Forefront Dermatology

24 | I NSIGH T • J a n u a r y 2 0 14 w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m J a n u a r y 2 0 14 • I NSIGH T | 25 to be large to be able to have a significant chance of retaining a private practice model. You've got to do it big, and you've got to do it regionally." One of the other benefits of a large practice is having a network of colleagues with varied experiences, Henry Katz says. "ey have a system where the beauty of it, over a private practice like I had alone, is that you can email or talk to your colleagues within the system in a matter of minutes on a difficult problem. Whereas for me, I almost had nobody – I had to call somebody in Marshfield or Madison." e Katzes' only plan was to set up a dermatology practice in Manitowoc, which they did in 2001, purchasing the dermatology practice from Henry, who kept working for his son. "en a couple of years later the local hospital hired their own dermatologist, and then all of a sudden we were in this competitive situation," Ken Katz says. It's not that the practice wasn't busy – quite the opposite, in fact. "We thought that being booked out three months was fantastic, but the reality is that if people can't come see you for three months, they're going to go see the other guy. at was kind of an awakening moment for me." He built Dermatology Associates' first clinic in Manitowoc, then convinced Dr. David Bertler, who was working for Prevea at the time, to join him. Manitowoc-based Dermatology Associates of Wisconsin/ Forefront Dermatology launched in 2004 with one clinic in Manitowoc, then expanded to include offices in Green Bay and Sturgeon Bay in 2005. e company has expanded to 37 locations statewide and in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with plans to keep growing in the Midwest. e company includes 42 doctors (24 of whom are shareholders) and 11 mid-level providers such as nurse practitioners, for a total of 393 employees … and counting. e company grew by 33 percent in 2012, 10 percent in 2013 and Ken Katz projects it will grow between 25 percent and 35 percent in 2014. "Dermatology's a specialty that's not dependent on hospital care," Ken Katz says. "We don't do a lot in the hospital – we don't order MRIs or do big surgeries in the operating room, so to a large extent dermatology was ignored during the consolidation of health care that occurred over the last 25 years. We saw that as an opportunity to consolidate dermatology. When you have more people working toward a common goal, it's much easier to achieve it." First employee: Dad K atz's first employee was his father, Dr. Henry Katz, who opened a dermatology practice in Manitowoc in 1977. Henry Katz was a third-generation physician, following his father and grandfather, who were general practitioners in Cedarburg. Henry Katz, who worked for his son for a few years before he retired about 2005, says he watched the field of medicine shi from mostly private practices to most doctors becoming employees of a hospital (in his father's day, medicine shied from virtually all general practitioners to a wide field of specialists). "I didn't talk a lot of business with Ken because his ideas were so different than what I had done, and I knew I was going to retire," Henry Katz says. "He was going to run with the ball, and it's in a ballpark so different from mine that basically I just let him do it. I also kind of knew that you had "I told him, 'I don't have any money, but I promise you it's going to work out,'" Ken Katz says. "His wife thought he was insane. My wife thought I was insane, and we borrowed a whole bunch of money and opened up a clinic in Green Bay and opened up a clinic in Sturgeon Bay, and between him, myself and my dad, we spent the next year and a half driving all over the place trying to get this up and running." And they did, decisively. e practice has grown to the point where it's second only to Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, based in Florida. You might say they were at the right place, at the right time. "As the practice grew, it was less expensive to run on a per- doctor basis," Ken Katz says. "So I went to the gas station and bought a map, and I outlined all of the counties and looked at where all the dermatologists were, where all the population bases were, and wrote a business plan, and said, 'Hey, all of Northeast Wisconsin is underserved.'" Dermatology in general is an underserved specialty. Back in the early 1970s as managed care grew, the number of specialists was capped to prevent oversaturation – but the specialty of dermatology expanded its scope dramatically, and the number of people in the United States with skin cancer has just kept growing, Ken Katz says. One of Dermatology Associates' challenges has been recruiting doctors to move to Wisconsin, though the company has brought in some from the East and West coasts and continues to recruit doctors for new clinics. "I'm fairly conservative, and I would've thought three clinics would be all two people could handle," Bertler says. "At a max, maybe a clinic in Green Bay, Sturgeon Bay and Manitowoc. And Dr. Katz just had a vision that he pursued and he thought about it 24-7 on ways to make it happen and he made it come true. He's been the driving force and I give all the credit to Dr. Katz, because a lot of us say we could do it. Very few of us achieve what we say we can do." Patient-doctor focus "W e're a completely private practice, so we are fully dependent on patients calling our office based on reputation and selecting to see us," Ken Katz says. "We're not part of any multi-specialty groups, we don't have a built-in referral pattern. We do get referrals from a lot of other physicians, but we're dependent W HEN DR. KENNETH KATZ AND HIS SISTER WERE IN SCHOOL, THEY STUFFED bills and filed medical charts for their father's dermatology practice in Manitowoc. Even then, Ken Katz recognized ways to make things more efficient: While still in high school, the incipient entrepreneur developed a computer program to help complete universal insurance forms, says his sister, Tricia Wagner. Making things work better for patients and doctors has been a constant theme and a driving force behind Katz's vision. Now he's founder and president of what has become the second-largest dermatology practice in the United States, and runs it with a team that includes Wagner as the company's vice president of finance and business development. Amy Katz, Ken's wife, is the company's director of marketing. "I'm fairly conservative, and I would've thought three clinics would be all two people could handle." [continued] » "My goal is to be the best, but I think in five years, we'll be the largest dermatology practice in the country and we'll have 300 to 400 dermatologists across the Midwest." – D R . K E N K A T Z Dr. David Bertler INSIGHT JANUARY 2014 VOL. 6 NO. 10 $4.95 C O N N E C T I N G B U S I N E S S & P E O P L E I N T H E N E W N O R T H INDEVELOPMENT 'Turning everything upside down to get it right-side up' Global development innovator Fred Kent keynotes Feb. 27 in Appleton OSHKOSH HEALTH & WELLNESS PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING Dr. Ken Katz, founder and president, builds on strength in numbers at the Manitowoc-based health care company Launched in 2001, Dermatology Associates is now the 2nd largest practice of its kind in the U.S. Right place, right time FACE TIME Paul Stelter on our changing workforce SURVEY SAYS: Most regional businesses expect better days in 2014 C O P Y R I G H T 2 0 1 4 I N S I G H T P U B L I C A T I O N S . R E P R I N T E D F O R M A R K E T I N G U S E . J a n u a r y 2 0 14 • I NSIGH T | 23 22 | I NSIGH T • J a n u a r y 2 0 14 L A U N C H E D I N 2 0 0 4 , D E R M AT O L O G Y A S S O C I AT E S I S N O W T H E 2 N D L A R G E S T P R A C T I C E O F I T S K I N D I N T H E U . S . Dr. Ken Katz, founder and president (shown twice), builds on strength in numbers at the Manitowoc-based health care company B Y N I K K I K A L L I O Photographs by Shane V an Boxtel, Image Studios I G H T R R I G H T T P L A C E I M E Featured in the January, 2014 issue of Insight when it was still called Dermatology Associates of Wisconsin, S.C., the practice has since added 13 clinics and changed its name to Forefront Dermatology. To read the article visit www.insightonbusiness.com.

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