Generalist versus Specialist

Posted November 23rd, 2010 by Tim Rushford

Which is better business model- perform a wide variety of services and be pretty good at most or deliver a limited services and be very good at them all?  Jack of All Trades or Master of Few?  Racoon or Race Horse?

Well, it may depend on the circumstances and what is at stake in being successful.  For example, for our primary care, we rely on the crucial wide ranging expertise of a Family Practice physician who is skilled in dealing with our health in holistic ways.  However, if I badly injure my eye, I would very much want to see a specialist.

Here at Medical Practice Startup Group, we tend to be specialists.  We specialize in setting up physician practices throughout the US.  By choice, we focus on practice startups because there is a great deal at stake in helping physicians create a new practice.  The providers may be relocating their practice.  They may be leaving a group, joining a group, leaving a hospital, joining a hospital, coming out of residency or fellowship and starting their first practice.  In each case, the new practice must be set up expeditiously, economically and placed in position to succeed right out of the box.  Failure could send the practice into a 5 year tail spin from which it is difficult to recover.

We farm the other stuff out- billing, EHR’s, legal work, accounting, construction, Architecture, etc.  I think that the challenges of today’s health care environment call for business specialists to ensure your success.  To be really good at something, you usually have to do it frequently.  Malcom Gladwell made this point in his book Outliers.  He points to what he calls “the 10,000 hour rule”.  According to this theory, in order to become successful at anything, you must spend at least 20 hours per week for 10 years doing it.  If you dedicate yourself in this manner, Gladwell claims, you will succeed.  In fact, he goes so far as to claim that genius or natural talent is unnecessary when good old fashion work ethic is applied. 

Generalists and Specialists each have their place of importance in business and  health care.  It depends on what scope of skills the situation calls for – narrow or wide.