How to ensure you get paid

Jane Braithwaite

Invoicing and credit control is a time-consuming task in private practice, but it is essential for obvious reasons. Yet it is the area of practice management that is most often overlooked. Jane Braithwaite reports.

Many doctors and medical secretaries are highly focused on patient care, as they should be of course, and therefore billing and collecting the money becomes the lowest priority.

It is not natural for a doctor to switch conversation with a patient from their symptoms and care plan to payment.

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.

Private consultants can sometimes struggle with the contrast between private practice and working for the NHS. It can be difficult to feel comfortable charging for your medical services after years of NHS work, which is ‘free’ to patients.