<p>This may sound like a weird question, but once you are out of medical school and you finish your residency, how do you know how to go about doing things in your office (assuming that you want to open a pediatric or family practice)? Like how do you know how to keep track of the patients' folders and dealing with insurance companies and payroll and all that stuff. Pretty much...how do you know how to set up a practice? Because when you're doing residency, you are not really exposed to how things are handled in private practices, just how they are in hospital situations.</p>
<p>That's not entirely accurate to say that you only know hospital situations.</p>
<p>All residency programs in all fields (at least where applicable - like pathology isn't applicable) have outpatient clinic sections as part of their education process. You do have to go to clinic. For example, Pediatric residents are required to do one half day of continuity clinic per week. That's in addition to blocks of time which require you to be on outpatient service for months at a time. There is exposure.</p>
<p>As for the "real" answer to your question - it's rare for someone just out of residency to start their own solo practice unless they are going to a small town where there hasn't been a physician for a while...It's much more common for those going into private, non-hospital based practice to join an already established office with at least a couple physicians already in place and to use their facilities/staff. After a year or two of working for that office, usually they'll let you buy in to the partnership to become a more integral part of the team. Usually it's only later will you see a practitioner go solo after they've already established their patient base.</p>
<p>That helps a lot, especially the part where you said that they don't open an office quickly after finishing residency. I had the notion that doctors open offices of their own soon after. Thanks for the info.</p>