Building your very own medical practice can be a very exciting time, but it also requires a lot of hard work which is why a detailed medical centre business plan is the essential first step in any new set up.
Your medical clinic business plan should outline your short and long term strategy and needs to show a complete understanding of the environment you will be opening your practice in. This demonstrates your planning or organisational skills to key stakeholders and can make an impact on securing finance should you require it.
In order to ensure you have everything covered it is advisable that you engage some specialists in the way of financial planners, legal advisors and accountants in order to make sure all your bases are covered and nothing has been missed.
So what should be included in your medical clinic business plan?
Your Business Profile should include everything about your new clinic, the what, where and why if you will. The following information should be covered in your business plan:
- Your business vision, values and mission
- Location
- Trading Hours
- The services you offer and how they are delivered: in-house/ onsite/ other
- Service fees and your billing model (bulk billed etc)
- Accreditation
Your Business Structure should cover the following points:
- Demonstrate how the business is/will be legally set up and should indicate that you have ongoing legal expertise to ensure the stability of your practice
- Ownership
- Growth flexibility (partnership/unit trust etc.)
- Exit and succession planning
- Legal framework (unit holder agreement etc)
Your Marketing Strategy should outline everything from advertising to branding. It should cover how you are going to get patients through your door and what your plans are in order to keep people coming back and referring you to others.
Your Marketing Strategy should include the following:
- Practice name
- Practice brand
- Logo
- Target market (depending on your location and area demographic who are you trying to target)
- Unique value proposition, how you will solve your patients needs
- Website
- Advertising and promotions
- Launch plan
- Post-launch plan
- Marketing goals
The Competitive Analysis section of your medical clinic business plan is to demonstrate your understanding of the environment you will be opening your new medical clinic in. You should also highlight how your clinic is going to be different to the others and why patients will choose to come to you over any competitors in the area.
- Opportunity assessment
- Demographic review
- Supply vs demand
- Direct competition list (include competitors location, prices and offered services)
- Outline your competitive advantage
The Location section of your medical clinic business plan needs to outline either the location you have already secured or location that you would ideally like to secure in the future.
If you have already secured a location you may want to include any floor plans etc. in the appendices of your business plan.
You should also include the following (where possible):
- Address
- Location description
- Buy/ Build/ Lease (what have you already done or what are your intentions)
- Sub letting opportunities – are there any opportunities for allied services i.e. pathology, pharmacy etc.
- Fit out and design plans including costs where possible
- Parking including staff, patients and practitioners
- Access / what types of public transport are close by, foot traffic, disabled, ambulance
- Area demographics
- Area based future developments
- Area competition
The purpose of the Financial Planning section of your medical clinic business plan is to show that your business is financially viable. It is wise to include comprehensive outlines and numbers for the following:
- Budgets: setup and operating costs
- Funding needed/ secured and sources
- Profit and loss modelling
- Tax planning
This section will outline your strategies in order to attract and retain staff members and practitioners and also list the key staff you already have on your team
Be sure to cover:
- How you will attract new staff members and practitioners
- Practitioner remuneration (wages vs contractor and billing %)
- Your intended session roster and how this will be developed
This section outlines the suppliers you intend to form agreements with for your practice including details of the goods or services they will provide and basic pricing/ contract arrangements.
Some suppliers to consider:
- I.T hardware and support
- PMS vendor (practice management software)
- Online booking system
- Medical equipment
- Medical consumables
- Stationery and amenities
- Legal
- Accounting
- Banking
When opening a new medical clinic you will need very comprehensive insurances. This section outlines the cover you have in place and provides piece of mind for financiers and stakeholders
- Public liability
- Professional indemnity
- Directors liability
- Keyman
- Workers compensation
- General insurance
Your business summary is usually the last thing you would put together. It is a short overview of all the information in your business plan and should be no longer than one page.
Items to include in your business summary include:
- Brief business overview
- Business owner/s biography
- Products and/or services offered
- Competitive advantage
- Operational performance
- Financial position
This checklist is a good starting point for anyone wanting to open their own medical facility but we strongly suggest getting advice from specialists in each area during the process to ensure nothing is missed.
