Most Australian doctors undertake full-time or part-time private clinical practice as general or specialist practitioners and are thus effectively running a small business. To successfully manage such an enterprise requires knowledge, some skill, and investment of time and energy. For larger medical groups, a practice manager may be employed to undertake some of this work or the task may be allocated to a medical member of the group who has the necessary skills and interest. This chapter is intended to give a broad overview of the tasks involved in establishing and managing a practice and to direct the reader to more detailed sources of information and professional help. It does not attempt to address the management issues specific to the investigative branches of clinical medicine such as radiology, pathology, day procedure centres and the like.

IMPORTANCE OF GOOD PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

Good practice management may appear superficially to be based on self-interest, aimed to maximise income and improve quality of life. While this is of some relevance, good practice management is a prerequisite to good patient care and is in the best interests of patients, as in such a practice appointment systems work, patient records are not misplaced, investigation results are not overlooked, direct-billing errors to Medicare do not occur and patients are guided efficiently to the help and resources they need. As mentioned in Chapter 3, better patient outcomes are achieved where there is good communication and a good patient–doctor relationship is established.