New Year, New Opportunities for GP-owned General Practices

Lump the current economic climate and challenges COVID-19 has delivered on top of the pressures of daily business management, and many private general practices across Australia are reeling now we’re in 2021.

Dr Nigel Grebert, General Practitioner at Castle Hill Medical Centre agrees that the added pressure of the pandemic has exasperated the existing issues of GP ownership in what continues to be - in majority - a ‘cottage-industry’, leaving many GPs searching for a better way.

“I see other GPs caught up in the day to day management of their practices, doing things that I think would tear my hair out. Having to look after people’s contracts, human resources, and bookkeeping, not to mention IT,” said Dr Grebert.

Dr Grebert is a GP shareholder, invested in a practice managed by CMH Practice Management. As a result, the practice proactively navigated the pandemic without him losing any sleep.

“For me, handing over the business side of things to professionals means less stress. Earlier in the year, in response to the pandemic, patient numbers dried up. The rosters got shifted, staff were moved from where they weren’t needed to where they were, and the business remained viable. I didn’t have to think about any of that,” said Dr Grebert.

“I tell other GPs who are trying to do it all that they don’t have to,” said Nigel.

“Many want to have the say and ownership but think the only way to do that is to have all the responsibility of the day-to-day business too. Some dedicate a day each week to practice management. That alone could end up costing me $100k a year in billings.”

Dr Grebert said it’s a tragedy that due to these pressures, general practices are being sold to overseas companies where the decisions are made for profit over a good workplace and quality of care.

In 2018, Grattan Institute highlighted that Australia’s overwhelming majority of primary care organisations are small with limited organisational capacity to manage critical issues such as quality assurance, staff and service development, clinical information systems, administrative systems and relationships with specialist services*

CMH Practice Management was created as a business model to mitigate such issues and provide GPs with greater organisational capacity.

CMH Practice Management serves close to 100 general practitioners across a dozen sites with two new medical centres currently in development. Their original sites are acknowledged as being very professional at both a clinical and operational level.

For Dr Grebert, CMH Practice Management is a way that GPs can still own their practice and run it, without being bogged down by the nitty-gritty. “GPs can spend more time doing general practice work, or with their family, or both.”

This year, CMH Practice Management are offering GPs partnership opportunities across several new medical centres currently in development, including Marsden Park, northwest of Sydney (in construction), and Glendale,

15km west of Newcastle CBD and West Gosford, on the Central Coast. Independent VR practitioners are supported by a trusted management team providing an end-to-end service across Operations, Finance, Marketing/ Communications, and IT infrastructure and support.

“Over the years, I’ve personally experienced many benefits of that support,” said Dr Grebert, who says it’s nice to be able to schedule time off with the kids on school holidays and be part of something that has the size to accommodate it.

“If I need to take an afternoon or morning off, I can. When my kids would have a primary school presentation or event, I was able to be there. I gained flexibility in my personal life.”

Perhaps most importantly, the business model allows Nigel to prioritise his patients and spend more time doing what he does best. “I do love what I do. Work is fun for me. I’m glad I am able to hand it over to experts to look after,\ and just focus on the GP side of things. That’s more fun.”

GPs can discover more around this opportunity at cmhpm.com.au/partner-with-us

* 1 https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/906-Mapping-primary-care.pdf