In Episode 86, Gerda looks at one of the big decisions you’ll face when building a group private practice: Choosing your Business Model.

There are plenty of options, and plenty of opinions about which one is ‘the best’, but what works for someone else’s practice might not be the right fit for yours. 

So, how do you work out what actually makes sense for YOU?

In this episode, Gerda breaks down the 4 main business models used within Australian allied health private practices, including the key differences and considerations of each. She also shares how her own model has changed over the years, what she’s learned along the way, and why it’s important for your business model to be built around your vision for your business.

In this episode, you will learn (among others):

• The 4 main business models used in allied health private practice.
• The key differences between each model.
• Factors to consider when choosing the right business model for you.
• Why it’s important to review your business model as your practice grows.

Who this episode is for:
✔️ Practice owners needing to decide which business model is right for them.
✔️ Business owners considering changing or reviewing their current model.
✔️ Practice owners who want to build a sustainable, profitable and self-running practice.

Tune in for a practical conversation about choosing the right model for your business, so you can put the foundations in place for a sustainable and future-proofed practice.

Here to help you build a practice you can’t stop smiling about 😍

The 2-Day In-Person 2026 Private Practice Business Intensive

For all the details or to get your ticket CLICK HERE.

Want Gerda’s Help with your Business?

Gerda helps allied health group practice owners go from overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid to fully empowered and financially thriving. If this is you, then make today the day you reach out. Complete this super short Triage Form here bit.ly/triageformpps and Gerda will personally reach out to you.

Here to help you build a practice you can’t stop smiling about 🙂

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 Well hello there passionate private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 86. 

Today, I want to talk to you about Finding the RIGHT Business Model for your Group Private Practice. This is actually a question I get asked quite a lot, and recently it came up again, and this was actually at my Private Practice Business Intensive that I ran in August. Every day over the course of those two days, we finished the day with an Expert Panel session, and this is one of the questions that somebody in the room asked me. They asked me, “Gerda, what is the best business model for group practice owners?” I really appreciated the opportunity to answer it there. And I thought, “You know what? This will be a great podcast episode as well,” because this is a really important question. Because your business model is really the foundation, the scaffolding, the most important structural part of your business. So you most certainly need to know which business model is going to work for you. 

I do hope that you’ve noted in the title, that the title says finding the RIGHT business model. So people normally ask me, “Which is the best business model?” But I don’t really think there is a best business model. I think there only is the right business model for you, the vision you have for your practice, and for what you want to achieve. That is the RIGHT business model, which is why it’s so important that you give this decision the attention it deserves. It’s not about speaking to 10 other practice owners and asking them, “What’s your business model?” And then doing what they say they are doing. That’s not going to give you the results that you want. You need to start with your vision for your practice. 

But let’s start by just doing a big picture overview of the various business models within private practice, and I’m pretty sure you know what all of these are. But I know sometimes I have people that also listen to the podcast that aren’t practice owners as yet, and they might be looking at starting a group practice. Or perhaps they are solo practice owners and they are currently just operating as a sole trader, and they might be starting to think about getting a clinician on board and needing to make a decision as to what the business model is going to be that I’m going to follow and implement in my practice, so here with the four main business models within Australian Allied Health Private Practice. 

The Employment Model 

The first most obvious one is, of course, employment. So this is where you employ your team, and we’re going to talk mostly about clinicians today, right, where you employ your clinical team as an actual employee, whether that is full-time or part-time permanent, or on a casual basis. In Australia, nine out of 10 times, if you are in private practice, the award that you will be employing them under is the Health Professionals and Support Services Award. So obviously, when somebody is an employee, you need to follow the award, you need to follow the National Employment Standards, all the fair work rules and regulations, all of that important stuff.  So that is your employment model. 

That, of course, is also where you pay somebody an ongoing set wage week to week or fortnight to fortnight. You’re paying them super. They’ve got leave entitlements and lots of other entitlements. So that is employment in a nutshell. 

The Independent Contractor Model 

The second one is what is generally referred to as Independent Contracting or the Contractor Model. So this is where your clinicians aren’t employees. You have contracted them to come and do work on your behalf, okay? So maybe you started off as a solo practice owner, you built up a great caseload, but now you’ve got a long wait list, more clients that you can serve, and you’re thinking, “You know what? I really want these clients to also be able to get the help and support they need. Maybe now is the time for me to bring somebody on board and engage them as an independent contractor.” 

This is basically we get this person on board, and they are doing work on behalf of your business, which means that your business will invoice the client, the client pays your business, the contractor then invoices you for services rendered. So that is independent contracting. Now the contractor model has gone through some changes over the last couple of years. If you’ve not listened to episode 44 of this podcast, please go and do it. That episode is called A Crash Course in the New Contractor Arrangements, because in 2024, contracting has fundamentally changed, and as a result, your independent contractor model needed to have changed with the legislative changes.  If you are still doing things in exactly the same way that you did it pre-2024, then you need to stop listening to this episode and go and listen to episode 44 right now, and then I want you to come back and restart listening to this one. But that is independent contracting. 

The Services & Facilities Model 

Then the third type of business model is the services/facilities model, and that model at its most basic format is a room rental model. So room is facilities, and that is the most basic facility where somebody rents a room from you, and then you add services on top of that, which might be a reception service, a billing service, a marketing service, insert what other service you might want to insert there. 

In this model, your business, if you were the initial person that started the business and you’ve gone, “You know what? I don’t want to employ, I don’t want to take on independent contractors, but I want to have other people working in my practice with me, but I want them to do their own thing,” then this is probably the best model to go for. This is where the client generally pays the clinician directly. And I like to refer to these clinicians as your business associates. A lot of people just use contractors as well, which then makes it very messy, because now we don’t know what we’re talking about. Are they an independent contractor, or are they on a services facilities arrangement? 

I like to have different terms here, and for the people here in this third model, I refer to them as business associates, because with independent contracting, there’s a business to business relationship, And again, with this one, there’s a business to business relationship, but the client versus service provider has swapped over. So in independent contracting, I am the client as the business owner, and my independent contractor is providing a service to my business, and hence they invoice me and I pay them. 

When we’re talking about the services facilities model, that business to business client dynamic has swapped because now me, If I’m the business owner, I am now providing room and services to this business associate, so I am invoicing the business associate for services rendered, for rooms provided. Can you see? So I am now the service provider, and the business associate is now my business client. So it’s a really important shift in who is the actual client in the business to business relationship. So when you think about it, that’s a significant difference from independent contracting as well as from employment. 

In some instances, I will add yes, that service could include the client paying the clinical fees to the business, and the business keeping that money in a holding account almost like a trust account as lawyers would do, you know, when you’re buying a house and then that money is paid out to the business associate. So I just want to say that people do the services & facilities model in various different ways, shapes, and forms. If you are interested in watching a more descriptive difference between independent contracting and services facilities model, I will include a link in the show notes of this podcast, and you can go and find it in here. It’s a nine-minute recorded video where I take you through the fundamental differences between those two, and it has slides, which makes it much easier to explain. So I definitely encourage you to go and watch that. So that’s the third model. 

The Hybrid Model

Then the fourth model is maybe not a real model, but I’ve made this one up, and that’s what I call the hybrid model, and that is just because it is very, very common in our industry for a group practice to have more than one model. Even my own practice has more than one model. So in my practice, our core model, so the main model that we have, is an employment model. So our clinical employees are our core team, and I look at them as planet Earth. But around them, I have my independent contractors, so I see them as the satellites that are orbiting Earth. So the independent contractors are orbiting my employed team because as a business, I’m going to ensure that my employed clinical team is fully booked, right? They are my number one priority. 

But because we’re really good at marketing, we’ve got a great brand, a great reputation, and when my clinical team is full, I still want to be able to service clients being referred to us. And in that instance, I then pass those clients on to the independent contractors that deliver the services on behalf of my business, and obviously, those independent contractors, they don’t have any guarantee of ongoing work from my business. Okay, so that’s how we do it, and I call that a hybrid model because there’s basically two options for clinicians that want to come and work with us. 

Now, some people might combine employment with services facilities. Some people might combine, to a lesser extent I will say, contracting and service and facilities. From my experience, the majority of people when they have a hybrid model, it’s either employment plus one of the other two. I would be very reluctant to have three models at my practice. If I were to do that, if it was employment plus independent contracting, I probably… I would not do services. I am very happy to add just room rental as the third option, but I wouldn’t add services to it because it will dilute the services that my admin team is already providing to employees and to independent contractors, and you need to remember, that it is your legal responsibility to manage your employees, your independent contractors, and your business associates in different ways. You cannot treat them all the same. 

You might want to. Far out, I want to, right? I want us all to be a happy work family doing social things together, having the same training, having the same peer supervision and group supervision sessions, but we’re not allowed to. Because if you do that, that’s when you’re going to land into trouble with the ATO. That’s the risk. So it is so important, and I want to really emphasise it, that I know your heart is in such a great place when you want to treat all of your clinicians that’s engaged on various different models equally, but you freaking can’t. Because if you do, you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot, and that might lead to you needing to close your business because the penalties – they are immense. You do not want to risk it, and do not think that you’re going to be the one to get away with it. It is not worth it. 

So by now we know that there’s no best model, and it is the right model. We’ve briefly spoken about the four business model options that we have. I want to be clear here, and this is why I say there’s no best model, because all these models work. They are all profitable when done right. They all also have a level of risk. Not one of them is risk-free. Any of them can go astray at any point in time, especially when you don’t understand the model, especially when the other person on the other end of the model doesn’t understand the model, and if you’ve not operationalised that model properly. If you’ve not done those things, then it can and most probably will go astray, and then you’re going to have to learn the hard way. I’m guessing the question that you have in your head right now is, “Well, how do I know? How do I know which is the right business model for my group practice, Gerda?” 

Factors when Choosing the Right Business Model for You 

I’m going to share with you a couple of things that I want you to reflect on, because the thing is this, it really matters making this choice, and it matters because you want to choose the business model that is right for you based on your vision that you have for your business. Now, if you’re anything like me, you became an allied health professional because you wanted to help people, right? I want to tell people I’m a psychologist, that’s what I do. When I moved from solo practice owner to group practice owner, it’s because I still had the exact same vision, I wanted to help people, but I wanted to help more people. I wanted to help more people in better and more effective ways. And in order for me to do that, I had to freaking clone myself. And unfortunately, cloning ourselves is not available to us just as yet. So what do you do then? You hire clinicians. 

When you’d make that decision to move from solo practice owner to group practice owner, you are taking a really big step, and when you do that and you make that decision and you take that step, you are taking on board a shit ton of extra responsibility. And we do that because that drive, that desire, that vision to increase our impact is so big, is so strong, right? Just imagine as a helping professional thinking, “I can actually 10 times my impact by growing my clinical team.” And that’s when you jump in with both feet. That is what gives you the courage to take that leap and start your group practice. So the vision is still there. It’s helping people. It’s making a difference in people’s lives. 

At my practice, we talk about helping people live the life they deserve. It was my vision, and it’s still the vision of the practice and everybody that is there. But how we get to achieving that vision will look different depending on your business model of choice. So it’s about going, “Alright, when I start a group practice, it’s like I’m stopping my bus at the bus stop and I’m letting people on board. I’m letting people in, which is my clinicians, and we’re going to start this arduous journey towards achieving this vision. This journey is going to have ups and downs, but we’re going to be together on this bus. What do I want this bus to feel like? This group of people on the bus, how are we going to work together? How are we going to relate to one another?” And depending on your business model, it’s going to be different. But you need to think about this, right? So if you are a person and you’ve got clinicians and what is important to you is to really have a team culture where people are really connected, where they are supported. Then you probably need to lean towards an employment model. Doesn’t mean you can’t be supportive when you’ve got independent contractors, but it’s a different type of support. It’s a different level of support. 

The word culture to me means something very different in an employee model versus an independent contractor model versus a services and facilities model, and when you’ve got a hybrid model, it becomes even more tricky. Because yes, there’s going to be a culture, and culture creates itself if you do not actively create it, but the manner in which you’re going to work on creating that culture needs to look differently based on your model. Because if you don’t, you might be treating an independent contractor like an employee, or you might be treating an employee like an independent contractor, or you might be treating a business associate like an independent contractor, and you shouldn’t be doing that. That is where we land into trouble. 

Also, for example, if you think about if you are somebody that’s really passionate about supporting new grads and early career psychologists or allied health professionals, then you probably need to lean towards an employment model. Because new grads, they aren’t ready to be independent contractors, even if they think they are. I’m sorry. I’m telling you now. I learned this the hard way. They’re not, okay. Because the moment you become fully registered, there’s so much you need to learn, and private practice is a steep learning curve. And being an independent contractor or just renting a room or having a services and facilities agreement with a practice owner, this is you running your own business. 

Now you need to learn this whole new skill set of being a business whilst developing your clinical skill set. It’s really tricky, and it’s bound to lead to burnout. It’s bound to lead to feelings of failure, to dropping the ball, to frustrations, both amongst them and the practice owner, and I’m generalising here, right? I’m going to admit that because there’s always exceptions. There is always the exception. But generally speaking, that is what happens.  So if you want to be like a ‘teaching clinic’ and you want to really train up and welcome into the industry and profession new grads, then I’m going to probably suggest that they should be employed, so that you can offer them that support, that individual support that they’re going to need, that handholding in order for them to have a supportive entry into this profession we all love so much. 

Something else you need to consider is what level of control do you want, okay? If you are somebody … and this is not bad control necessarily, right? Control can be seen very negatively, but control can have a lot of positives as well, and If you want to tightly control how work is done within your practice, then again, you are probably better suited to an employee model. If you are going, “You know what? I worked so freaking hard to build my reputation, I want to make sure that everything is up to standard. I want to check everything, I want to check every letter, every report,” I don’t recommend those things, right? Because you’re going to burn out pretty quickly because there’s only so many hours in the freaking day. But if you want a high level of control, and you want to specify, “This is our policies, our processes, our procedures, and I expect my clinical team to adhere to these processes,” then you are more suited to an employee model.  Because with employees, you can tell them what to do, and you can tell them how to do it, and you should do both of those things, okay? Tell them what to do and how to do it.  If you’ve got an independent contractor model, you can tell them what to do because, like, you’re paying them to do the what, but you cannot tell them how to do it. You need to be okay with letting them do it their way. 

Now, of course, you can interview them really well before you give them a contract to make sure that you’re across the how, okay? But once you take them on board, they need to do the how. That’s up to them. In a services and facilities model, you can’t tell them what to do or how to do it. They are telling you what to do and how to do it because you are now working for them. Now, let’s be honest, a lot of particularly psychologists, because I work mostly with psychologists that are part of this model, they will just tell the business owner, “Well, I don’t really know,” or, “I don’t really have a policy on how I want to manage my cancellations. Can you just do it for me?” Or, “I don’t really know how I want to follow up inactive clients. Can you just take care of that for me?” That happens all the time, and if you think about it, you know, people are so scared of sham contracting, but that’s a bit of a sham in and of itself as well. 

Unless, of course, you have thought this through and you’ve got, “Hmm, maybe what I’ll include in the services and facilities agreement is that I’m going to give them business coaching and mentoring and teach them how to do this shit.” You really then need to… If you’re going to let them use your policies and processes, they should pay for that as well. I believe the legal term for this is to have a licensing agreement within your contract with your business associate where you license out your intellectual property to them, so your policy, so that they are allowed to use it. But this is a lawyer conversation. 

So to emphasise, if you want to do this model or any other model for that matter, you need to follow the letter of the law otherwise, it’s just another level of sham. And, I say all of this, and let me just preface this here, I’m not a lawyer. Okay? This is not legal advice, but this is where I’ve seen people land into trouble. I have spoken to my own lawyer many, many times over. Every time there’s new legislation, I do a deep dive. But I’m still not a lawyer, and I cannot give you legal advice. I can only flag things for you to consider, and this is what I’m doing here. I’m flagging all this stuff. Have you thought this through? Have you aligned the actions that you take on a daily basis at the practice, the decisions you make, have you aligned that to the model of choice? Because it’s very easy to slip. It’s very easy to say yes to something that you should be saying no to because you’re a nice person, because you want to be supportive, because you want people to feel included. 

And before you know it you are way off course, and then it just takes one person, one person to get the shits with you and things start crumbling, falling apart. And a fair work claim, an ATO audit, those things take months, and it takes an incredible amount of your emotional energy, not to even talk about money, to defend. When you’ve done the right thing – you know, sometimes people still take you and report you to those government organisations – but if you’ve done the right thing, you’ll be fine. But if you’ve not done the right thing – even though it wasn’t intentional, even if you thought you were doing all the right stuff – but if you weren’t, that’s what lands you into trouble, and that’s a really expensive learning that I want you to avoid, so you need to get your head around these things. 

I also just want to take a minute to address the bad rap that independent contracting is currently getting. It’s like people are running scared of independent contracting right now.  There is a lot of fear-mongering around independent contracting. And I want to say this; there’s nothing wrong with having independent contractors. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend making that your one and only model for various reasons. But there’s nothing wrong about having independent contractors, if you know how to do it and you’re doing it right. So do not let fear lead you to making these decisions. If you’re fearful about it, it is about going, “Okay, let’s assess the risk.” And when you are assessing the risk, make sure that you’re talking to somebody that understands the law first and foremost, and the legalities around it, the implications, the things you must and mustn’t do. But also somebody that understands the realities of running an allied health group private practice within Australia, because you need to look at it through all those different filters. 

So if you’ve got an independent contracting arrangement and you’ve been hearing all this talk in Facebook groups of people jumping ship and going over to the services facilities model, what I want to say is don’t freak out. Do not panic. Really think about it, because you’ve got a lot of options. You can do employment. You can stick to independent contracting, making sure you’ve listened to episode 44, which again, isn’t legal advice, but considered all the things around it, okay, or you can move to services facilities, making sure that you understand that you are now the service provider and the clinicians are now your clients. You most certainly can do all of that. Remember, there is no right or wrong model. It is the right model for your business, maybe what you want to do is have a bit of a hybrid model in the meantime. 

I think what we need to stop doing is just freaking the hell out when something starts getting a bad rap. You want to understand why, what’s the reason for it, and how does that impact what’s happening at my practice? Is it because I don’t know enough? Let’s go and educate myself. Let’s make the right decision, and it doesn’t have to be made tomorrow. Sometimes you need to slow things down in order to speed up the outcome. You can’t make knee-jerk decisions when it comes to your model, because change management is a big deal. And when you change your model, which you can do, I help people do this all the time, but when you change your model, you need to engage in good change management because otherwise your people will leave just because things are changing, because it’s unfamiliar, because it’s different. You need to take them on that journey with you. Very, very important. 

Voted ‘The Best’ 

Now I’m thinking what I might do is share with you a little, little tidbit that I think you will appreciate. I think it was in August 2022, I ran a group panel discussion within my Private Practice Success Academy, and it basically was on the topic of employment versus contracting, the pros and cons, which one is the best? And I know this whole episode has been about there’s no the best, there’s only the right. Okay. All right. Yeah. But we went there because people wanted to know what are the pros, what are the cons? Help us, Gerda, to make a decision. And I thought, “Okay, this is The Academy. I’m in charge here. We can go there because I can manage and control and contain the conversation.” But it wasn’t just me. We had four practice owners on the panel. We had people there on the Zoom that could chime in at any time. I took all the input that people were giving me, and I drew up a pros and cons list, and then we voted. I wonder, what do you think? Which model came out on top? So this was August 2022. You know, the date may or may not be important, so consider that. But which one do you think came out on top, when we looked at all the pros and cons?

The outcome of that discussion was that the independent contractor model was voted ‘the best.’ It’s not the best, it’s about the right model for you. But based on that discussion, based on the pros and cons that people were considering, each person bringing up their own pros and cons, overall, independent contracting was the preferred model of engaging clinical team members. Now, very important, that date was very, very important because that was August 2022. The very important context here is this was just post-COVID, okay? There were very particular market forces at play at the time when we ran this panel discussion. So if you can imagine, if you were a group practice owner casting your mind back to COVID, particularly if you had a group practice in Melbourne, the southern states where there were a lot of lockdowns, you would know that there were very unique challenges that you had to manage and go through as a group practice owner. 

Yes, there was a lot of demand for mental health services, but it was also hard for people to access that. There was a period of time where converting to telehealth was really challenging. So there most certainly was a drop in client attendance for quite some time. So the demand was there, but getting people to move to telehealth was challenging, particularly for the psychology industry where people are used to doing things in person. When clients drop off, all of a sudden we need to go into telehealth, practices might need it to be closed. Although we were seen as essential services, there were a lot of state-dependent rules and regulations.

In short, what this all meant was that a lot of group practice owners that had an employee model had to dip into any cash savings that they had within their business in order to keep their team members employed. A lot of group practice owners with an employee model, some also with a contracting model, but predominantly an employee model because they didn’t want to make team members redundant, they wanted to make sure that people still get the income that they were used to, and had to start incurring tax debt. They couldn’t pay their tax, so they had to go on payment plans. A lot of them to this day, I can tell you, are still struggling to pay off debt. Not only tax debt, but also at that time, the government released what was called, I think, Australian Small Business Relief Debt. I know in Queensland, for example, it’s what’s known as a QRIDA business loan. What it basically meant is that the government assessed each business that would apply, and you would normally apply through your accountant, and depending on that assessment, you would be approved X amount of money that you could loan from the government, and you would then need to pay that back over 10 years. Yes, at a very low interest rate, but you still need to repay it. And the government did that in order to support small businesses so that we could keep our doors open. 

I can tell you there’s a shit ton of practice owners out there that are currently in that 10-year period of paying back those loans. It was people with employee models that felt that they had very little choice, that they just had to get that loan. And yes, some with independent contractors still did it because the thing is, if you’ve got independent contractors or even room and services facilities, you know, you don’t have to, let’s say, pay your independent contractors if they aren’t seeing clients, but you still have rent. You still need to pay for your electricity. You still have ongoing costs. You might still have an admin team that’s doing the billing. Similarly if you’ve got a services and facilities model, you still have an admin team. If you wanted to keep them employed, you needed to get that money from somewhere, even if there was a decline in client attendance and therefore a decline in revenue coming in.  So that was a really difficult time for business owners to navigate through. 

The short message here is that business owners that had independent contractors found it easier to navigate during the COVID years. Now, obviously, we’re not going to have a COVID every two years or even hopefully every five years, and touch wood, hopefully not every 10 years. But my point is this, that depending on what’s happening out in the environment – whether that is local, national, international – at various times, different models will be better. Not best, just better for that period of time. I want to be clear here, I’m not saying independent contracting is best. I’m just saying based on our discussions at that time, that is what came out on top. 

If I had to redo that in 2026, we will most probably have a different result, which to me just emphasises firstly that there is no best, that’s just the right one for your business. But this really segues into a very important conversation in that whatever you choose your model to be, it needs to be a model that can withstand challenges like this, and that’s part of future-proofing your practice. I’ve done a recent episode, episode 83 called Future-Proof Your Practice, because what got you here won’t get you there. This is part of future-proofing. It’s knowing the risks. It’s knowing that when stuff like that happens, there’s a lot more responsibility when I have employees. 

There’s pros and cons to every model. It’s about going, which model is going to make sense for my business? Which model is going to create and be something that I’m going to be excited to be a part of for the next 5, 10, 15 years? Like I’ve been group practice ownership, next year it will be 20 years. You need to enjoy what you’re doing. And what I will add is, doesn’t mean you can’t change your model, okay. When I started my group practice, my first two clinicians were employees, and then after the two of them, I went totally just into independent contracting, and it was probably like for a good five years that I only had independent contractors. And then I started taking on employees again, and then slowly but surely, my employees became more and more, and it has now grown into this model we have today where it’s predominantly an employee model with contractors. Now, it might change. I reserve the right to change to any model I want to, but I will do it with consideration for the risks, the legal requirements, the impact on my team, the impact on the clients and the communities we serve, and once I’ve made that decision, I will roll it out in a supportive manner to all the people involved.

I would love for you to reflect on this… How do you feel about your model today? Do you feel that it is the right model for your practice? How confident are you that you have operationalised your model appropriately? Because the thing is, a practice without a long-term sustainable business model only perpetuates that hamster wheel of practice owner overwhelm, and that will ultimately lead to burnout, so you need to know that you’ve operationalized it well. What I generally tend to do when somebody joins me in my Private Practice Success Academy, I like to take each and every practice owner that I start working through what I call a business model upgrade. It’s called an upgrade, not a change. It’s just upgrading. It’s looking at what you’ve got already and going, “Have you established and operationalised this to the utmost in the most efficient way, in a way for this to achieve the outcomes that you want it to achieve for you?” It’s why I say, we’re doing an upgrade. But we start by first doing a business model health check, so we look underneath the hood, what is happening here? How have you set it up? What’s working, what’s not? And then I make recommendations around how we can upgrade your model at your practice. There will even be individual practice differences in how we upgrade that specific business model. Because even though there’s certain fundamentals that every private practice has making them the same, each business is different. 

You know, there’s no one-size-fit-all cookie cutter approach to growing your group practice, so it’s really important that we look at your business model, and then upgrade it according to what’s going to lead to a model that’s going to allow you to hopefully build a Self-Running Practice. Because if your model isn’t optimised and operationalised as it should be, you’re never going to have a Self-Running Practice. It just is what it is, I’m sorry to tell you. So it starts with the model. And of course, once you’ve chosen your model, part of this business model upgrade is to check out the financial arrangements, the margins, because unfortunately, money, whether you like it or not, is the resource that allows you to keep your doors open, to pay your team, your clinical team, your admin team, to allow you to maybe start a second location, to allow you to buy a new IQ test, new resources to support your team, to give the location a fresh lick of paint, right? Money is an important resource, and your business model allows you to achieve the financial targets that you need to achieve in order to run a long-term, sustainable, profitable, Self-Running Practice.

Alrighty, we’re going to leave it at that. Now, I will say, if you think that your business model needs a business model health check, or if you think that your business model needs a business model upgrade, please feel free to reach out to me. This is what I do. The easiest way to contact me is to go into the show notes, my email is there, so you can email me, or if you want to complete a triage form giving me a bit more information, you can do that as well. I personally check all my emails, I personally check that triage form, and I personally reply to you. No AI responses from me. It is all Gerda.

Thank you for tuning in, and remember that I’m here to help you build a practice you can’t stop smiling about 😊