How Can I Break Into Hotel Doctoring?

My first response is always: read my blog. Begun in 2009, it contains everything you need to know about hotel doctoring including how I started.

While it’s entertaining, it might not help. I began in 1983 when there was little competition. I do no marketing except an occasional letter to general managers. I have no web site; this blog, as I chronically complain, has never attracted a customer. I don’t pay hotel employees when they refer a guest (illegal but a long tradition). Yet I do fine. My database, so old it’s a DOS program, contains nearly 18,000 visits. No one will ever match that.

The quickest way to break in is to buy another doctor’s practice. Buying an office practice is bad business because patients drift away, but a doctor selling a hotel practice simply transfers the phone number. As long as the buyer responds to calls, he’ll keep every client because hotels rarely pay close attention to their house doctor.

This is no idle theory because a veteran colleague will soon retire. Another physician has purchased his clientele, a dozen of Los Angeles' and Beverly Hills’ most luxurious hotels. I have heard only good things about the buyer, but he is not an established hotel physician or a friend, so I plan to benefit.

Despite collecting Social Security for ten years, I have no plans to retire, but it’s hard to imagine me working beyond a few more years. I might entertain an offer.