look at it.

Why?

So now the question is, why are we still dealing with this?

The reasons are complex and multifactorial.

Historical Reasons

State practice laws developed over time, often long before today’s healthcare shortages, access challenges, and modern NP education standards.

However, once laws and regulatory structures are in place, they are slow to change … but not impossible.

Professional Reasons

Those who oppose NP full practice authority argue that physician oversight is necessary to protect patients because NPs have limited training and scope of practice.

However, supporters of full practice authority point to decades of NP practice, research, and patient outcomes showing that NPs provide safe, high-quality care within their scope of education and certification.

Research and patient outcomes are well documented and available to anyone who cares to look at the data.

Other Reasons …

Some economic and structural factors cannot be discounted.

Collaborative agreements may have a price tag, providing a side income for the collaborating physician.

In some instances, collaboration fees are reasonable; in others, they are exorbitant, creating a significant financial burden for NPs, especially those opening small practices in rural or underserved areas.

Additionally, some agreements limit where NPs can practice and how they can respond to community needs, ultimately determining whether the practice may remain viable at all.

For patients, this means limited access to care or delayed care, fewer local options, or no care close to home at all.

Cooperation not Isolation

Independent practice is not the same as practicing alone, and that’s an important distinction.

Full practice authority doesn’t mean NPs work in isolation.

No one works alone. It’s common practice for providers to exchange ideas and information and share their clinical expertise when asked. 

Like other providers, NPs routinely work and collaborate with NPs, physicians, pharmacists, therapists, specialists, hospitals, community agencies, and other healthcare professionals to achieve better outcomes for their patients.

Collaboration is a normal and necessary part of good patient care.

Collaboration should not be mandated by law through a formal agreement that may not reflect the actual care being provided, but must be based on patient needs and professional judgment.

Responsibility

For all healthcare providers, including NPs, professional independence comes with responsibility.

It requires strong clinical judgment, ethical decision-making, clear documentation, appropriate referrals, ongoing education, and a commitment to quality care.

And for those who operate their own practices, it also requires a certain level of business professionalism.

Change …

What can NPs do to facilitate change in their professional status?

First, it’s essential that all NPs fully understand their state practice environment.

Not all are clear on whether their state is considered full, reduced, or restricted practice. Knowing the law is the first step toward changing it.

Second, NPs must support their state and national professional organizations.

Scope-of-practice change rarely happens because of one person. It happens through organized, consistent advocacy.

Most State NP associations monitor legislation, educate lawmakers, coordinate testimony, and build coalitions.

If you are not a member, support your profession by joining your state and national organizations!

Third, collect and tell patient-centered stories.

Lawmakers don’t respond to abstract professional arguments. What they understand and respond to are real-life examples:

• patients who cannot find a primary care provider
• rural communities without enough clinicians
• mental health patients waiting months for care
• an NP-owned clinic, delayed because of outdated regulatory barriers

Fourth, build relationships in your community.

Business leaders, patient advocacy groups, senior organizations, rural health coalitions, employers, and community leaders all have a stake in healthcare access.

When the conversation moves from “NPs want independence” to “communities need access,” the message carries more weight.

Finally, avoid NPs versus physicians.

In fact, that stance is rarely helpful…

A more powerful message is:

“Access to healthcare increases and patients benefit when every qualified healthcare professional can practice to the full extent of their education, training, and licensure.”

In Conclusion …

Independence Day reminds us that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. This is true for the citizens of a country as it is for healthcare providers.

For Nurse Practitioners, professional independence is not about rejecting collaboration or practicing outside one’s scope.

It is about removing outdated barriers so all NPs can practice to the full extent of their qualifications, and serve their patients and communities more effectively.

Independence, in this context, is the freedom to bring our full education, judgment, and commitment to the patients who need us.

P.S.: If you’re ready to start your own practice but don’t know how, we can help. The Essentials of Starting a Practice includes everything you need to get started and grow your practice; click the link and see for yourself!

Your thoughts about the state of NP Independent Practice across the US? Let us know, share your thoughts in the section below…

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog and author of “Smart Business Planning for Clinicians.”

The post The Future of NP Practice: Independent Practice for All? appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

One that all humans share is a physiological blind spot in each eye.

It’s a natural gap in our vision, because the area where the optic nerve passes through the retina lacks light-detecting photoreceptors.

Under normal conditions, we don’t notice it because the brain fills in the missing gap, along with the visual field of one eye compensating for the blind spot of the other.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Aside from physical blind spots, there are others, including:

• Cultural ones
• Strategic ones
• Technological ones
• Regulatory ones
• Operational ones
• Metaphorical ones
• … and more

These blind spots are areas that cannot be seen or understood from a given perspective. This includes aspects of ourselves that others can see but we can’t, such as biases, thinking patterns, or behaviors.

And here is the amazing thing…

Our brain does the same for us as it does with our visual blind spots: it fills in the gaps, compensating, often in the form of assumptions.

For NP practice owners, blind spots can appear across many different areas, including practice finances, marketing, operations, patient experience, compliance, and decision-making.

Blind spots are a fact of life and business. The problem is that just because you can’t see them, it doesn’t mean they don’t affect your business.

Blind Spots in Your Business

A business blind spot is an area that needs your attention; however, you either don’t recognize it, underestimate it, or assume it’s not a problem.

Here are examples:

• You assume your patients know all the services you offer; however, most don’t, because your website doesn’t clearly explain them and your staff doesn’t talk about them, resulting in lost revenue.
• You’re under the impression that your practice is profitable because there is money in the bank, all the while your expenses are quietly increasing, leaving your practice vulnerable and unstable.
• You put a no-show policy in place and think it’s working. However, the policy is weak and rarely enforced. No-shows and missed appointments are lost revenue.
  

Blind Spots Hide in Plain Sight!

They may look like small frustrations at first:

• Frequent no-shows and cancellations
• Billing delays
• Denials and non-payments
• Rising supply costs
• Inconsistent staff performance
• Marketing without the expected results

Left alone, these issues can be annoying and quickly become expensive. However, once identified, they can be addressed and resolved.

Do NPs experience more blind spots than other business owners?

I don’t think so, however, since NPs are clinically trained and typically don’t receive much business education, perhaps they do.

Additionally, most practice owners wear too many hats.

From morning to evening, they see patients, answer questions, review labs, manage staff, handle insurance issues, make business decisions, and try to keep everything moving.

When you’re that close to the day-to-day work and operations, sometimes it becomes difficult to step back and see the bigger picture.

Avoiding Discomfort …

Blind spots can also develop when we try to avoid uncomfortable topics.

• If financial reports are unclear or feel confusing, it is easy to put off looking at them.
• If marketing feels uncomfortable and disingenuous, it is tempting to put it off or ignore it altogether.  
• If a staff issue feels awkward, it may be easier to stick your head in the sand and hope it improves on its own.

But unfortunately, avoiding something rarely makes it better or disappear. More often than not, the things we avoid only get bigger.

How to Identify Blind Spots?

The tricky thing about blind spots is that, by definition, you don’t know you have them.

However, there are often warning signs, some subtle and some not so subtle.

Here are some indications of potential blind spots in your practice:

• You may be busy, but not every month is profitable.
• Your revenue is inconsistent, and you can’t explain why.
• You avoid reviewing your numbers, and have difficulty keeping up with all expenses.  
• Your collections are slow. Patients owe the practice a significant amount of money that some may never pay.
• You feel overwhelmed but cannot pin down the root cause.

One question to ask yourself is this:

Where am I surprised by the results I’m getting?

Feeling surprised by an outcome often points to a blind spot. If you expect a certain result but keep getting another, something deserves a closer look.

How Blind Spots Impact Your Practice

If left unaddressed, blind spots can affect your practice in several ways.

Financially, blind spots can be a drain on your business.

Outdated or poorly designed fee schedules, missed charges, poor billing and collections practices, excessive overhead, or untracked expenses over time will erode your profits.

You may be working hard, seeing patients, and generating revenue, yet still wondering why there is not more money left at the end of the month.

Operationally, blind spots create inconsistency.

Without clear systems in place, your practice must rely on memory, habit, or the constant involvement of a key employee (often the owner!). Inconsistency leads to unnecessary stress, confusion, and preventable mistakes.

Blind spots in marketing may keep your practice invisible.

If people don’t know your practice exists, who you serve, or why they should choose your practice, they may go elsewhere, even if you provide excellent care.

Blind spots in your marketing can prevent you from growing your business and can even make it challenging to keep the doors open.

Blind spots in the patient experience.

Blind spots can also affect the patient experience. Poor scheduling, unclear policies, inconsistent follow-up, and communication can erode trust. Patients may not complain directly, but eventually, they may leave the practice or stop referring others.

Blind spots lead to burnout.

When you have a sense that something isn’t working as it should, but you can’t identify the actual problem, you may try to fix the wrong issue.

Alternatively, you may respond by working harder, adding more hours, and pushing yourself more, without anything truly improving.

How to Deal with Blind Spots

The first step is to slow down long enough to look at your practice as objectively as possible.

Ask yourself:

• What issues keep repeating?
• What do I keep avoiding?
• Where do I feel confused, frustrated, or surprised?
• What problems seem to come back no matter how many times I address them?

Next, look at your numbers; they often give you a clearer picture, one not distorted by emotions.

Review your monthly revenue, expenses, profit, cash flow, patient volume, no-shows, collections, and marketing results. If you don’t currently track these numbers, start collecting the data.

If possible, get outside input, get another perspective. Others can often see what we cannot.

Once you identify a blind spot and find a solution, turn it into a system.

That could be as simple as creating a monthly financial review process, a patient onboarding checklist, a no-show follow-up process, a marketing calendar, a written policy, or a set routine for reviewing the billing.

Finally, make checking for blind spots part of your regular business reviews.

Once a quarter, ask yourself: What is working? What’s not working? What am I avoiding? What has changed in the last 90 days? What needs attention before it turns into a bigger problem?

It’s About Progress, Not Perfection …

Blind spots don’t mean you or your practice are failing. They simply point out areas in your practice that need more attention and can be improved.

Once you identify a blind spot, you can make better decisions, put more effective systems in place, protect your revenue and profit, reduce stress, and create a more stable business for yourself and your family.

In other words, blind spots are an opportunity to improve things in your business!

What are the blind spots in your practice, and what have you done about them? Let us know, leave your answer below …

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog and author of “Smart Business Planning for Clinicians.”

The post Blind Spots in Your NP Practice: Hidden Opportunities? appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

She picks a location close to home and signs a three-year lease, only to discover the area is already saturated with competing providers and the demographics don’t match her specialty.

It’s a costly mistake, and it’s more common than you might think.

Good decisions require good information!

Regardless of where you are on your journey, ready to start a practice or looking to expand one, researching your market can mean the difference between a thriving practice and an expensive lesson.

Before and Now

Traditionally, market research was a time-consuming process. To assess future demand and viability, providers would manually review census data and healthcare reports, analyze competitors’ websites, and study demographic trends.

Valuable? Yes. Realistic for a busy NP? No.

Fortunately, today, we have AI (Artificial Intelligence) to help us!

AI tools can help practice owners gather information, summarize large amounts of data, identify patterns, and uncover opportunities in a fraction of the time it used to take.

And when used properly, AI helps NPs make more informed decisions when starting, growing, or pivoting their practice.

Think of AI as a highly capable research assistant that asks better questions and finds information faster.

But AI is not a crystal ball. It cannot guarantee success and should never replace your critical thinking or local knowledge. But it can dramatically accelerate the research process and surface insights you might otherwise miss.

Popular AI tools you can start with today include ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. For research that requires current, web-sourced information, Perplexity AI is particularly useful because it actively searches the web and cites its sources.

A Word of Caution Before You Start

AI returns better results when it has context to work with.

Here’s an analogy …

Imagine a new employee starting her first day. You greet her, immediately ask her to update your office’s policies and procedures, and then walk away.

She won’t know how to start or what to do. She needs clear instructions, as basic as where the policies are kept, and what exactly you want her to update.

The same is true for AI, with one important difference …

Unlike your new employee, AI will always return a response, even if it lacks specifics. And sometimes it will fill in the gaps with fabricated information.

To get the best results:

• Tell the AI who you are, what type of service you provide, and what you’re trying to accomplish.
• The more detail you provide, the better the output.
• Working with AI is iterative: rephrase questions, add context, and refine as you go.
• Always verify important facts, especially statistics and data points, before making major business decisions.
• Never enter patient-identifiable information into AI tools. Even for market research purposes, keep your prompts free of any protected health information (PHI) to stay HIPAA-compliant.

Here’s one more important note to keep in mind …

Most AI tools have a cutoff date for knowledge, meaning they may not have access to the most recent data.

For real-time local information, such as recent provider openings, current population statistics, or new healthcare legislation, cross-reference AI insights with live sources, such as the HRSA Shortage Area Finder, your state health department dashboard, or Google Maps reviews.

Start With Your Target Market

One of the most critical questions to ask yourself is: “Who is my target market, my ideal patient? Who do I want to work with and serve?”

Many NPs make the mistake of defining their audience by specialty: family practice, primary care, or women’s health.

While useful as a starting point, those labels don’t tell you who your potential patients actually are, how old they are, what problems they want solved, or what they’re looking for in a provider.

That’s where AI can help.

AI can summarize demographic data, healthcare concerns, consumer behavior patterns, and patient expectations.

Instead of spending hours searching, you could ask:

“What healthcare concerns are most common among women ages 45 to 65 living in suburban communities in [your state]?”

Or:

“What challenges do rural Medicare patients in [your state] commonly face when accessing primary care?”

Within seconds, AI can provide a starting point for understanding patient needs and identifying potential service opportunities; information that can help guide everything from service selection to marketing messages.

 Assess Market Demand

NPs sometimes choose a practice location based on convenience rather than opportunity.

Here’s where AI can help you assess whether sufficient demand exists before making decisions and significant investments.

AI can help you analyze publicly available information related to:

• Population growth and age demographics
• Physician and provider shortages
• Chronic disease prevalence
• Healthcare access challenges
• Community health needs

Suppose you are considering opening a practice in a growing suburban area.

You can ask AI to summarize local population trends, identify healthcare shortages, and highlight emerging community needs.

What may have taken days or even weeks before, AI can organize the information into actionable insights within minutes.

The goal is not simply to confirm that people need healthcare; you know they do.

The goal is to determine whether there is sufficient unmet demand for your services in your location.
 

Analyze Your Competitors

Today, every healthcare market has competitors.

These may include other NP practices, urgent care clinics, retail clinics, telehealth providers, physician-owned practices, and hospital systems.

In the past, competitive analysis meant reviewing websites one by one, reading through patient reviews, and comparing comparable services.

Now you can ask AI to help you synthesize that information faster.

For example, you could ask:

“Based on publicly available information, what are the most common patient complaints about primary care practices in [city/region]?”

If patients consistently complain about long wait times, poor communication, or difficulty scheduling appointments, those frustrations may represent real opportunities for your practice to differentiate itself.

Their weakness …your opportunity.

Stay Current With Healthcare Trends

Healthcare is constantly changing. New technologies, reimbursement models, patient expectations, and treatment approaches emerge every year.

NPs who stay informed are better positioned to identify and capitalize on new opportunities.

You can ask AI to help you monitor changes in areas such as:

• Telehealth adoption and regulation
• Direct-pay and membership-based care models
• Remote patient monitoring
• Weight management services and GLP-1 trends
• Consumer healthcare expectations
• AI adoption in clinical and administrative settings

For example, if you’re considering expanding your practice, you could ask AI:

“What healthcare services are expected to experience significant growth over the next five years?”

Or:

“Which healthcare trends are currently influencing patient expectations in primary care?”

AI can quickly summarize reports, articles, and industry analyses, giving you a broader view of where the market is heading without requiring hours of reading.

Identifying Opportunities

One of AI’s most valuable capabilities is helping you connect dots that aren’t obvious at first glance.

By combining data on demographics, healthcare shortages, patient needs, competitor weaknesses, and industry trends, AI can generate ideas worth exploring.

For instance, you could ask:

“Based on aging demographics, provider shortages, and growing chronic disease rates in [your region], what types of NP-led services may be underserved?”

AI might identify opportunities such as:

• Women’s health services in underserved suburban communities
• Chronic disease management programs for aging populations
• Weight management clinics in areas with high obesity rates
• Rural healthcare access solutions via telehealth
• Membership-based care models in markets underserved by insurance-based practices

These opportunities still require your own validation and judgment; however, AI can point you in directions worth investigating, often ones you might not have considered on your own.

In Summary

Starting or expanding your practice requires a clear understanding of your patients, your market, your competitors, and where healthcare is heading.

In the past, gathering that information required weeks of effort. Today, AI allows NPs to do it in a fraction of the time.

Utilize AI to collect and organize information, identify patterns, generate questions for further investigation, and explore ideas you might not have considered.

Always verify important facts, verify AI insights against your local knowledge, and apply your own professional judgment before making major, far-reaching decisions.

NP business owners who embrace these tools will be better equipped to reduce uncertainty, uncover opportunities, and build practices that truly serve their communities.

We’d love to hear from you…

Do you use AI in your practice? If so, how? Please let us know by leaving a comment below…

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog and author of “Smart Business Planning for Clinicians.”

The post How Nurse Practitioners Can Use AI For Better and Faster Market Research appeared first on Nurse Practitioners in Business.

What you almost certainly didn’t do was read through reviews, scroll through Facebook, or click on a sponsored search result.

For Nurse Practitioners building a practice today, it’s worth understanding where healthcare marketing came from, because the fundamentals haven’t changed as much as you’d think.

They Refused to Advertise

For most of American history, healthcare marketing didn’t exist.

Because the one organization with perhaps the greatest influence in shaping US healthcare considered it unethical.

The American Medical Association’s (AMA) first Code of Ethics, established in 1847, explicitly condemned advertising as “derogatory to the dignity of the profession.”

Physicians who solicited patients publicly were lumped in with snake oil salesmen who plastered newspapers with claims of miracle cures.

The AMA was drawing a clear line: we are not them. A physician who advertised was, by professional consensus, placing himself in questionable company.

That stigma has persisted for over a century and continues to influence how healthcare providers think about marketing today.

While the AMA revised its Principles of Medical Ethics in 1957, it still considered soliciting patients unethical, and physicians who violated the norm risked censure and professional ostracism.

The prohibition wasn’t merely a guideline; it was a cultural identity. Medicine was based on public trust. It was not a commercial transaction, and advertising would have implied otherwise.

What finally ended the ban on advertising wasn’t a change of heart, but a lawsuit.

FTC Intervention

In 1975, the FTC accused the AMA of restraint of trade, arguing that the advertising ban was anticompetitive.

By 1982, the Supreme Court agreed, and almost overnight, the very rule medical professionals had followed for 135 years became outdated and no longer matched the law.

But adoption was slow at first.

Many physicians remained personally resistant to advertising, viewing it as beneath their professional standing.

The first to change were hospitals, driven by the rise in for-profit competition and managed care. Another factor was the steady increase in patient involvement in making their own healthcare choices.

How Practices Grew

So, how did small practices start and grow before advertising as we know it today existed?

They had only a few channels at their disposal, which had to do most of the heavy lifting.

Interestingly, most of them may look familiar to you.

Word of Mouth

In a pre-Google world, a provider’s reputation traveled through personal networks.

Neighbors talking over the fence, coworkers recommending a specialist, or a family member sharing a trusted name.

For smaller practices, reputation was everything.

A provider known for competence, kindness, and accessibility could build an entire practice through referrals alone, especially in smaller towns where relationships often spanned generations.

Physician Referral Networks

These networks were the most formal marketing channels at the time. Primary care providers referred patients to specialists they trusted, and specialists would refer back to providers if someone needed one.

Those relationships were built over time through hospital privileges, medical society memberships, and professional familiarity.

A new provider in town would visit local practices, introduce themselves, and build personal rapport that would eventually lead to referrals.

These networks took years to build and couldn’t be easily replicated by competitors.

Yellow Pages

Before Google, patients turned to the back of the phone book to find healthcare providers.

A display ad, not just a one-line listing, could successfully set a practice apart from others.

For many smaller practices, the Yellow Pages functioned much like a Google Business profile does today. These ads were more condensed,  listing the most important details about a practice.  

Pre-Internet, practices were built by speaking at various clubs, sponsoring a Little League team, giving public health talks, writing a newspaper column, or volunteering at a health fair.

Community Involvement

While none of it looked like advertising, it accomplished the same thing: building trust and visibility.

Interestingly, this mirrors closely what we now call content marketing. While the channel may have been different, the goal was the same.

Traditional Advertising Joined the Mix

Once healthcare marketing gained greater acceptance, local newspapers became the go-to for announcing new services or locations for a practice.

Direct mail campaigns, including flyers and postcards, grew in popularity for wellness reminders and educational materials.

Radio was used effectively for elective or cash-pay services, such as dentistry, chiropractic, and vision care.

Billboards and signs were also used successfully. A well-placed sign near a busy intersection or hospital was its own form of raising awareness and trust.

Why It Matters for NPs Today

The digital era may have transformed how marketing is done today: the channels, the volume, and the targeting.

However, as you may have noticed, the underlying dynamics are essentially unchanged:

• Patients seek trusted recommendations
• Providers compete on reputation, and
• Good provider-patient relationships drive referrals

For NPs and other providers alike, knowing this history can be useful.

It points out that the practice that did well before the internet did so by becoming respected, visible, and a trusted member of its community.

And the same applies today, even though it may be through participation in new community events and organizations.

• The Yellow Pages? Your Google Business profile is the new Yellow Pages.
• Your patient reviews are the new word of mouth.
• Your LinkedIn article or community health seminar is the new newspaper column.
• Sending coupons via direct mail is the new Facebook marketing.

While the internet and social media may have replaced the neighbor’s fence, they haven’t replaced what the neighbor said. Your neighbor telling you, “You can trust this provider; they really listen, they took good care of me,” is still what drives everything.

Building a successful, thriving practice has always started with earning trust. The tools may have changed, but the foundation hasn’t.

How do you feel about marketing your practice? Love it, hate it, or somewhere in between?

Let us know; leave your comment below.

By Johanna Hofmann, MBA, MAc., regular contributor to the NPBusiness blog and author of “Smart Business Planning for Clinicians.”

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