Australian Doctor Australian Doctor 7th September 2018

7 SEPTEMBER 2018 australiandoctor.com.au Australia’s leading independent medical publication Special Report: Surviving complaints Martin Fletcher, CEO of AHPRA Doctors, we’re listening PAGE 15 FROM PAGE 1 Cashed-up corporates on the rise From electronic check-ins to shopping centre clinics, investors are trying new ways to find hidden dollars in general practice. Geir O’Rourke GENERAL practice seems on the cusp of the third wave of corporatisation. We’ve had the chandeliers, grand pianos and mink-covered exami- nation tables off ered by Dr Geoff rey Edelsten; we’ve seen the cut-to-the- bone version typifi ed by the late Dr Ed Bateman’s empire. Now it seems the next generation is here, as investors eye profi t they believe lies beneath a specialty long- starved of Medicare funds. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into the sector in recent years, changing the skyline dominated by Primary Health Care and IPN. Experts are divided over whether the next boom will generate the returns the speculators are hoping for. And doctors themselves are asking whether it will come at the expense of what general practice does best — long-term, continuous relationships with patients. This month, Primary Health Care announced it was seeking $140 mil- lion to fund a wholesale expansion and modernisation of its GP clinics. The company says it intends to recruit some 500 additional GPs over the next three years to bring its full-time equiv- alent GP workforce to 1400 by the end of 2021. It’s an ambitious target, given Pri- mary managed to add just 20 GPs in the last 12 months. But the investors have not held back, pouring $160 mil- lion into the company in the fi rst two days of its push to raise capital. Henry Bateman, son of the late Dr Ed Bateman, also remains in the game, attempting to build his own empire by opening six GP superclinics across three states in the past 18 months. And then there is Dr Sam Prince, a doctor and founder of the Zambrero chain of Mexican restaurants, who gave a keynote speech on entrepre- neurship at the RACGP’s 2016 confer- ence. By the end of this year, his GP franchise start-up Next Practice will have clinics running in prime locations in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. But it is the rise of Myhealth Med- ical Group that is causing the most chatter. Based on a franchise model where the GP practice principal buys a 20-40% stake in a Myhealth clinic, the company has grown from a single practice in a Sydney shopping centre to Australia’s third-biggest GP corpo- rate with 59 branded practices across the country. It has taken 10 years. The company’s founder Dr James Liang says his core business philos- ophy has a lot in common with the movie Yes Man. In the fi lm, the lead character played by Jim Carey answers ‘yes’ to every opportunity that comes his way — no matter the consequences. “We now have clinics in 18 of the 20 biggest shopping centres in Australia and that has all happened because when operators come to me with an off er, I say ‘yes’ and then try to fi gure out how to make it work,” says Dr Liang, a Sydney GP. PAGE 5 Stemming our brain drain Professor Jillian Kril is using donated samples to conduct research on alcohol-related brain damage. But a lack of healthy controls is hampering her efforts. PAGE 6 Preventing payroll pain A recent tax case has important ramifi cations for small to large practices. PAGE 32 Dark arts The midwives college has attracted the ire of critics. PAGE 5