UK Practitioners Alliance - Stop the Private Medical Groups | Preferred provider networks

[MrPhysio+]

It is very frustrating. The Australian Physio Association is currently promoting therapists that openly state that the way to go is clinic franchising. The therapists that run these clinics are backed by the APA in ongoing education, public forums and the Associations magazines. These people are seen as guru's with the answer.
Unfortunately these same business people promise a nice world where the clinic works for you to the point that you can take as much time off as you like. The leading claimants proudly state how many clinics they have yet they no longer need to see patients at all. Deals are done via buying power and apparent acceptance by the APA to have business sent via health fund and compensable government nodies, sometimes locking out smaller truely independent clinics in the same region. The insurers buy cheaper services from these clinics, but the clinics value add onto the patients - and the patients are often given inferior services with multiple visits whils the therapist flits from room to room.
Patients experiencing these type of clinics often know no better and accept this as normal. The lobbying power of these guru's then affects the structure of the physio association and restrictive registration rules are brought in the squeeze the life out of ethical businesses.
I have had numerous patients that complain they were ripped off by over servicing disinterested therapists going through the motions with very poor assessments and diagnostic skills. Some of these clinics are manned by therapists that are professional students. The patients are told how wonderful the therapists are given their qualifications, but the patients see through this eventually and seek care elsewhere. The worse the problem becomes the less choice the patients have until they give up and treat our profession with the derision it deserves if change does not occur.

Utimately we reap what we sow. Our representatives have been deaf to the issues for years. In pandering to guru's and health insuers / government the way the profession has over the years outcomes are negatively impacted giving the third party payers and insurers the rod with which we are beaten down the next time negotiations commence.
I have tried for over 20 years to effect change, but as I am considered a thorny pest (I expect) rather than a guru giving platitudes to those in power I am ignored and sometimes deliberately undermined. The writing is on the wall but it seems that the reader is illiterate.
MrPhysio+