Private practice is often discussed from the perspective of the healthcare professional, but behind every successful practice are the people managing appointments, responding to patient enquiries, preparing correspondence, raising invoices, following up payments, managing systems and dealing with the many administrative processes that keep a practice running.
Medical secretaries, practice managers, administrators and medical billing professionals can build considerable knowledge and experience within these roles, yet depending on where and how they work, there may be relatively few opportunities to connect with other people doing similar work.
That was the starting point for Private Practice Circle.
Recognising the opportunity to bring people together
Having worked within private healthcare since 2010, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside people in a wide range of administrative roles and have seen how much knowledge exists within this part of the sector.
People develop expertise in patient administration, medical billing, insurer processes, practice systems, clinic management and the countless practical situations that arise when supporting a private practice. Much of that knowledge, however, remains within individual practices, organisations or professional networks.
For someone working independently as a medical secretary, there may not always be another colleague to ask how they would approach a particular situation. A practice manager encountering a new problem may benefit from speaking to someone who has dealt with something similar, while someone looking to develop their career in private practice may simply want to connect with people already working in the sector.
The idea behind Private Practice Circle was to create somewhere those conversations could happen.
Rethinking the original idea
The first version of Private Practice Circle was actually much more ambitious. The idea was to build a dedicated professional platform with its own purpose-built app, resources and a range of features specifically for people working across private practice.
As the idea developed, however, it became clear that creating something large and sophisticated from the outset would bring significant costs and would probably mean asking people to pay to access it.
That prompted a rethink about what Private Practice Circle actually needed to be. The most important part wasn’t the technology or having an impressive list of features; it was creating a useful community and giving people a reason to be part of it.
The decision was therefore made to simplify the concept, start with something manageable and allow the community itself to influence how it develops.
Creating a free community
One of the decisions that followed was to keep Private Practice Circle free to join.
It isn’t intended to become another professional association or traditional membership organisation. Instead, the aim is to provide an accessible community specifically for medical secretaries, practice managers, private practice administrators, medical billing professionals and others working in administrative roles across UK private practice.
Members can ask questions, share their own knowledge and experience, learn from people working in similar roles, develop professional connections and contribute to conversations about the practical realities of working within private practice.
Because the community is still at an early stage, there is also an opportunity for the people joining now to influence what comes next rather than joining something where everything has already been decided for them.
Building around what people actually need
Private Practice Circle now has its own website and a dedicated online community for registered members, but the principle behind it remains deliberately simple.
The platform is there to support the community rather than become the focus of it. Resources, discussions and new features can be introduced over time based on what members actually find useful, allowing the community to develop at a realistic pace rather than trying to predict everything people might want before it has even had an opportunity to grow.
Some ideas will undoubtedly develop, others may change and new ones will come directly from the people using the community. That’s part of deliberately building Private Practice Circle from the ground up.
Why Private Practice Circle sits alongside The Private Practice Specialist
The Private Practice Specialist and Private Practice Circle have different purposes, but they come from the same experience of working within private healthcare.
The Private Practice Specialist supports healthcare professionals with the management, administration and financial operations of their practices, while Private Practice Circle focuses on the administrative professionals carrying out much of the work behind the scenes.
Both recognise that a successful private practice depends on far more than what happens in the consulting room. It also depends on knowledgeable people, effective administration, good systems and the ability to learn from experience.
Private Practice Circle provides an opportunity to use that experience in a different way by helping to bring together the wider community of people working behind UK private practice.
Just the beginning
Private Practice Circle is still at an early stage, and there is no intention to rush it into becoming something it doesn’t need to be.
The community can grow gradually, resources can be developed as the need for them becomes clearer and members can help shape the conversations, information and opportunities that would be most valuable to them.
Ultimately, the aim is to build a useful and supportive professional community where the people behind UK private practice can connect, learn, develop and grow together.
Interested in joining Private Practice Circle?
If you work in an administrative role within UK private practice, Private Practice Circle is free to join and provides a place to connect with others working across the sector, share knowledge and help shape a community that is developing from the ground up.
Visit Private Practice Circle
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