Becoming a practice owner…

Hello, I am planning on letting my contract dissolve and starting my own practice (job market sucks so I figured why not). Currently in planning stages for the location & consultants (for start-up, rcm/billing, insurance credentialing, etc).

What I have found from talking to mentors and reading forums is that opening a brand-new practice is really not too expensive (in terms upfront cost) compared to many other businesses.

I have opened a franchise food business prior to podiatry, and my upfront cost was 5x-8x what people are saying it takes to start a pod practice, even from the ground up. When talking to owner dentists that I know, they were saying their startup costs were ~600k to 1.2ish depending on leasing vs buying real estate. People are telling me I don’t even need 6-figures (<$50k even) to start a pod office since we have very minimal equipment/inventory compared to other businesses, which makes sense.

I’m interested in hearing other owners thoughts on the above information to see if it’s accurate, and to see if they have recommendations on consulting companies that can do all of the legwork, especially staffing, insurance credentialing, finding patients/referral pathways, and finding the best RCM/billing company.

Also, while doing research about towns & cities that I may want to open up, I have noticed that there are some practices that have older docs (>55). I was thinking, instead of opening my own separately, if it’s worth it to just cold call or approach them and ask if they want to “partner” up for a fee, so I can come under their EIN #, utilize their insurance panel, and start seeing patients a lot quicker. I would still pay my own startup costs. Is that even a thing, and is it even worth it versus just being solo from the get-go because I anticipate these docs are gonna retire in the next 10 years anyways, and their patients will just come to me hopefully. The benefit for me would be being cash flow positive much quicker since I’m not wasting time waiting for insurance panels and referral networks to form.

Or even doing the above with a younger, newer solo practice in the next city over that way we are not competing against each other, but we’re both partners and can share costs like EMR, negotiate better reimbursement together versus individually, share website/marketing costs since it will just be one website now, etc.

Idk. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea too please.