GP sentiment is recovering rapidly despite patient numbers remaining relatively low to pre COVID levels, and it looks like being a big practice doesn't correlate with how well practices are coping with the pandemic financially
The latest HealthEd GP Pulse Survey reveals a trend of fast recovering GP sentiment and very little difference in performance or outlook between small and big and rural and remote and city practices
On Tuesday last week HealthEd surveyed 454 GPs to gauge current performance and sentiment on the future of their practices and the results are surprisingly positive given that only one month ago over 30% of practices were still reporting drops in revenue of more than 30%.
Asked how confident they were that their practice will be continue to be financially viable over the next six months, nearly 90% of respondents were either confident or very confident that things would be fine.
This was despite the same cohort reporting that patient numbers continued to be very low relative to prior to the pandemic.
Overall, nearly 50% of respondees reported that patient numbers were less or a lot less than prior to the pandemic. 35% reported that the numbers being seen are now at the same level prior to the pandemic and 15% reported that they are now seeing more or a lot more.
Just who are the 15% who are winning and where are they getting their additional business from will be the aim of a series questions in the next HealthEd Pulse survey due to take place this coming Tuesday night.
If you break down the data into practice size, there is no clear correlation between size of practice and ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ in terms of patient number recovery. That might mean that the damage is coming from the established telehealth only providers. Or it could be that other factors are behind practice success in this environment.
There isn’t much correlation between rural and remote and urban either in terms of sentiment around ability to recover.
No meaningful difference in patient recovery between small and large, rural and city, might point to a common assumption around practice recovery and survival being wrong: that size and location does not correlate with ability to recover and succeed moving forward. Or, if you are small, and wondering if the big guys with more money are more geared for the changes occurring, especially telehealth, it looks as though other factors might be in play.
Anecdotally, The Medical Republic has received several emails from solo and small practices pointing to how they have been able to regear pretty easily around telehealth and recover revenue via telehealth.
That anecdotal evidence is supported to some degree by results in the survey which suggest that in terms of sentiment around ability to recover and future viability, size and location again don’t make a great deal of difference. Smaller practices and country based practices are more or less as confident as their bigger cousins and those in the city.
The next HealthEd Pulse survey will be published in two weeks and will look at more depth into the factors which might be common in those practices which are recovering quicker in terms of patient numbers and financial benchmarks..
