a sonographer's guide to entrepreneurship

Talking tech

Episode 30: Business Models Series: Ultrasound Facility

We have SO much opportunity in the ultrasound industry to build our businesses with multiple revenue streams. In our “Business Models Series”, we’re breaking down the 8 main business models we have access to, and on this episode, I’m breaking down the details on what you need in place for an ultrasound facility model. 

Transcript:

Grab a seat and a cup of coffee because you just enrolled in Ultrasound Business School. We are obsessed with all things ultrasound and are here to take you on a journey through the messy and magical side of business ownership. Think marketing, contracts, vendors, admin, growth mindset, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This is the Talking Tech podcast, a sonographer’s guide to entrepreneurship. Here’s your host, Jennifer Lindsey.

(00:31):

Hey. Hey there. I am so excited to be back in the groove with the podcast. We’ve been so busy around here with Ultrasound Business Academy clients working on new options with our own ultrasound business. I am just excited to get back in the swing of things and add to our business models series by chatting on this episode about ultrasound facilities. So get out your pen and paper, let’s get chatting. I love the ultrasound industry so much because, so many times, we have such a narrow vision of how we’d like to start our business, which is great. Having a niche, what we’re going to do, and what we’re going to provide is super important because, especially in the beginning, having too many cogs in the wheel can get overwhelming and confusing. And when that happens, we tend to quit.

(01:25)
We have 14,000 things on our plate. It gets overwhelming; it gets crazy. And the next thing we know, we have stopped and said, “Hey, this is too much. I’m going to start again later.” So really, having that narrowed down, that niche idea of I’m starting my business as a mobile ultrasound fee-for-service PRI provider as an example, or I’m going to start my business as a 3D ultrasound provider as an example, I think is very, very important. However, understanding that we have so many options to grow our business is such a huge mindset shift that I’d love to suggest that you dive into it if we think about it like this. As an employee, we are capped at the revenue potential we can make with our employer. It’s your salary, and there’s only so high that we can go up that corporate ladder, whether it be in a facility, a physician practice, or a hospital.

(02:26)
But when we’re in the driver’s seat as a business owner, all of those ceilings disappear. We literally have unlimited revenue potential. And I want to say that again because it bears repeating. We have unlimited revenue potential as the business owner. So how do we build upon where we start? How do we take that niche and continue to build upon that? There are two ways to do that. Number one, you can either continue building the business model. You start with; as an example, we started our business as an ultrasound facility. So we had patients coming into the practice that were referred to by our local physicians and practitioners. We could have just continued to grow the specific business model, gained more locations, potentially more referral destinations or referral sources that were bringing patients into us, or that’s one way, or the other way is also paying attention then to the needs in your market and taking note.

(03:35)
So while you can do both of these at the same time, you can continue to build and grow upon what you have. You can also pay close attention to what your market needs are. So an example there, when we started our mobile ultrasound side of our business, I was the one marketing our services. Now the story for a different day. I know I’ve talked about this on podcasts many times, and in trainings that I do, it was mortifying for me. I absolutely hated the sales part of the business. I would prefer something else to the business building side. That was not where I thrived. It was scary. It was new. It was uncomfortable. But the more times you do it, and I just had this conversation with a client today, it was yesterday. Maybe we were talking about how she had a last-minute lunch.

(04:28)
And normally, this would have given her so many butterflies at the very beginning of her business. But because she’s done it multiple times now, she feels more comfortable. She said, yeah, I’m a little nervous, especially because it’s last minute. But I don’t have that fear that I did those first few times that I did it. And I am here to tell you that the more you do something, just like anything, the more you think about how nervous you were when you started ultrasound school. How worried were you, especially taking tests or going into your labs or clinicals? It’s nerve-wracking to do something new that we feel like we need to become more expert at. And so many times in, unfortunately, people take that feeling of fear and turn it into, well, this must be dangerous. It must be dangerous for me to start my own business. Getting out there and marketing my services must be dangerous because it feels so scary.

(05:23)
That is just an evolutionary thing our brain had to do a really long time ago when things were dangerous if they were uncomfortable. In today’s day and age, there are very few dangers that we have to deal with daily. And I’m here to tell you that going out and marketing your services is not one of them. So understanding that going out and providing the marketing part of your business, the business building side is crucial to growing your business. And it’s okay that it’s uncomfortable because the more you do it, the more comfortable you will become. Now, I say that to say I was the one out marketing our services, so thankful that I had this specific mindset because what would happen is I would go out and speak with physicians. Yes, I’d put many people in the pipeline to start speaking with doctors and moving them through our sales process.

(06:19)
And one of the things that I would learn along the way was that we provided mobile ultrasound fee for service services. So what that is is where our physician clients would bill insurance directly. We provide the service in their office for a service fee, a contracted service fee. So we, as the mobile providers, were not billing insurance directly. The physicians were. So I had doctors excited about that along the way, but I also had a lot of doctors that said, Hey, love the idea of having a service in the office. I don’t want to deal with the billing, not going to do it. Now I could have had the mindset that I’d picked the wrong business model. Yes, I’ve had some people say yes or yes; I have some people still in my pipeline that I’m hopefully working towards a contract with, but I’ve got all these doctors that are saying they do it.

(07:14)
If I had it set up a different way, I must have picked the wrong business model. And I’m so thankful, even in those scary new days when I was out there marketing, doing the uncomfortable thing that I didn’t have the mindset that I just mentioned. I had the mindset of, okay, wow, wow, we’ve got a lot of physicians that are interested in the service, and I’ve got a lot of physicians that are interested in the service. If it was set up a little bit differently, Now, instead of me thinking I’ve picked the wrong business model, the light bulb started going off, and I started saying, okay, wow. Let’s get into setting up a mobile IDTF next. Independent diagnostic testing facility where we can go out and provide these services where we are the one’s billing insurance.

(08:02)
Because in that scenario, I’ve got a list now of doctors that have said that they’re interested. So I’ve got a prospective client list, and they’re ready to go that I can utilize to start marketing those services. As a side note, we didn’t bill for 10 years of our business. US billing insurance is fairly new in our nearly 20 years now in business. I still can’t like say that without thinking, is that correct? It sure is. I think this February is going to be 19 years, which is just an absolute blessing, and I can’t believe it all at the same time. I always tell people I started when I was four. I know none of you believe me. It’s just one of those things where you start having a mindset of I’m going to work this until it works.

(08:54)
And understanding that the way to increase your revenue stream is continuing to build your current business model, yes, but also being open to the opportunities in your area to expand your business models into other service options. And so when we did add on the opportunity for us to be able to bill, I had a list of doctors that we went back to right away and gained contracts that way initially when we first started doing that. And so I think it’s really important to understand that the mindset is just as important as the tools that you have. I tell my clients that all the time, we give them so many tools, we literally in our Ultrasound Business Academy, and walk them through step-by-step how to start, operate, and grow their mobile ultrasound business. But if their mindset isn’t the way it needs to be, if they don’t have a, “I can do this and I’m going to work it until it works” mindset, they’re starting off at a huge disadvantage.

(10:01)
Mindset is something that is so, so important. I love really looking at the fact that adding in additional business models as we’ve grown our business now for, I don’t know how many years at this point, I really should look because we have been so successful. And really so much of that has been the mindset that we’ve had because I’m here to tell you, when we first started our mobile ultrasound business, I didn’t have a coach. I didn’t have someone saying, Hey Jen, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this. And here are the scripts that you should be using when you’re talking with your physicians, and here’s how you should do this and how you should do that. We made 1,004 mistakes because you don’t know what you don’t know.

(10:50)
And the fact that we got out there and did it anyway, I’m so proud of us and that’s why I love our coaching division so much. That’s why I love having this podcast. It’s why I love doing our mini trainings and things like that, our masterclasses. I want to give as much information into the world as possible that we didn’t have when we first started. And that’s why our coaching division has such a special place in my heart because I truly get to work with our clients and help them from making our mistakes. To have a blueprint, a roadmap given to you at the beginning of your business is absolutely priceless. And then those of you that listen to me on a regular basis know I’m a cheerleader all the way.

(11:34)
And so I love being able to not only give so much advice but be able to cheer our clients on is just so much fun for me. So doing that and understanding the opportunity to have additional business models and having that mindset of, okay, I’m seeing this happening in my market, how can I capitalize on that and provide an additional service to help my community, help my physicians, help the patients in our community and also increase our revenue streams to our business? And so because we’ve done that, it’s allowed us to consistently hit seven figures year after year for years and years at this point. It’s also hard for me to talk about that sometimes because it feels like such a big number, and I never want that to scare people away.

(12:28)
Like, okay, well yeah, Jennifer, you’re talking from this almost 20 years in business and having such a successful business. Like I’m just starting out, how do I get there? And you should remember I started with an idea just like you, okay? I didn’t start from, here’s someone giving me their business or me purchasing someone else’s business that was already successful. I started with an idea and a, “I’m going to do this, and I’m going to work it until it works”. Failure is not an option for me. And it can work for you, and you’re going to start in the same place that I started, and you can end up in the same place that I am right this minute. All you need is the right mindset and the right tools to be able to get there.

(13:23)
Okay, so now let’s chat. Speaking of business models, I want to dive into a facility business model in our business model series. We’ve already done a few other business models that really are, but I love the eight main business models we have access to here in the ultrasound industry. And so I’m excited to do a business models series on the podcast, intermittent between other topics that are so important. Because it’s so important for us to understand so many people like I said, get in that niche like I’m going to start my 3D ultrasound business, and you don’t realize you have so much more opportunity. Yes, start in that specific niche, but be open and pay attention to the other opportunities you have in your market as they present themselves to you.

(14:16)
Facilities can really be set up in a multitude of ways. You can set it up as an IDTF. I mentioned a mobile IDTF earlier—a facility IDTF would be set up as a standalone facility. And IDTF again stands for Independent Diagnostic Testing Facility. If you’ve got your pen and paper out, I want to want you to write this down because if you want to look and see what’s required of an IDTF, you can Google CMS form 855B, which is Medicare’s IDTF form that you would fill out to become credentialed with Medicare. I’ll talk about credentialing in a moment cause it’s a question I get a lot from people.

(15:10)
And so I want to hit on that as well. You can also have a self-pay facility for diagnostics screenings, those types of things, or a self-pay facility for 3D ultrasound. I’ve got so many clients that do 3D ultrasounds. So having a facility or doing that mobile is an option. You can also have a hybrid of all of those things. That’s what I’m saying. When you start looking at, I want to start a 3D ultrasound facility, understand that easily get it started there. Still, easily you could add in diagnostics, you could add in screening opportunities. You could add in the ability to bill insurance directly. And so keep your mind and heart open to ways of increasing your revenue while helping out your local community with their needs. Let’s break this down a bit of the basics here with what you’d need for each type of facility.

(16:10)
Now if you’re doing strictly self-pay, so like self-pay diagnostics or 3D ultrasound or screening services, you do not need a medical director or supervising physician. Those terms are used interchangeably. You’ll need an interpreting physician if you’re doing diagnostics. Then you’ll also want to check with a local healthcare attorney to find out if you need an order for ultrasound. In some states, an order is required, even if the ultrasound you’re doing is not a diagnostic ultrasound. So even if it’s an elective or a patient-referred ultrasound. So just double-check on that. You should find a local healthcare attorney who can do a little bit of research there for you on that. But I always just err on the side. I’m a very like black and white person when it comes to the law. I don’t like hanging out in the gray area.

(17:07)
We have an incredible healthcare attorney who doesn’t like hanging out in the gray area. And so I love him for that. And so I would just want you going into your business confident that everything you have is set up the way it needs to be if you are doing an IDTF, so an independent diagnostic testing facility where you’re billing insurance directly will need to get credentialed with insurance. And I get a lot of questions about how this process works, so I’m going to break it down. Now, if you did Google CMS form 855B, you’ll see that a supervising physician is required, and interpreting is required for an IDTF because you don’t have to be a physician to start an IDTF. You can be a sonographer. I want to break that down a bit, too, because I have many people say, okay, how much does it cost to have a medical director?

(18:04)
And how does that part work? That can vary. Then, your supervising physician, and your medical director, should be letting you know what that cost is going to be. I’ve seen it usually cost a few hundred dollars a month, and most of the time, the medical director is also one of your interpreting physicians. It makes the most sense to set it up that way because the other caveat is that your medical director has to actually be able to supervise you. So you can’t have an internal medicine doctor like your buddy down the street. I wish it’d be so great, but I’ve had many people say, Hey, I have a friend who you know is a general practice doc or an internal medicine doc. He would be willing to be my medical director, which is awesome. However, they have to be able to actually supervise the types of services you are providing.

(18:53)
And if they are not trained and qualified to interpret the studies you’re providing, there’s no way for them to actually supervise you because they would need to learn if you’re doing a good or a poor job. After all, they don’t know what they’re doing in that scenario. And so it does need to be someone who can actually supervise you. So I would suggest talking with your interpreting physician or your interpreting physician group first to let them know you’re looking to get credentialed. I have had, and I’m going to say this without, this is just like a side note, I have heard that some sonographers in their areas, because every Medicare, of course, is federal, but Medicare has their own like fee for service providers that credential you. That group is called some always called something different.

(19:47)
Like there’s Noridian is one of them. NGS Health Services is another one. They’re like the contracted Medicare people. That’s not the correct term, but you know what I’m saying. I hope you know what I’m saying. They’re like the contracted people for Medicare that do like all the credentialing for Medicare and all of that. They take that burden on for Medicare. And so all of the Medicare stuff rolls through them. Once you figure out the information on what you need to do as far as getting credentialed, you’ll have more information from that Medicare-like fee service provider on exactly what you need to do. I have heard that some of them are allowing sonographers to be credentialed as like the practitioner where they don’t need a supervising physician.

(20:42)
That might be something for you to take a look at before you dive in to try to find a medical director because that would be difficult. Now, I don’t know anyone who’s been credentialed this way. I’ve heard this through the grapevine at this point, so I need to do more research there. But even though I don’t have that as a like, here’s exactly what you can do. I did want to mention it because if you ask, and that’s a way that you can be credentialed much easier, of course, than finding a medical director because the other thing about medical directors or supervising physicians is that they can only supervise, I believe it’s three entities. Having a radiologist be your medical director can be difficult sometimes because they may already be medical directors or supervising physicians for other entities and don’t have another slot available to be a medical director for you.

(21:38)
And so those are just a couple side notes. The other thing I highly suggest is you can do the paperwork yourself. You could figure that out. It is. I’ve done that myself. I’ve pulled the paperwork down and tried to figure out how to. The Medicare paperwork is easy; you can go online and pull it down. You can Google it. I just gave you the information to Google it. You could fill all that stuff out yourself. Getting credentialed with the rest of the insurances is tricky because there are specific spaces on their website that you need to go to. You have to get the provider enrollment information, and then there are certain places that you must be signed up. You have to get an NPI number and a CAQH number and all these different numbers that need to be clarified and know exactly what you need if that’s not your area of expertise.

(22:27)
So I always suggest this is something I have learned in business that I want to give you. As a pro tip, pay for services that you don’t know how to do yourself. I know sometimes I do this myself. I am a penny pincher, like to the core; this is the way I was brought up. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, so we were like penny pinchers. And so that has like come into my adulthood as well. I like that because it has created a good steward of money in both my personal and business finances. So I like to look at it with a positive light. The negative light, though, is sometimes I don’t like to spend money on stuff because I can do it myself.

(23:14)
And let me tell you, sometimes that’s okay. A lot of times, that’s not okay, and you spend way more time and effort, and time is money. I mean, if I could spend time going out and marketing for new contracts with my mobile ultrasound business, or I could spend time trying to figure out credentialing, what’s going to make me more money in the short term, I’m giving you a second to answer on your side. It’s going out and marketing like those business-building activities. I need to be doing those. I don’t need to be trying to figure out something that I could pay somebody else to do, and I could pay them to do it, and it’s going to take way less time. And overall, it will cost me so much less money to have them do it than for me to try to figure it all out on my own.

(24:02)
So I suggest finding a group that also does medical billing and credentials for you. It’s one of the vendors we have on our vendor list for our Ultrasound Business Academy clients. They’re a fairly new vendor of ours. Usually, I would tell people to find a local group or a regional group that bills and credentials. The industry average gives you an idea of what credentialing usually costs. I have seen it over the years cost about a hundred to $150 per insurance company that they’re credentialing you with. That is a steal, the amount of paperwork they have to go through and the amount of follow-up they have to make that amount of money you should be shelling out like that because it can be so time-consuming to get all of those done.

(24:55)
The other thing is if you don’t happen to set things up correctly, if you miss a section or you fill it out incorrectly, and you turn it in, the insurance companies take their sweet time on stuff you might not know you did something wrong for months. And then they may come back three months later and say, oh, hey Jennifer, thanks so much for filling out this paperwork. You missed a section in 19B. Please fill that out and send it back in, and it’ll be another three months before we get back to you. So don’t let that be you. Like finding a group that has credentials, has experience doing that, and knows what they’re doing. I’m not saying that’s never going to happen with a group that you’re working with. Things like that can happen regularly.

(25:39)
That’s nobody’s fault. It’s just a glitch somewhere. But I’m saying it’s far less likely to happen if you have someone who knows what they’re doing putting that together for you. And I suggest finding a group to get that done. And if you think about it from this perspective, let’s say you’re a penny pincher like I am, and you’re really trying to say, especially when you first start your business, you need to be a good steward of your money. You need not to say. I’m going to spend money on this and that and this and that. You need to pay attention and look at what you need to budget. And if getting credentialed is something you really want to do, you could say, all right, initially, to start out, I’m going to look at the five major insurers in our area and get credentialed with those.

(26:26)
In my area, I could easily look at like Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Anthem, and Aetna Anthem, which is our Blue Cross Blue Shield. That’s five like right off the top of my head that I can think of that I would want to be credentialed with initially. We have a ton of other insurance companies that we’re currently credentialed with. We have UnitedHealthcare. There’s Sagamore. There’s some smaller, like regional groups that were credentialed with. But initially, if I wanted to say, Hey, my budget is going to be under a thousand dollars, or my budget’s 500 bucks. I’ve got this group that’s going to credential me for a hundred dollars per insurance company. Well, I can easily get credentialed with five insurance companies for $500 and then not have to stress about it or deal with it.

(27:17)
The other thing I want to mention is the timeframe from the insurance company. It is totally up to them, and it’s also totally up to them whether or not they actually credential you. So when we first started trying to get credentialed many moons ago, a very long time ago, we have, I live just north of Indianapolis, and so we have a ton of major hospital groups here. We had many imaging centers when we sent in our paperwork, and they said, oh, thank you so much for your paperwork. We will keep this on file. We currently do not need any more providers in your area. So just know that that could happen. It could be that you get sent in paperwork for five insurance companies, but you only get credentialed with three or four of them because the other two, at this time, don’t need providers.

(28:09)
So just know that that’s always something that could happen, and don’t stress about that. It’s just for those patients either you do self-pay. If you’re doing a facility, you do self-pay and give them an itemized receipt, and they can turn that in to their insurance company and get reimbursed for it. Honestly, your self-pay rate is likely less than the 20% co-insurance they will pay at the local hospital. And so that’s something to consider. Like, again, the mindset thing. That’s a mindset thing. I got denied by this insurance company. I might give up. I can’t tell you. I know that sounds like drastic, but I can’t tell you how many people I talk to regularly, clients of mine, because this is the overall general mindset when something happens, and you’re the business owner.

(29:09)
A lot of times, we can easily switch our mindset in our personal life or in our job life when we’re employed by someone else. But when it’s like on us to make the money for our family, like one little thing happens, and we can go off the rails with our mindset. So we really have to keep that in check and say, okay, yeah, this stinks. Darn it, I wanted to get credentialed with Blue Cross Blue Shield. It’s a huge insurer in my area. Well, there’s nothing I can do about it right now. That part is out of your control. What we need to worry about, and I use worry in air quotes, is what we have control over. Those are the only things we can do anything about. And so what I would do in that scenario is say, okay, did they give me a timeframe on when I can reapply?

(29:57)
I am marking that down in my calendar and sending it in on that specific day. And in the meantime, I will go through what I can do to provide services to Blue Cross Blue Shield patients on a self-pay basis. What incentives can I have for them on that? Allow them to market it to where they understand it’s going to be actually less for you to come here and pay a self-pay rate than it is to go to the hospital and pay through your insurance because of your 20% copay. It’s thousands of dollars to get an ultrasound done at the hospital. So calculate that up and figure out what your self-pay rates are.

(30:38)
You’ll also need to be able to bill the patient’s insurance once you’re credentialed. So one of the things to remember there is that unless you’ve billed insurance before, you also need to learn how to bill insurance. And so hire someone to do that. And yes, that costs money, but it’s another one of those things that you need to bill it correctly to get paid. And that’s the name of the game. When you have a for-profit business, we want to be making money back into our company. So shelling out a little bit and investing in our business is super important so that we can receive those benefits, rewards, and revenue streams coming in. Industry average is about five to 6% of the collected reimbursements. And so when you’re looking at medical billing companies, I always find out what it costs to credential you and their fees and percentage rates for actually billing the insurance.

(31:43)
And then it’s up to you as your business grows when you bring that in-house, because if they’re billing 5% of collections, at some point, the more you grow, the more expensive that gets right. And it may be beneficial at some point to bring that in-house to a paid employee. Those are just things to pay attention to. How much am I paying monthly in billing, and when does it make sense for me to pay an employee? You may grow where you need an admin person, and it makes sense to say, okay, I need an admin person. I probably only need them 15 or 20 hours a week, but geez, I could pay them for 40 hours a week and be paying for having them do my billing the rest of the time and be paying less out of my pocket than I am paying the 5% in billing.

(32:31)
That is only as you ramp up. Obviously, if you’re billing a thousand dollars a month, 5% of that is negligible compared to what you’d be paying an employee to do. So, that’s something to pay attention to as you grow. Facilities also are an excellent adjunct to other business models. So I have clients who provide mobile ultrasound fee for service that also have a self-pay facility. We do that personally. So I told you guys we started our company as a facility ourselves, a self-pay facility. We did diagnostics. We did 3D ultrasound. We were like the first 3D company in Indiana. It was very exciting. I told a story to our email subscribers, oh, probably last month, about our first day. I’ll share that with you guys today because this is what I always tell my clients.

(33:26)
I coach you on all of the dumb things that I have done and screwed up so that you don’t do dumb things and screw up as well. So we were very excited for our first day. We had ordered our machine, and I was ready to get patients in. Of course, we’d shelled out all this money. To get this facility gorgeous and looking fabulous. And, uh, it was in, this super gorgeous like office park and all of this. We had everything decorated and just ready to go. And so we started getting calls. The first call you get for your business is like Christmas morning. So exciting. So in my excitement, I decided that we needed to start making money as soon as possible. I should probably schedule the patients on the day we get the ultrasound machine.

(34:22)
Because once we get it, like it’s time to go, that’s the last thing we need. You can fast-forward to what’s going to happen here. That was not a smart idea at all. And so we had an entire day booked out. I was so elated. We had people driving from all over the state to get this done. Our furthest one was like two hours away. So exciting. So I go in the morning, get donuts, and am all excited. We had water and juices and just all these fun things. We were going to have a little breakfast spread in the morning for our first patients, our sonographer, and all of us. And just very excited. So, the truck pulls up to deliver the ultrasound machine, and we pull it out, and we start unwrapping it. And there were no probes, none.

(35:24)
So I had to call all of our patients and tell them so sorry, hopefully, haven’t started driving yet. People who are driving two hours to come here because we can’t see you today. And it was humbling and upsetting. I ate all the donuts I had gotten for everyone that morning. It was eating my feelings for sure. But it goes to show some things happen on a regular basis, that you have to change your mindset. And when you’re the business owner, that’s all on you. I couldn’t say, Hey,  front desk person at my job. We need help. Can you please go call the patients? I had to do it. I had to be the one to call everybody. So that’s just a side note story. See, I am a real person who started their business with an idea who made 14,000 mistakes, and I still created a successful business, so if I can do it, anybody can, I’ll tell you what, we, we started as that facility. We added in mobile ultrasound at the time.

(36:36)
Nothing was mobile; there wasn’t, mobile wasn’t a thing because I started my business 82,000 years ago, and that wasn’t a thing. And so when it became a thing, we got the bright idea. Let’s take this out. We’re seeing patients from the physician practices. If we go out to their office, we can see almost a hundred percent of their patients that way. And that is very true. When you have a facility, your marketing is different than if you have a mobile ultrasound fee for service business. Like for our mobile ultrasound services, we are marketing directly to physicians. I have a person that I can talk to. I know who that person is for each practice. When you have a facility, you are marketing business to business and business to consumer. So you’ll hear the terms B2B and B2C, business to business and business to consumer.

(37:25)
I’m doing both when I have a facility because I want to market to the local referring physicians that this is an opportunity and an availability I have in the area. And I also want to make sure that I’m on platforms like social media and out at vendor booths and different places where I can interact directly with the public because they can decide to come see me as well. And so you’ll have to have a good marketing plan for that too. But you’re looking really to strategize on your business. In that case, a facility is a great adjunct to many of the different types of business models we have access to here in the ultrasound industry. Now, if you’re really looking to learn more about the business models, more than just like the overview I do here on the podcast, I dive deep into the eight main business models we have access to.

(38:26)
I also break down the business models on how to define them from that business model, your target market, how to create a market analysis, and a marketing plan for your business. The most important step we also dive into in our business blueprint course is creating a business plan that lays out startup costs. You’ve got to know that for your business, ongoing business expenses. How much is it going to cost for me to keep my business running? And then the most exciting part is, what’s my revenue potential starting a business like this with this specific business model? What is my revenue potential? So I talk all about that super deep over in our Business Blueprint course. So I want to give you guys the opportunity to head over to our website. It’s www.aic-ultrasound.com. If you’re like, Jen, this sounds awesome, I love all the information, but I need more help.

(39:21)
Head over there would love to see you in that course. It’s an evergreen course, so it’s now open for registration. Thank you, guys, all so much for joining me. It truly is so much fun to have this podcast and be able to get such valuable information out there. To all of you who are thinking about starting a business, I have listeners I know that are in ultrasound school right now, and this is a dream of theirs someday. And I’ve got people that listen that have their own business, and this sparks ideas for them to think about, ways that they’re going to grow and integrate additional service options. So I’m just always, always so grateful and thankful for all of you out there listening. And I want you to know, as always, I am over here cheering on,

(40:07):

Ready to see what it takes to start your own mobile ultrasound business? Grab our free startup guide and learn how to make a thousand dollars a day with your own business. Head to our website www.aic-ultrasound.com to check it out.

your strategy-obsessed ultrasound business coach.

I'm Jennifer -

Welcome to the Talking Tech podcast, where we answer your questions about legal, marketing, admin, sales, and so much more. After nearly 20 years in the industry running our own mobile ultrasound business and helping techs across the country do the same, I'm so excited to bring you industry insight, mindset, productivity, business tips, and inspiration to help you design the business of your dreams.

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I've pioneered a framework using our nearly two decades of experience in the mobile ultrasound industry and our 4-Pillar model of success to create a specific, strategic plan for ultrasound techs to start, operate, and grow their mobile ultrasound business. Apply today to learn how we can help you achieve your dreams and goals.

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ultrasound business consulting

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