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I'm considering opening up a small clinic in melbourne but I'm not sure where the best location would be. I'm thinking of leasing a small room in a GP clinic. If any other more experienced pods could offer advice on the following questions that would be much appreciated;

1) What are the advantages or disadvantages of working in a GP clinic?

2) What is the normal rent a GP clinic (or other locations) would ask for a single room (i do not require secretarial assistance)

3) What are the key features I'll need to look for in a clinic i lease (i.e. is car parking important etc)

4) Are there any melbourne metro areas that are struggling for supply of podiatrists?

Any other advice would be fantastic as well. Thanks.

Related thread:
Clinic setup questions

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Hi Feetgeek, I rent a room in a medical clinic for 3 sessions a week. If you are starting from scratch, it's probably the only sensible way to start. If you are lucky you may be able to rent a room on a sessional basis (like i do) and share it with a doctor/physio/whoever. This will allow you to start with a couple of sessions and build it from there.

Rent will be between $15-25 an hour depending what you want. If i were you i would push for using the medical receptionists as part of your rent. This means appointments can be taken when you are busy/away and they can do the payment side of the arrangement. I have heard of rent based on turnover, but never really liked the sound of it (So the landlord gets 20-40% of your takings)

Leasing arrangements may involve lawyers or you may be able to create a simple document between you and the landlord on the main points of the lease. Pro's and cons to both obviously.

As for the last question, I'm in Sydney, but i doubt i would be telling you if i did know. If you are keen, do a search for all the pods in an area you are intertested in. Then get some stats on the population of those areas and work out a ratio of pods to population. Should be able to work from that.

Cheers


Tom

Renting a room in a GP's clinic or a medical centre will unfortunately usually limit the number of referrals you will receive from other GP's, and other health professionals if it is a multi-disciplinary med centre.

Though most of your business will come from the yellow pages, then word of mouth, you may be excluding one major referral source. Especially if the next issue of yellow pages won't be distributed for quite a while.

And... unless the clinic you are planning to move into will be as excited as you are, in opening up a practice with them, you will need to advertise heavily in local papers and distribute flyers to get up and running. Don't ever expect them to refer every second patient to you. They will be busy enough with their own practice.

It will take a few to several months to get busy, if you are starting from scratch. But talk to your accountant first !! Find out how much money you need to bring in each week. Including your first anticipated week of only 4 patients and building from there. Be conservative with your estimates of patient load to start with and then every patient over that is a nice extra.

Good luck with your venture and remember out of curtesy to your other local Pods. send out a letter of introduction to not only the Drs, Chiros and Physios etc, but to all the Podiatrists in the area as well. Work as a profession in your area and the Profession will prosper.

Thanks for your advice everybody, much appreciated, FG