What Financial Considerations Do Canadian Doctors have To Make?

Being a doctor is never easy. Not only is the medical side of the job constantly challenging, but there is a whole raft of financial considerations that need to be made. Doctors in Canada are in a good position: they are able to rely upon a stable hybrid system of state and private healthcare funding. However, this does not make dealing with the finances of being a doctor a walk in the park. Here are some considerations that need to be made.

Hiring An Accountant

Canadian doctors need to factor in expenditure for an accountant as part of their financial plan. Accountants pretty much free up doctors from spending too much time thinking about any of the other things on this list. They do, however, require some investment. A good accountant for doctors needs to have a great deal of experience dealing with complex taxation, insurance claim cases, and dealing with pharmaceutical companies. A good accountant will also be able to help with the way in which profit is split between doctors and staff at a practice or as part of a larger medical team.

Building A Medical Practice

General practitioners in Canada often choose to build their own medical practice. This is easier said than done and involves the running of a business at the same time as practicing as a medical professional. Learning to run a business is not an easy task. The best way of figuring out a strategic business plan is to carefully observe other medical practices, making notes of their successes and failures. Look at their staffing structures and billing practices. Stand on the shoulders of giants!

Creating A Good Billing Structure

Doctors make their money through a combination of state assistance and billing. Creating a good billing structure is an absolutely essential financial consideration that all Canadian doctors running their own practice need to make. Most patients a General Practitioner in Canada will see do not pay for their own appointment. Instead, the practice needs to bill the local, provincial government smartly and accurately for the work they have carried out. Most doctors in Canada hire billing agents or use specialist billing software to process bills. This is immensely complex work and involves the use of a very unwieldy set of codes. Canadian citizens do pay for some procedures, which complicates the matter further.

Insurance

Doctors must have absolutely bulletproof insurance covering them while they are at work. If any kind of medical malpractice or negligence takes place, citizens are well within their rights to sue for the damages caused. Any kind of accident, bad prescription, or poor quality treatment is liable to provoke some kind of litigation. The only way of making sure that this does not ruin you financially is to take out comprehensive medical insurance. An uninsured doctor is not only being irresponsible in terms of their own finances but could also find themselves in hot water if they are unable to pay up after a successful lawsuit by a patient.