Practice Growth

My proudest moments start with graduating medical school, that was a huge accomplishment. And then after being in practice a year or so deciding that I wanted to go out on my own and start my own business. I purchased a building with the help of my father and I now have three medical assistants, four receptionists, two physicians, besides myself, and two physician assistants so really have taken this from a single person operation into a small business. My name is Dr. Andrea Padano and I’m a primary care physician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I’ve been in practice for 24 years. My practice serves a small community with a community hospital and we see patients from 16 all the way up past 100. We’ve done zero marketing. We don’t advertise. All of our business comes from word of mouth. One of the things I enjoy about having a representative within Santander is I can pick up the phone anytime day or night and yell “help”. So, whatever my needs are, George is there. Reimbursement has been a big issue since a lot of the changes in the regulations in healthcare over the last few years. And it has really impacted the cash flow for a small primary care practice. One of the ways that Santander has helped is by not only my overdraft protection but a line of credit which we’ve also tied to the checking account which allows coverage for any overdrafts that may come through as a result of a lack of deposits. Well, the practice continues to grow. We attract a lot of new patients on a weekly basis. I have a new practitioner who joined us a few months back; he’s interested in growing with the practice. And most of my other employees are younger than I am. So really, it’s just about making sure that the practice is on solid footing and then finding my successor.