Last month we were at Best Practice conference in Birmingham and having a jolly good time until something really annoying happened.
We’d spent a lot of effort on our stand and if you’ve ever done these events you’ll know the few square metres cost £ thousands, never mind the little table and bar stools which are more to rent for the two days than they would be to buy.
We were dead opposite a mini theatre where every hour someone would roll up, no doubt having paid more £ thousands, to do their presentation on the latest dermatological cream or ear inspection widget. They’d pull in a couple of dozen delegates, grateful for the chance to sit down and fiddle with their devices.
Then all of a sudden we find custom has dried up and we are looking at the backs of a huge audience, filling all the chairs and spilling into the space around our stand. Everyone rapt.
The title: “How to Run a More Profitable Practice”
Sorry I have no idea what he was on about, I couldn’t see over the crowd, but he was one of the small army of advisors which serve general practice.
They are the accountants, solicitors, lenders, financial advisers and so on who make their crust knowing the many little levers of profit which independent contractors can play on to their hearts’ content. Good luck to them.
What amuses me is that when we ask GPs what are their priorities in undertaking change, 93% of them put “money” as the lowest (out of 5) of their concerns. Haha.
What amazes me is that these same GPs getting advice on how to reclaim VAT on rubber gloves are not even thinking about the dominant cost in their businesses, which is of course the GPs – their own time, their salarieds and especially their locums’ time.
The main cost of meeting patient demand is GP time. (by the way, this is why “GP at Scale” is doomed to have precious little effect on drawings. It’s no more efficient for consultations, and possibly worse because of lost continuity)
Therefore the best way to be more profitable is for the GPs to be more efficient. (I’m not including the option to turn patients away. No matter how much it happens, it’s plain wrong).
Bluntly, with askmyGP we enable GPs to be far more efficient in dealing with patient demand. How much, how fast, how that is balanced between fewer sessions, finishing earlier, running more patients or giving a better service, all those factors vary.
Just to get a sense of how that works out, watch our new three minute video, the Burnbrae story. Dr Sue Arnott is so cool and calm, as a full time single hander with her team running 5,000 patients.
You do the maths.
Harry Longman
PS we’ve had a tremendous response from GPs signing up to the Digital Triage Experienceeven before we put it on the website, but click the link and we’ll create yours. You will make your own triage decisions on 50 cases within about 15 minutes, and see why this is the greatest lever on profit you’ll ever find.
How to run a more profitable practice
Last month we were at Best Practice conference in Birmingham and having a jolly good time until something really annoying happened.
We’d spent a lot of effort on our stand and if you’ve ever done these events you’ll know the few square metres cost £ thousands, never mind the little table and bar stools which are more to rent for the two days than they would be to buy.
We were dead opposite a mini theatre where every hour someone would roll up, no doubt having paid more £ thousands, to do their presentation on the latest dermatological cream or ear inspection widget. They’d pull in a couple of dozen delegates, grateful for the chance to sit down and fiddle with their devices.
Then all of a sudden we find custom has dried up and we are looking at the backs of a huge audience, filling all the chairs and spilling into the space around our stand. Everyone rapt.
The title: “How to Run a More Profitable Practice”
Sorry I have no idea what he was on about, I couldn’t see over the crowd, but he was one of the small army of advisors which serve general practice.
They are the accountants, solicitors, lenders, financial advisers and so on who make their crust knowing the many little levers of profit which independent contractors can play on to their hearts’ content. Good luck to them.
What amuses me is that when we ask GPs what are their priorities in undertaking change, 93% of them put “money” as the lowest (out of 5) of their concerns. Haha.
What amazes me is that these same GPs getting advice on how to reclaim VAT on rubber gloves are not even thinking about the dominant cost in their businesses, which is of course the GPs – their own time, their salarieds and especially their locums’ time.
The main cost of meeting patient demand is GP time. (by the way, this is why “GP at Scale” is doomed to have precious little effect on drawings. It’s no more efficient for consultations, and possibly worse because of lost continuity)
Therefore the best way to be more profitable is for the GPs to be more efficient. (I’m not including the option to turn patients away. No matter how much it happens, it’s plain wrong).
Bluntly, with askmyGP we enable GPs to be far more efficient in dealing with patient demand. How much, how fast, how that is balanced between fewer sessions, finishing earlier, running more patients or giving a better service, all those factors vary.
Just to get a sense of how that works out, watch our new three minute video, the Burnbrae story. Dr Sue Arnott is so cool and calm, as a full time single hander with her team running 5,000 patients.
You do the maths.
Harry Longman
PS we’ve had a tremendous response from GPs signing up to the Digital Triage Experience even before we put it on the website, but click the link and we’ll create yours. You will make your own triage decisions on 50 cases within about 15 minutes, and see why this is the greatest lever on profit you’ll ever find.
What you can read next
What’s happening to GP demand?
The NHS App and the toenail test
Surfing the demand wave