A real practice should survive two weeks with the owner gone. If it can't, you don't own a business - you own a job.
Alejandro "Alex" Fernandez has spent more than 30 years in physician practice management, front desk to boardroom. He ran multi-specialty groups as large as 150 physicians and was founding CEO of Gastro Health, the first private-equity-backed gastroenterology platform to sell. He now runs Synergy Orthopedic Specialists in San Diego.
He joins Jakub Grajcar on how practices actually scale - and what buyers see before they offer.
We dig into:
🏥 Alex's #1 tip for growing a practice - if it can't run for two weeks without you, you own a job, not a business
🪑 Why patient experience is the most neglected part of a practice, and what a twelve-page clipboard tells a new patient
📊 What to get right before you grow - your numbers, your billing, and the habit of pulling every dollar out of the business
💉 How to keep the revenue you're currently referring out - path labs, lasers, aesthetics, a shared PA, and the ROI math behind each
🤝 Merging vs. buying another practice - why a merger of equals is the harder move, and where those conversations break down
🚩 What physician alignment actually means, and what happens to a group when five owners have five different plans
💼 What buyers see when they look at your practice - and why two groups earning the same money don't sell for the same price
Resources mentioned:
👤 Guest:
Alejandro "Alex" Fernandez, MBA, CMPE - CEO, Synergy Orthopedic Specialists
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexfernandezmba/ Website:
https://synergysmg.com🏢 Organizations
Gastro Health - first private-equity-backed gastroenterology platform; Alex was founding CEO:
https://gastrohealth.com📚 Books
Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business - Gino Wickman
🎬 Off-topic but mentioned
The Odyssey - Jakub's unsponsored movie recommendation
🎥 See how Talkie.ai works - AI medical receptionist demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOiJ3ITTrLY&list=PLLjcCBHYN2KoBqm-Dx-8lIwWLuU-CHXSg