What opening a practice actually takes, month by month.
Credentialing drives the schedule. Everything else is sequenced around it, which is why the honest version of this timeline is longer than the one most clinicians are given.
The shape of it
The first thing to accept is that the critical path runs through payers, not through construction. Applications cannot start before the identifiers and coverage exist, and effective dates are frequently not retroactive.
The prerequisites are on Entity & Compliance; the payer detail is on Credentialing.
- Months 0–6 — Open the doors Start seeing patients. Credentialing completed where the practice needs it. A web presence built. The practice’s operating procedures written down and in use.
- Months 6–12 — Check the growth Growth measured against the founder’s plan. Patient flow through the clinic analysed, and a decision on whether the practice needs another provider.
- Months 12–24 — Widen the reach Whether the practice can broaden its services to reach more patients. Whether to hire more providers, and the start of planning for another location.
What moves the date
- A missing document
- restarts a payer’s clock without notifying you.
- A stale CAQH attestation
- stalls applications silently.
- Signing a lease early
- does not speed anything up, and commits rent before you can bill.
- Hiring early
- means payroll before collections.
Book a launch consultation.
We will give you the realistic dates at the start, including which payers are slow, so the rest of the plan is built around them.