when to close practice

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Evan Hirsch asked when to close his practice in a recent email:Also, I'm thinking about closing my practice to new patients for a few months. i'm currently working 9-5. seeing patients 10-11, 12-5. seeing 1 pt per hour and billing by time (99215). this gives me good quality of life, but unfortunately it doesn't allow me to see many patients and my next available appointment is 4 weeks away for follow up and 6 weeks away for new patients. i'm starting a waitlist. so my question is this: do i keep accepting new patients even though they can't be seen for 6 weeks, or do i try to focus my time on the patients that i have. do i run the risk of losing these other patients and eventually not filling my panel? is there a calculation out there? how often are current patients usually seen per year? I have a few comments, then I suspect you'll get more comments from the list serve.1- Closing isn't permanent, you can open again. I closed whenever I got behind or overwhelmed, have been permanently closed for 2 years now, officially. I still "squeak in" family members sometimes and now have the space to do it easily. I quit using a wait list, as I had to maintain it. Just tell people to check in with you in 3 or 6 months (hopefully via email, not phone). 2- If you've found it this easy to get patients, you will probably not have trouble in the future, so don't worry about not being able to fill later. That issue is regional, but I think your early success predicts the future.3-If your next available for follow up is 4 weeks away, how are you managing same day requests and acute care? Sounds like to maintain same day access you do need to stop taking new patients. Once you stop seeing so many new patients, your visits will be shorter, you will have more time during the day. Someone else on the list can quote the actual stat - is it 1.5% of the practice will contact daily?