title: Barriers to entry or exit: which ones are you building?
abstract: Unknowingly, we often create barriers that make it difficult for patients to enter or doctors to refer to our medical practices. Additionally, we make it too easy for patients and referring physicians to seek care elsewhere. This article will focus on these barriers to entry (which we need to knock down) and exit (which we want to build up) for a medical practice. We will demonstrate how you can identify and eliminate your entry barriers to make it easy for patients to become a part of your practice, and how you can build defenses to make it unlikely that patients will leave you and to prevent referring physicians from calling anyone else.
authors.affiliation: Surgical Services at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, New Jersey, USA. michael.harris@ehmc.com
authors.forename: Michael T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.forename: Neil H
authors.initials: NH
authors.lastname: Baum
mesh_terms: D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011216:Practice Management, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States