I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather keep that extra $20,000-$40,000 per year and let my practice help pay for retirement! Not to mention the benefits of being your own boss… as a small business and mother of two young children, the flexibility I have to set my schedule simply isn’t available working for someone else.
The Catch with Practice Ownership
I can’t speak to owning an optometric practice, but owning a business is hard. At the end of the day, when others go home and stop thinking about work, business owners do not. Success isn’t automatic or guaranteed. There’s always the possibility you go through the process and end up with an asset that isn’t worth more than the equipment on hand. But it’s not rocket science either, and there are no shortage of practice management experts out there to help owners build the best practice they can.
You may wonder why I did not list the cost of owning a practice with “the catch”. Yes, there’s usually a big loan attached to a practice purchase, but a properly structured practice purchase should cover loan payments, and over 20 years, the large loan it took to purchase a practice should be paid off.
The Conclusion
Practice ownership may not be for every OD, but financially speaking, it can be a hugely beneficial path to retirement, even if it does mean some extra headaches along the way. Encourage younger docs in your practice to start planning for retirement and looking at the numbers of saving with and without practice ownership.
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