It truly depends on what you want to do.

If your passion is for FP, I would do it. You appear to be in an area that will support a cash only practice. THAT IS IDEAL. If you do not have to deal with insurance companies your life will be much better. You can always decide to take on insurance companies in the future. I would consider medicare as a floor, but cannot give advice as that would be price fixing or some BS.

It would help if you have a referral base so you can start seeing patients. If your urgent care moonlighting does not care, this may be a source.

You are stil going to be stuck with a moderate amount of paperwork. Employees, payroll service, bills not only for rent, but also for supplies and equipment. It would be great if you can find someone who is versed in these as front desk / office manager / superemployee. You might and you might have to pay more. The key is how much you are willing to take on, and how much you delegate. As you build up a practice you WILL need to delegate more, but early on, you probably have the time to do much of the administrative things and you MUST understand how the practice works in intimate detail.

Scary, but the freedom you gain is golden.

Do consider how much free time you wish. Figure out who will cover you for vacations and such. Make sure they are willing to cover you as much as you wish and how much they would like in return.

Your free time is going to be MUCH more limited purely because you are now on call 168 hours a week as a solo. It's not that bad, but it is more than you had for the last couple years.


Wendell
Pediatrician in Chicago

The patient's expectation is that you have all the answers, sometimes they just don't like the answer you have for them