Private practice as an investor

investment

Can you set up a private practice as an investor?

Could you then hire doctors to work in your practice, where they pay you a percentage per patient?

You would not pay them a wage, whatever they make they can keep, and you take a percentage per patient ?

kdowling

my understanding is that unless you are a pharmacist with a vested interest that anyone can own a GP practice.

not sure about your business model. I suppose it depends if you are buying an existing practice or starting from scratch.
if you are buying an existing practice i imagine you would be better off paying a relatively new graduate a salary and work from the profits.

if you are starting from scratch why would a doctor risk not getting paid as much as a salaried doctor if your business plan was not up to scratch and there were not many patients???

investment

kdowling wrote: »

my understanding is that unless you are a pharmacist with a vested interest that anyone can own a GP practice.

not sure about your business model. I suppose it depends if you are buying an existing practice or starting from scratch.
if you are buying an existing practice i imagine you would be better off paying a relatively new graduate a salary and work from the profits.

if you are starting from scratch why would a doctor risk not getting paid as much as a salaried doctor if your business plan was not up to scratch and there were not many patients???

I see your point, however lets look at it this way.

I would be paying the Insurance, Rent, Bills, Staff, etc
I would be taking the risk away from the G.P and leaving him with no headaches and just a place in which he can come and work and earn big money for himself as a G.P.

kdowling

investment wrote: »

I see your point, however lets look at it this way.

I would be paying the Insurance, Rent, Bills, Staff, etc
I would be taking the risk away from the G.P and leaving him with no headaches and just a place in which he can come and work and earn big money for himself as a G.P.

this is the problem
http://www.imt.ie/features-opinion/2011/05/deregulation-will-cause-rural-gp-shortage.html
"with some younger GPs wanting to work only two days a week for salaries of €120,000"

i think that figure is an exageration but if they can earn that amount of money for 2 days guaranteed why would they want to risk earning less?

on the other hand if the government deregulate GP's any practice can get a medical card contract and there would be no restrictions where a practice can set up so this would be of benefit to any potential investor of a GP practice.

sam34

kdowling wrote: »

this is the problem
http://www.imt.ie/features-opinion/2011/05/deregulation-will-cause-rural-gp-shortage.html
"with some younger GPs wanting to work only two days a week for salaries of €120,000"

i think that figure is an exageration but if they can earn that amount of money for 2 days guaranteed why would they want to risk earning less?

on the other hand if the government deregulate GP's any practice can get a medical card contract and there would be no restrictions where a practice can set up so this would be of benefit to any potential investor of a GP practice.

the quote you put in bold isnt mentioned anywhere in the article you linked

kdowling

sorry!!
meant to link this site http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=13310

RobFowl

TBF to kdowling I've seen that quote in a number of places. While it is unmitigated b*llocks there certainly were up to a year or so ago newly qualified GP's expecting to earn 120k for a 4 day week.
Earning's expectation are becoming more realistic now.
The problem probably resulted from NCHD's with a few years experience who were earning salaries in excess of 100k due to the sheer volume of overtime they were forced to do. It was had coming from that to deing a fully qualified GP who was earning substantially less.
Sam34 would probably confirm that it's similar as a consultant now where senior NCHD's ware getting paid more than consultants (again due to excessive forced overtime).I think all Doctors would prefer a situation where they were paid less as NCHD's but had a shorter and better training scheme.
BTW GP's are earning approx 25% less now than 2 years ago and I believe consultants starting on the new contract are much the same.

WRT the OP's question their value in setting up a practice would be limited by the fact that they could not offer any service commitment and the margins in General practice are not as high as they might imagine. Expect to have to pay a salary or equivalent of a minimum of 70k for a full time GP with employers PRSI of of a further 7k, holiday cover locum costs of probably 8-10k, insurances of about 10k and secretarial costs of approx 30k, rent of 15-35k and misc costs of 20-30k.
If you can find a decent margin in there then go for it .......

drzhivago

investment wrote: »

Can you set up a private practice as an investor?

Could you then hire doctors to work in your practice, where they pay you a percentage per patient?

You would not pay them a wage, whatever they make they can keep, and you take a percentage per patient ?

Might work if you get volume and have diagnostics

Tricky though you would need medical cards to make it work and a GP with medical card list would be much more savvy about their business than a new graduate who has no business experience

You would ned a sweet deal for thses guys to give up their arrangements to come and use your premises and then there would be the issue of them getting rid of theirs in a depressed market

kdowling

drzhivago wrote: »

Might work if you get volume and have diagnostics

what kind of diagnostic equipment would you need?

drzhivago wrote: »

Tricky though you would need medical cards to make it work and a GP with medical card list would be much more savvy about their business than a new graduate who has no business experience

would you have to employ a GP that already has a medical card list?

is it possible for a private practice privately owned to apply for a medical card contract or is it the gp working for the practice that apply's for the contract?