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Building a medical practice takes years of expertise and excellent services. However, running a successful healthcare business is more than just hiring medical professionals. You also need to have a solid business plan that allows you to grow your practice and attract more patients, staff, investors, collaborators, sponsors, and business partners.
Just like it is with any other business, healthcare practices require significant capital to keep going strong. Given the evolving nature of healthcare services, business owners need to ensure that they’re implementing the best strategies and using the latest technologies to keep up with the latest trends. As a healthcare small business owner, you’re expected to be on the lookout for new industry demands and cater to them in the best possible ways. This usually means taking risks and making investments that would allow you to deliver the quality of services you set out to deliver.
Of course, all of this requires money that many medical businesses just don’t have. It’s imperative that healthcare businesses critically analyze and evaluate their circumstances and take the relevant steps necessary to build their medical business.
This brings us to the world of medical loans. Healthcare business owners have plenty of options to choose from when it comes to financing their medical practice. In this blog, we’ll look at two of the most popular business financing options and when business owners should consider opting for them.
Let’s get started!
Types of Medical Practice Financing
Getting a small business loan for a healthcare practice is considered to be one of the most effective ways for business owners to receive funding. When it comes to choosing their lenders, business owners have two options:
Traditional Lenders
Traditional lenders comprise financial institutions such as banks and credit unions that adhere to rigid lending practices. The loan application process for traditional lending is often tiresome and needlessly lengthy, taking up to several months to come to an end. To top it off, the long and tiring process of traditional lending is often futile as getting a business loan is especially tricky with these financial institutes.
Most business owners that apply for loans via traditional lenders opt for larger and long-term loans. They also typically have high credit scores, a track record of steady income, and specific qualifications that make them eligible for the loans. For less established medical practices that require cash urgently, traditional lending isn’t the best option.
Alternative Lenders
This brings us to the second funding option: alternative lending. Considered to be one of the most popular business financing options, alternative lending allows for greater flexibility in terms of the loan amount, repaying period, and borrower history. Alternative lenders are usually private lending firms or individuals with significantly less strict and stringent requirements. This makes applying for alternative funding much quicker and easier, saving time and resources.
Alternative lenders are highly sought by healthcare businesses. The funds they provide can be used for a variety of investments essential for business growth, such as staff recruitment, expansion of services, and marketing tactics. The best part about securing loans this way is that business owners can utilize the capital as they see fit and can take their time to repay the amount. The greater flexibility offered via alternative lending makes it a viable option for small business owners from all sorts of industries.
How to Decide If Your Healthcare Practice Need Small Business Funding
It’s not surprising that most healthcare businesses prefer opting for alternative funding when it comes to financing their practices. Unlike bank loans that are especially difficult to get approved, alternative healthcare business loans can be obtained much easily and more conveniently. Through alternative funding, you can acquire a health care small business loan which you can then used for various purposes.
So, how can you decide if your healthcare practice requires small business funding? Here’s a look at a few obvious signs that indicate the need to get the loan approval process started at your earliest.
You Need to Purchase Medical Equipment
Every healthcare practice needs high-quality medical equipment for the various procedures and treatments performed there. Depending on the nature of your healthcare practice and the types of services you offer, you’ll require a range of tools and operating systems such as diagnostic equipment, ultrasound systems, medical lasers, and surgical instruments. You’ll also need medical furnishing items such as hospital beds, wheelchairs, stretchers, operating tables, and examining beds/chairs.
The better quality of equipment you use, the better services you’ll be able to deliver. Moreover, using the right and relevant medical equipment is also essential for patient safety and comfort. Of course, medical equipment doesn’t come cheap. If you’re in need of new medical equipment or want to upgrade your operating systems, it might be time to opt for small business funding.
Your Practice Could Do with Refurbishing
What’s the first thing you notice when you enter a building or a house? The way it looks, of course! The more welcoming and put-together a place looks, the more confident you feel about it altogether.
This goes true for healthcare practices as well. When patients enter your premises, the first thing they’re going to notice is the ambiance of your building. Based on this, they’ll create first impressions of your practice. Thus, before they even make it inside the physician’s office, they’ll either be feeling at ease or second-guessing their decision to visit your practice.
You don’t want your patients or their caretakers to doubt the level of care your healthcare practice is capable of providing based on their impressions of your place! Making improvements at your premises goes a long way and can help create a more welcoming and soothing environment for patients.
If you’re planning on renovating your practice or completely reconstructing the facility, a business loan can help you with the funding you need to make the necessary changes.
started!
You Need to Hire & Train Staff
Let’s be honest; a healthcare practice can’t succeed if you’re short-staffed. You don’t just need the best doctors, physicians, nurses, lab experts, and technicians; you also need enough employees.
If you’ve been struggling to juggle appointments, delegate tasks, get the paperwork done on time, or simply attend to the growing number of patients, it’s time to hire more employees. Running a healthcare practice involves several aspects of business, such as office management, administration, and financing. You need to have enough staff not just for performing medical procedures but also for ensuring that things operate smoothly at all times.
That said, hiring new employees isn’t easy. Recruitment is a fairly expensive process that can exhaust a significant chunk of your budget. Moreover, you may be compelled to make salary cuts or hold-off bonuses because you don’t have enough money to compensate your employees now that you’ve hired some more.
With small business funding, this can be prevented. Alterative lending gives you access to the monetary funds you need to hire and train new employees. Hiring more employees would also mean that your healthcare practice has a competent, compassionate, and friendly staff that’s not overworked and stressed out at work. Your employees will be able to handle their workload easily without having to work extra shifts, allowing them to perform optimally.
You’re Planning on Expanding Your Range of Services
Another deciding factor for applying for a small business loan is your plan to diversifying into other service lines. Adding new medical services to your healthcare practice is a great way to help your business grow. It allows for patient retention while enabling you to get more patients and cater to a wider niche. Expanding your services would also present you with an additional source of income.
Setting up a new service, on the other hand, is an entirely different process. It’s a huge investment and you’ll need lots of funds to be able to go through with it. From hiring specialized staff and purchasing new equipment to renovating your space, expanding medical services is an expensive process.
A business loan can help you with this initiative. While the investment costs may be considerably high, you’ll be able to pay back the loan once your new setup kicks off and starts attracting clients.
You Want to Invest in Marketing
One thing that several healthcare businesses shy away from is marketing. They often don’t take marketing and advertising into consideration when budgeting, or allot only a tiny chunk of the budget for this purpose. What they don’t realize is that just like any other small business, their healthcare practice also needs to have a thorough marketing strategy in order to attract new patients. After all, you can’t just set up a clinic and rely on word of mouth alone to get clients!
Building an effective marketing strategy is especially important for healthcare businesses that are still in their early years. You need to speed up the growth of your medical practice by using effective marketing tactics that allow for immediate return on investments. To do this, you need to rethink your overall marketing strategy and invest in new practices. In other words, you need to spend on marketing your healthcare business and acquire the capital needed to run effective marketing campaigns.
Don’t underestimate the need for taking a business loan for your business’s marketing plans. You’ll need to hire marketing experts and specialists to devise effective strategies. Then you’ll have to put those strategies into practice and work on how they’re executed. This could mean a number of things such as running PPC and SEO campaigns, advertising on social media, sponsoring local events, developing branded gifts for patients and business partners, and uplifting social causes.
Whatever marketing strategy you opt for, you need experts to oversee the work. Considering that pretty much any marketing strategy would involve a significant amount of time and money, you can use a business loan to fund this project. Since alternative loans are typically approved quickly, you can get started with marketing practices almost immediately. Once your strategies start to pay off, you can then repay the loan.
Acquiring a Business Loan Made Easier with QuickAssist
Have you been looking for small business financing options for your healthcare business? QuickAssist is the ultimate alternative funding company to go to.
With QuickAssist, healthcare business owners have a range of business financing solutions to choose from. The experts at QuickAssist make access to bank loan alternatives significantly easier, walking business owners through the entire alternative funding process. They also offer suggestions for the best course of action and create individualized business financing plans for healthcare businesses along the way.
Whatever your reason for wanting to pursue a small business loan for your healthcare practice may be, QuickAssist can help you get the funding you need to take your business to new heights. The team understands the financial challenges faced by healthcare businesses and aims to ease their worries with its alternative funding solutions. They’ll connect your business to the relevant lenders, helping you pitch your business plan and goals to stakeholders who care about your practice just as much as you do.
Apply today or get in touch with the team at QuickAssist for more details!