Recruiting the right Medical PA for your private practice is important. You need to find the right person with the right skills but most importantly the right person for you and your patients. Your Medical PA will act as an ambassador for your private practice and will take responsibility for the overall patient experience. The right person will make a significant contribution to the success of your practice and so it is important to choose very wisely.
One of the most important factors today is where your Medical PA will be based. Do you plan to have a virtual Medical PA who works from home, or do you require your Medical PA to be office based within your consulting rooms?
Most Medical Secretaries have now had the opportunity to work from home and they have loved it, so returning to an office-based role is less appealing to them. For those who will consider an office-based role there is demand for a higher salary to compensate for the additional time, cost and stress associated with commuting.
If your preference is for office based, then it is worth considering if you can offer flexibility, for example, part time hours, or a hybrid model with the week split between office and home.
In this article we discuss:
- Employment models
- Medical PA services
- Writing a job description
- Setting a Salary
- Recruitment agency vs DIY approach
- Employment contracts
- References
When you are establishing your new private practice, how do you ensure you set yourself up for success? It is hard to step back from your day-to-day activities and invest time in your new practice.
Making sure your prospective patients receive the experience and environment you want to deliver, and they expect, requires careful thought and a solid strategy.
Your passion, values and vision are at the heart of why you are making this leap into private practice. So, how do you ensure these are understood and communicated to all your stakeholders, including potential referrers, and patients? Practically, have you covered all the elements to ensure your practice is ready to be launched to the public and your referrers?
The over-arching desire is to attract new patients and referrers to your practice, but competition is fierce and with the increase in self-pay patients due to the post pandemic NHS waiting lists, your practice needs to be better than your peers to make sure you are forefront of mind and delivering an exceptional patient experience.
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Healthcare Marketing is an integral component of sustainable growth. Without it, there would be no influx of new patients, and even your loyal patients may slowly drop off, one-by-one.
The healthcare industry has changed. What used to be a volume-based industry centred around the consultant, has become a quality-based industry centred around the patient. Marketing shows potential patients that not only is your practice different than the competition, but it is also a much better option overall.
Marketing your private practice provides an open line of communication to your patient audience by building trust and piquing interest. It allows you to increase your patient connections and nurture those relationships to form long-term, loyal patients and therefore advocates. Successful marketing leads to successful patient engagement, and successful patient engagement leads to a booming practice.
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Invoicing and credit control in private practice can be a time-consuming task, but it is essential for obvious reasons, and yet it is the area of practice management that is most often overlooked.
Doctors and medical secretaries are quite rightly highly focused on delivering the highest quality patient care, and therefore billing patients and collecting the money owed becomes the lowest priority. It is not natural for a doctor to switch conversations with a patient from their symptoms and care plan to a discussion about invoices.
Likewise, a medical secretary has often chosen to work in the field of healthcare due to a desire to care for patients and is less comfortable handling the billing side and chasing money. Private consultants can sometimes struggle with the contrast between private practice and working for the NHS and it can feel uncomfortable charging for your medical services after years of NHS work, which is ‘free’ to patients.
In this article we cover:
- Systems and processes
- Insurance shortfalls
- Invoicing and Reconciliation
- Credit control process
- In-house billing and collection
- Outsourcing invoicing
If you’re looking to establish an excellent invoicing and credit control function for your practice read more…
Setting up a private medical practice should be an uplifting experience, but the reality can often feel somewhat overwhelming.
Here at Designated Medical, we aim to help doctors succeed in private practice and we are committed to sharing our expertise and experience with the wider medical community. In this article, we share the experience we have gained setting up private practices over the last twenty years and we hope you find it helpful. Please do get in touch if we can provide you with any additional support.
The most important piece of advice we can offer you is to fully embrace the concept that starting a new private practice is launching a new business and will require you to involve yourself in all aspects of running a business, including finance, marketing and administration. Most doctors are new to these aspects of business operations, having received no guidance at medical school and limited practical experience, but it is possible to gain the knowledge needed when time is invested at the outset.
In these chapters we will cover:
- Chapter 1 – How to produce your Business Strategy for your new medical practice
- Chapter 2 – How to set up your new medical practice as a company
- Chapter 3 – How to create your Marketing strategy for your medical practice
- Chapter 4 – How to choose your Clinic Location
- Chapter 5 – How to invoice your patients in your private practice
- Chapter 6 – How to handle your Medico-legal responsibilities in your private practice
Register to join the Designated Community to find out and read more…….
Invoicing and credit control in private practice can be a time-consuming task, but it is essential for obvious reasons, and yet it is the area of practice management that is most often overlooked.
Doctors and medical secretaries are quite rightly highly focused on delivering the highest quality patient care, and therefore billing patients and collecting the money owed becomes the lowest priority. It is not natural for a doctor to switch conversations with a patient from their symptoms and care plan to a discussion about invoices. Likewise, a medical secretary has often chosen to work in the field of healthcare due to a desire to care for patients and is less comfortable handling the billing side and chasing money. Private consultants can sometimes struggle with the contrast between private practice and working for the NHS and it can feel uncomfortable charging for your medical services after years of NHS work, which is ‘free’ to patients.
In this article we cover:
- Systems and processes
- Insurance shortfalls
- Invoicing and Reconciliation
- Credit control process
- In-house billing and collection
- Outsourcing invoicing
If you’re looking to establish an excellent invoicing and credit control function for your practice read more…