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DESIGN A MEDICAL OFFICE SPACE series: Modifying a plan

admin — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:26:02 +0000

Once you receive a medical office layout plan designed by your architect for the medical office, it is time to review it yourself and see if all of your major goals are met or not. If not then you have another chance to voice it out now. Remember once the plans become more detailed or the construction starts it becomes more and more expensive to change anything. So you really need to look into the details and make sure you like every inch of the floor plan.

How to do it ? Well you compare the program we made in the last post and make sure those things are incorporated in there. Also if you have forgotten something to include in the program you can easily ask the architect to modify the layout.

NOTE: The image on a plan could be rotated just to add to the confusion ! Point I am making is that it matters from which direction you are looking at the plans. Especially during signing real estate contracts for medical office building, check and double check to make sure that you know exactly which wall are you looking it. Say if you wanted your sign on the front door but it is marked on the back wall of the building in the diagram– then you will have a problem !!

DESIGN A MEDICAL OFFICE SPACE series: Creating a Program

admin — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:48:18 +0000

Usually what you will have is the outline of an empty medical office or floor plan. It is just outside walls and is called a ’shell’. Now we will develop a program or a list of requirements we need in the space. Here is a sample program:

THE PROGRAM

1. Four Exam Rooms

2. Two Restrooms

3. One Break Room

4. One Doctor’s Office

5. One Billing Office

6. One Manager’s Office

7. One Reception Desk

8. One Waiting Room

9. One Conference Room

10. Storage Room

11. Keep as many windows as possible in the hallway.

Remember list everything that you want in a program for the architect. They then can try to get as much as they can incorporated into the medical office lay out plan. You can list 100 rooms in the program. Then the architect can come and let you know that it is impossible to get 100 rooms in there so you can get 8 rooms only.

Also the program may change later in the design phase as we will demonstrate. For example you may want to increase the number of exam rooms to five instead of four in the above program. But you may need to delete one restroom to make space for it.

Design a Medical Office with us !

admin — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:49:42 +0000

One day for those who realize the dream of starting their own medical practice will face the exciting opportunity to design their own medical office space. This is a primer article to kick off a series of articles in which we (The CareerMedicine authors and the readers) will design our own medical office space. We are not talking about renting or leasing a medical office space. It is mainly about either building a medical o office from scratch ("including the building!") or buying a "Shell" building and then upfitting it – aka adding rooms etc to the shell.

How does the whole process work. Lets look at the bird’s eye view of the whole process:

STEP 1: Buy a shell (just four walls building enclosure) or a piece of land.

STEP 2: Find a Medical Office Architect

STEP 3: Sit with the Architect and develop a "program". A "Program" here means a long list of things you want for your new office. For example — a window in the doctor’s office, number of exam rooms, approximate people you need to fit in the billing office and any other specifics. The program helps the architect determine the size and layout for the office space.

STEP 4: The architect will send you a preliminary drawing drawn by their draftsman using the program above as a guideline.

STEP 5: The physicians will then review it. Feel free to change anything that you feel is needed. It is much cheaper to correct the drawing than a building.

STEP 6: Once you approve the layout of the medical office space, the medical office design will enter the phase of the electrical and plumbing designing.

STEP 7: Now you will have to mark the location of power outlets, telephone outlets, cables etc on the approved layout. Once done send it back to the architect for electrical layout.

STEP 8: Architect will finalize the drawings including elevations etc. which determines your counter height etc.

So get ready for our next series of posts in which we will design a medical office space.

Medical Office Building: Stand Alone or Medical Complex?

admin — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:51:55 +0000

If you are planning to be in a private practice of your own, you need to choose an office space. Medical Office space can be leased or bought. I prefer to lease for first few years until things settle down, cash flow becomes stable, and I find out what kind of office and medical office layout is suitable for my purpose.

The question we are considering is, if a stand alone building is better or not? It sure does look great to be in a stand alone building. It is a complete building of your own, no neighbors and no mess.

But if you are planning to start a new medical practice, it is important not to isolate the medical practice. I have given this a lot of thought before opening my medical practice. And looking back, it surely is good to be in a condominium complex, surrounded by other medical offices. Why?

Because no matter how much marketing your medical practice may do, more than 90% of the patients will choose you because of referrals. This is true for both specialists as well as primary care practice. If you are surrounded by medical offices (as in a medical office condominium complex) they all will be more likely to refer patients to you.

My hunch in the beginning of opening a practice has now proven its ground. The medical complex has a very high traffic of cross referrals. The patients like it because they don’t have to go too far from the place they are familiar with. The Medical Practices thrive in a symbiotic relationship. Everybody wins !