The Experiences
Ian's Story
“Being in partnership with Better Health has given me options for the future….
and all the options are good.”
Dr Ian Smith has owned a medical centre inTimaru for over 30 years and had developed itinto a successful, popular practice.
“The crunch time will come, I thought, when it’s finally time to retire,” says Ian. “Who would buy the practice? What younger GP would be able to afford it?”
The same questions have been pondered by most GPs. The younger generation of GPs enters the workforce with significant student debt, plus family and mortgage responsibilities. The days of buying a practice at the start of your career are over.
Then Ian met up with Baden Ewart and Dr Graham McGeoch from Better Health Ltd. “They had a proposition that really covered off my concerns about retiring from the practice,” says Ian. “We talked about what I wanted for the future of the practice. I didn’t want to just sell up and have no say in what happened to it.”
Baden, Graham and David Jones, the three directors of Better Health Ltd, worked with Ian to create a new company that owned the practice. Ian and Better Health Ltd each own 50% of this new company.
“Being in partnership with Better Health has given me options for the future…. and all the options are good,” says Ian. “Now I can leave the practice, when the time is right, knowing that it is being run according to my principles of good general practice. I can sell my share in the business to a GP colleague or to a new GP entering the Timaru market. Or I can hold onto my shares, employ a replacement and continue to earn an income from the practice even after I stop practicing. It’s a good feeling to know that there’s an exit strategy.”
For the directors of Better Health, this arrangement works well too. “As general practice business owners, we want to preserve the best of general practice, not dilute it with corporate micro-management,” says Dr Graham McGeoch. “Our approach with Ian, as with all practices, is to find out what makes each practice successful and build on that.”
Often the success of a practice is determined by the personalities of the GPs working there. “We want to make sure that the business is stable and well supported, so that in the event that a popular GP leaves, the remaining partners will not be disadvantaged.” says David Jones. “With that in mind, Better Health focuses on improving the business systems of the practice, using the combined resources of the Better Health general practice network.”
“From my patients’ point of view, nothing has changed,” says Ian. “But I can work more confidently knowing that my lifelong investment in my practice can be realized, when I choose to do that. Becoming a Better Health practice gave me that choice.”