Developing a Business Plan in Radiology

摘要

"Hey, Dad, can I borrow the car tonight?" asks your teenager, and if your response is not an immediate, unequivocal "Certainly, via con Dios," you will hear a lengthy monologue on the benefits to be gained, extending from peace in the household to peace in the world, by giving your kid the car keys. That process is relatively intuitive and a lot less formal than when you go to your hospital's CEO and request a whole new radiology department.Both requests have a lot in common because they both take the form of business plans, although differing significantly in complexity. A business plan should be the result of weighing all the benefits and all the drawbacks, all the investments and all the returns, all the direct consequences and all the tangential ones of every proposed venture. In this new world of medicine as a business, it behooves radiologists to think as businesspeople, speak as they do, and answer the questions they would ask. The era has passed when shouting and breath-holding spells or even rank could substitute for financial planning.