A strategic planning self-assessment for physician practices

The checklist below is an example of a strategic planning self-assessment you can use in your practice. The purpose of these self-assessments is to give you a concise checklist of best practices in a clinical practice. This checklist follows the Pareto Principle of focusing on the 20% of business practices that get you 80% of the results. Therefore, I don’t claim that it covers everything but it does cover a good percentage of the most important things.

Strategic Planning Checklist

We do a strategic planning process at least annually.

This process gathers input from key stakeholders and data about our practice and marketplace.

We review our mission and vision for the practice.

We assess the size and growth of the market for our services.

We compare our own “penetration” to the size of the market.

We assess trends in managed care and payments and analyze our contracts.

We evaluate competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and how we can gain an edge.

We assess the strengths and weaknesses of our referral network.

We evaluate the depth and breadth of our overall service offerings. We assess the strengths and weaknesses of our marketing.

We assess our payers, including our payer mix.

We evaluate our clinical utilization rates and quality or care outcomes.

We evaluate our internal controls.

We evaluate our cost structure and financial ratios.

We review our technology.

We take a hard look at the patient’s experience, and how to improve it.

We assess the capabilities of our clinicians and staff and identify any gaps to fill.

We review physician and staff compensation.

We assess our risks, compliance, and malpractice insurance.

We evaluate our relationship with local hospital(s).

We analyze our financial strength, including capacity for debt, days receivables, trends in aging of receivables, collection ratios, and profitability by services.

We assess our facility and location, including whether we are located in the optimal zip code/area to serve our desired patient base.

We do an overall “Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats” or SWOT analysis about our practice.

We determine which services and programs to expand, which to defend, and which to exit.

We identify the top issues we need to address, and then identify key priorities to address these issues, achieve our vision, and be more competitive and profitable.

We set annual performance/financial goals for our practice and develop a plan to achieve those goals.

We assign specific accountability to achieve these initiatives, and a communication plan to follow up on them.


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