Report compares challenges facing HCPs in Australia

The report reveals the changing dographics of Australia’s most influential health-care professionals, and identifies distinct and differing trends across each profession.
The chief executive officer of BOQ Specialist, Mr Barry Lanesman, said health professionals such as doctors, dentists and veterinarians played an important role in the community – and would become even more important due to dographic changes and rising expenditure on healthcare.
“BOQ Specialist released this report to provide specialists with a resource to further understand how they compare to colleagues as well as to other like-minded professionals and how the existing economic conditions or changing landscape may impact their business if it has not already done so,” Mr Lanesman said.
As well as the years of vocational training that they all need, the three groups of specialists compared have a number of features in common: they all earn relatively high incomes; increasing numbers of specialists are women; over one third of each group are over 50 years of age.
However, it is the differences that are even more noteworthy.
Doctors can expect dand for their services to rise, driven largely by the growth and ageing of Australia’s population. New treatments and the establishments of large clinics by medical entrepreneurs mean that productivity and efficiency is improving. However, at the same time, doctors are increasingly having to deal with the impact of new technology, rapidly changing how they both treat and interact with patients, and the increasing corporatisation of medicine.
By contrast, dentists face an income squeeze. The surge in the number of dental graduates, and migration of dentists to Australia from overseas, means that the cost of dentistry – to the patient – is coming down. Whilst the cost of setting up a dental practice has roughly doubled over the last decade.
“There is an elent of discretionary spending on dental services which does not exist with medical or vet services. The dentists’ practices can suffer when the economy slows,” Mr Lanesman said.
The issues for vets are different again. Vets have moved from being mainly providers of care to sick and injured animals to being suppliers of comprehensive pet-care solutions. Their clinics often include stylish retail areas, offering pet food, leads/collars and pet toys. Many vets are thinking about branding and marketing.
Meanwhile, 60% of vets are women (and the number is higher for younger vets); many of th are looking to work part time as they balance work and family commitments.
“While facing different challenges, one common thread among all specialists is the unique financial needs compared to other people,” Mr Lanesman said.
“Often specialists only start to earn good money when they are in their 30s, however the cost setting up a practice and getting thselves set up personally mean they often have to take on substantial debts. Managing cash flow to reduce and service these debts over the long term requires detailed attention.”
BOQ Specialist Bank Limited provides a broad range of financial products and services. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Queensland Limited its core focus is on delivering lending and banking products for professionals. It is an Australian financial services provider with over 20 years’ experience in working with professionals.
Changes to optometry are a sobering exampleOptometrists provide a sobering example of how economic forces can make life more challenging for specialists.
A decade ago, most optometrists had lucrative, if small, private practices. Nowadays, far more are salaried ployees (on lower incomes) working for companies like OPSM [and Specsavers].
Offshore and online competition is forcing the price of spectacle frames and lenses downwards.