Does your physio body assist the private practitioners?

[Physiobase]

This is a general question about the roles and responsibilities of the Physiotherapy Associations in relation to the Private Practitioner sub group.

Is it, perhaps not well, appreciated that the private practitioner is the general public face of physiotherapy. Most members of the general public would not really know about all the varied roles that PT's play unless they find a loved one in hospital who is suddenly introduced to the wards physio team.

That said not many of use have loved ones in hospital and therefore most of the general public consider physio to be about treating an outpatient population. This puts our profession in the group serviced by osteopaths, chiropractors, kinesiologists, Bowen practitioners, even personal trainers! The public have a huge choice in which they choose to assist them in their health management.

Do you feel that this reality could be better addressed by your national association or group? Do you think it is party their responsibility to assist the private practitioners education of the public in a widespread manner about why they should choose a PT and why? They certainly do a lot for union style organisations within national health systems but what are they doing to promote to the general public in your country.

Offering a leaflet that the private practitioner has to buy to leave on their coffee table is not what I would call assistance. A wide spread media campaign on TV and perhaps main stream media (via television programming, soap operas etc) would be a far greater help.

Rumour has it that many private practitioner subgroups talk about going it alone as independent organisations. Unfortunately for many the membership numbers are so low that the viability is questionable. We have seen some moves in Australia on this front but what is going on in your area. Please do comment freely, in a positive or negative way. 8o

Similar Threads:

• UK Practitioners Alliance - Stop the Private Medical Groups | Preferred provider networks
• referrals from general practitioners

[Michael Ridgway]

I agree; excellent topics.

There appears to a high level of focus amongst our profession on what our association can do for us with effective marketing. I know it’s a cliché, but my experience showed me that we will achieve a lot more focusing on what we can do for our association and marketing our profession.

I commend our association for achieving everything they do on an extremely low budget. The type of marketing results that are being discussed would require increased funding by a couple of orders of magnitude. It seems to me that the energy spent on these issues is distracting from real forward progress that is possible.

I propose we focus on what really matters, for both increased marketing and higher outcomes with clients simultaneously; and that is money.

Other professions such as dentistry and accounting offer us insight into what good business, and a lot more money, can achieve. It is clear that when done well, businesses with a lot of money achieve both a higher level of effective marketing and higher client outcomes simultaneously.

I perceive us to be a smart group of people, and it’s time we open our eyes and use our intelligence effectively by establishing good business principles like many successful professions already do. Is anyone else willing to face the challenge?

Regards,
Michael.

[gcoe]

Hi

I am not a private practitioner so private practitioners may disagree. My impression is however that in our small country our association NZSP has a pretty united front and represents the interests of private practitioners very well. All of the recent presidents and the current one have been private practitioners. the society has been very active in lobbying over better and continued funding by out national accident insurer and providing continued public relations info on the benefits of private physiotherapy - just two examples of continued focus on private practitioners.

As issues become more commercial in nature these need to be picked up the private practitioners group that works in cooperation with the larger body. That is only fair; public sector physios contribute to the funding of the Society at the same rates as private practitioners.

In New Zealand the Society is a broad church with a very diverse areas of practice and the public/private divide is just one example. For example we have a special interest group for the older adult - it's members include both private practitioners specialising in this area and physios working in the public sector. And this would be typical across the interest groups. These interest groups are more united by their patient focus than divided by their source of income.

Obviously private practitioners are in more direct competition with complementary health providers than public sector practitioners. However even here it isn't so black and white. For example we have government funded primary health organisations who will often employ personal trainers or massage therapist in preference to physios - so it is a concern for all of us. One of our biggest threats is the broadening of govt body that regulates the standard of physiotherapy may be expanded to include massage therapist and the like. this could in the long term end up pushing physios out of main stream medicine, which could be very destructive to the development of the profession as a whole, both in public and private sectors.

So may be in larger countries a split is more feasible but to me it sounds short sited. We have much more that unites us than divides us and as such we have to accept that our professional associations won't always be solely focused on our own particular sector's wishes. - this is a two-way road; Public sector members can also feel marginalised at times.

One of our biggest problems is our lack of political power to influence health policy - this is so even in larger countries with highly developed physiotherapy workforces: USA, Australia and the UK. to me in would seem unhelpful to split ourselves up.