Practice Sustainability - Best Practice News Alert 146

HEALTH & LIFE’S BEST PRACTICE NEWS ALERT CURRENT CIRCULATION: DATE: ISSUE NO:

7023 th 15 June 2007 146

Welcome to Health & Life’s free email newsletter service. Tell a friend that we would be happy to add their email address to the distribution list. This service is to provide Health and Life’s clients and those who attended our presentations with up to date information on key financial and practice management issues that may affect your practice. Please do not use this as a substitute to seeking professional advice.

Writer in charge: Mr David Dahm CPA, BA Acc, FTIA, FFin, FAAPM,GLF.

Practice Sustainability and Best Practice Financial Benchmarking Seminar, plus more.

Introduction – Are you leaving a legacy or a liability?

In this weeks Medical Observer it was reported a survey covering 422 rural GP’s conducted by the South Australian Rural Doctors Workforce Agency that 25% of them will be moving back into the city in the next 4 years. This is good news for urban practices and a major headache for country practices. It was also reported the highest “sign on fee” for a procedural general practitioner is $500,000 has been offered by a NSW country town. For this reason we have developed the series called “Can you find me a doctor?”. In this series we present on practical solutions such as “friendly lock in” arrangements and ways to successfully recruit and retain practitioners from early retirement, practice poachers or for those just seeking to reach a sustainable work life balance.

We are grateful to all our sponsors and host organizations for running this series and we hope to see you soon. More are planned around Australia. We will endeavour to keep you up to date through this broadcast.

Conference and Seminar Diary Dates: 1. Practice Sustainability Symposium – Victorian Divisions of General Practice - Melbourne– see attachment (Victoria) -23rd June 2007 2. Can You Find Me a Doctor? - Practice Sustainability (Tasmania) - 4th August 2007 3. Best Practice Financial Benchmarking (South Australia) – 14th August 2007 4. National AAPM Conference (Tasmania) – AAPM National Conference, Hobart 16 - 19 October 2007 • • •

Pros and Cons of Corporatisation Employment contracts – as simple as black and white Shadow Directorships - “Who’s the boss? Please don’t take it personally!”

See below for further information.

Conference and Seminar Details: 1. Practice Management Symposium – Victorian Divisions of General Practice – (Melbourne) 23rdth June 2007 This presentation is hosted by a consortium of 7 Divisions of General Practice located in Victoria. A detailed flyer is attached.

2. Can You Find Me a Doctor? - Practice Sustainability (Hobart) – 4th August 2007 This presentation is hosted by the Hobart Division of General Practice.

For further information contact: General Practice South Stephanie Jasper Phone: ((03) 6234 4230 Email: sjasper@gpsouth.com.au

3. Best Practice Financial Benchmarking (Adelaide) – 14th August 2007 Presenter: David Dahm Abraham Lincloln once said "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Having problems with finding another doctor or provider? Start worrying about the right things and not the wrong things.

In this seminar we cover issues from succession planning to improving practice performance. We look at both the big picture issues and then zoom down to the micro management issues that affect your practice and what you can do about them now!

Are you working hard trying to doing the right thing or are you doing the thing right?

Would you ever get into a car without a roadmap or destination point? Would you ever put your car into gear with your foot flat on the accelerator without looking outside the window? You may say this would be crazy however most practices operate and run their businesses this way. Few appreciate that the end point of the journey is more important than just how to get there. Most practices don’t really know how they are going unless they compare themselves with their competitors. This session will start to reveal your practices inefficiencies/opportunities and ultimately this will make your practice sustainable in the long run.

The key areas covered include: We will show you which tree to chop, and how your competitors are doing. The good news is we have done the hard bit for you. This session is about identifying your key financial and non-financial performance goals in your practice.

1. What is best practice benchmarking?

2 How do you compare to your competitor? Are you efficient? Where can you improve and how?

3. What are some Key Performance Indicators (“KPI’s”) to aim for e.g revenue,expense,profit per patient ratios through to debt collection targets.

4. “Practice Dashboard” Reports – a simple annual and monthly 2 page bullet point report to help you keep track of your practice’s goals.

5. How can you link financial performance to your pay packet!

For further information contact: AAPM SA Secretariat Kim Monu Phone: (08) 8342 4548 Email: sa@aapm.org.au

4. The Australian Association of Practice Managers National Conference (Hobart) 10th -14th October 2007 1. Pros and Cons of Corporatisation Presenters: Dr Malcolm Parmenter and David Dahm Dr Malcolm Parmenter is the Managing Director of Independent Practitioner Networkthe largest general practice corporate in Australia. He has agreed to debate with David Dahm on the Pro’s and Cons of corporatisation in Australia. This should be an interesting discussion on the merits and concerns you may have about the corportisation of healthcare in Australia.

2. Employment contracts –as simple as black and white Presenters: David Dahm and Brett McPherson The session is about how to get the best out of employment contracts for both employers and employees whether it is an AWA or not. How to negotiate win win strategies and how to document performance that is objective which recognizes and rewards your employees.

3. Shadow Directorships - “Who’s the boss? Please don’t take it personally!”

Presenter David Dahm Due to popular demand this topic is be presented at the Australian Association of Practice Managers National Conference. As practices move to incorporate their practices under the new industrial laws or operate practices that use corporate trustees, the Corporations Law’s Shadow Director rules may implicate practice managers/spouses and practice staff. Are you a cheque signatory to your practices bank account or do you have your name on practice minutes? What constitute’s a “Shadow Director”? Will you be personally liable? Moving assets into a spouses name may be a great idea but pretty dumb if the same person is also involved in running the practice. What should you do?

Topics covered include: • Duty of care of practice staff – case law and Corporations Law • Be careful - you can be held liable as a shadow director or negligent employee • What steps you can take to protect yourself such as job descriptions, insurance, written approvals, practice policy manuals, systems and procedures etc…

This plus many more exciting topics on modern day practice management issues will be presented in Hobart.

For registration and the provisional conference topics visit www.aapm.org.au or contact the Conference Secretariat on (03) 6224 3773.

Which topics would you like to be covered?

If there is a particular topic that you would like covered in one of our future News Alerts, please email pa@healthandlife.com.au and let us know what it is. We will then endeavor to cover your requested topic.

Do we have your email address?

It is apparent feedback we are receiving that there are persons receiving this regular email who are not on our email list. If you are receiving this email ‘second-hand’ from another source, we would be delighted to receive your email address and we will add you to our list so that you can receive it first-hand on the day that it is sent. This invitation is open to all medical practices. Please send your email address to pa@healthandlife.com.au Do you wish to unsubscribe from our list?

Please email pa@healthandlife.com.au if you wish to be removed from out distribution list

Copyright Notice This email, including any attachments, is for the personal use of the recipient(s) only. Republication and redissemination, including posting to news groups or web pages, is strictly prohibited without the express prior consent of Health & Life Pty Ltd. Disclaimer Notice Health & Life Pty Ltd’s Best Practice News Alert is designed as a comprehensive and up-to-date Accounting and Practice Management news service to alert readers to the latest in practice and related developments affecting the medical, dental and allied profession as they happen. It is published when there is news to report. No responsibility can be accepted for those who act on its content without first consulting us or obtaining specific advice.

Health and Life Pty Ltd Accounting & Practice Management Services.

“Looking after your future” PO Box 8145 Station Arcade, ADELAIDE SA 5000 Telephone

(08) 8415 5400

Fax

(08) 8231 6767

Email:

pa@healthandlife.com.au

Web Site

www.healthandlife.com.au