<p>You would have to have some seed money to start up your own firm right? </p>
<p>Or does private practice mean that you work at a non-govt hospital, and still pull down high wages?</p>
<p>I think most people get in on an existing practice right out of residency, rather than starting up your own practice...I imagine it'd actually be pretty hard to get the money to start your own practice when you're $200k+ in debt from med school.</p>
<p>But let's assume there ARE people with sufficient capital (+1 for not being in medicine for the money!)...what happens then? Do they go back to school for MBAs? (kidding...)</p>
<p>many times if you join a group practice, after 1-5 years (if they like you), they'll allow you to buy into the practice and become one of the partners. You'll then be involved in the business decisions, profit sharing, etc.</p>
<p>Other options include overlapping with an older doc who is about to retire and gradually taking over his patient population. Gradually, s/he'll take more and more time away from the practice allowing you to take over.</p>
<p>There are many ways to enter private, as opposed to academic, practice.
Five minutes of googling yielded these links.</p>
<p>Two books from the AMA bookstore: <a href="https://catalog.ama-assn.org/Catalog/product/product_detail.jsp?productId=prod170060?checkXwho=done%5B/url%5D">https://catalog.ama-assn.org/Catalog/product/product_detail.jsp?productId=prod170060?checkXwho=done</a>
<a href="https://catalog.ama-assn.org/Catalog/product/product_detail.jsp?childName=&parentCategoryName=&parentCategory=&productId=prod130005&categoryName=&prodId=&start=&parentId=%5B/url%5D">https://catalog.ama-assn.org/Catalog/product/product_detail.jsp?childName=&parentCategoryName=&parentCategory=&productId=prod130005&categoryName=&prodId=&start=&parentId=</a></p>
<p>A discussion of entering family practice that is relevant to all specialties: Entering</a> a family practice</p>
<p>From the American Thoracic Society: Entering</a> Private Practice</p>
<p>A medical practice broker: Medical</a> Practice Brokers: practice sales and valuations: practices for sale. Be sure to see the "listings" tab for actual prices.</p>