Smooth the path to your door
Gaining and retaining clients is a key challenge for most independent practitioners and private practices. Stephanie Vaughan-Jones shares three simple steps clinics can take to ensure they are not unnecessarily losing new and existing business opportunities. A keynote speaker I heard at a recent conference likened healthcare practices to a bucket. A leaky bucket, […]
Virtual practice
Attracting patients through your website Boost your patients’ experience! Grant Brookes sets out some effective ways of using technology and your online presence to make this happen. Each individual patient’s experience is much more than the time they spend in a doctor’s office. Their experience may be strongly influenced by how they feel after their face-to-face […]
Lagging behind in your office work?
If more doctors reviewed their incomes, it would show them it’s time to find new ways of running their private practice because their business efficiency is no longer what it was. Garry Chapman reports. Running a practice in private medicine even only a decade ago was relatively simple. Of course, back then you would have […]
Check your finances now to relax later on
With the commencement of the new tax year in the next few weeks and spring almost upon us, it is a great time to consider your finances for the year ahead. Ian Tongue considers some of the key areas you should consider when reviewing your finances. Independent practitioners face an ever-changing world of pensions and taxation […]
Volante versus Vantage
Independent Practitioner Today’s motoring correspondent Dr Tony Rimmer becomes ‘Double-O Doc’ for the day as he puts a couple of Aston Martins through their paces. In the public’s perception, London’s Harley Street enclave is synonymous with high class and successful independent medical practice. But in truth, many private clinics and businesses there have, over the […]
A plan that will weather the storm
So what are you saving for? Patrick Convey explains why this decision will help shape your best course of action. Every year, the ‘basket’ of goods used to calculate the Consumer Price Index rate of inflation shows how our collective lifestyle has evolved. Last year, we saw the arrival of women’s gym leggings, raspberries, GoPro […]
When a patient threatens harm
Business Dilemmas Dr Kathryn Leask advises a private GP on what to do when a patient threatens violence Dilemma 1 Can I tell police about patient? Q I am a private GP and have been seeing a patient who has a number of minor medical problems. He has also suffered with depression […]
Tidy up your admin
Susan Hutter sets out some important areas that many established independent practitioners would benefit from brushing up on in the next financial year. Scrutinise your practice overheads costs Looking at the costs of running your practice is often pushed to the back of the queue in the life of a busy private doctor. But many practices, […]
A PPU market that’s ripe for developing
The North-east is our stop-off this month in Philip Housden’s tour of NHS private patient units (PPUs). This month, we review private patient revenue growth for eight – soon to be seven – NHS acute trusts across the North-east region covering the conurbations of Tyne and Wear and counties of Durham and Northumbria. The figures […]
Market reforms
Tracing Our Roots Where we are today in private healthcare owes much to the development of the NHS. Dr Ellen Welch presents some more of the key milestones down its 70 years. 1980s 1980 MRI scans are introduced providing detailed information about the soft tissues of the body by using a combination of magnetism and […]