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