Client Case Study by Accru Hobart

Our client, Sarah Purvey, runs a psychology practice on Hobart’s Eastern Shore, a short walk from the Accru Hobart office. Eastern Shore Psychology is committed towards helping people of Hobart live a happier, healthier, and more meaningful life. 

Sarah has an extensive background as a Clinical Psychologist and Lecturer, with special interests in providing support to parents, including a sanctuary for exhausted Mum’s via her online platform and a book “Keep Sane and Parent On.” 

The business started off with Sarah running her own private practice with a couple of room renters. The space Sarah operates from had capacity for more psychologists to operate from. Today, the space holds more than 14 psychologists, and has a couple of provisional psychologists employed under the practice. The practice is focused on training new psychologists to support the ever-growing demand for mental health services. This training ideology supports the practice to grow, including taking on a new space next door to the initial premises. 

We often find clients in medical and allied health spaces becoming business owners by default, as a side effect of their core work – treating patients. Running premises with a dozen contracting practitioners can be challenging. When we first met Sarah and husband Andrew, it was difficult for them to understand the profitability of the business, versus Sarah’s personal psychology practice. We identified early on that a service entity could be used to separate the running of the business, to Sarah’s professional load as a clinical psychologist. 

By separating the business units, we could clearly calculate the costs to provide services to other practitioners, including premises, administration staff and booking systems. We often find an over-complication of agreements between practitioners and service entities, which can deter practitioners from consulting from a practice. Holding premises scaled with multiple practitioners is nearly always more sustainable than a sole practitioner, as rent, utilities and administration costs are shared. The main issue is how this is calculated and communicated. We work with dozens of medical professionals and have long identified the theme that practitioners are great at their trade – in this case, psychology services, however the business side of things can be complex. We always believe in keeping things as simple as possible – and being able to clearly communicate the value that can be derived from room rental means there is minimal misconceptions (reducing management time).

Senior Client Manager, Eva Ewe, with Partner Fiona Ettles, have helped Sarah, and Business Manager / Husband Andrew (collectively known as “Business Owners”) focus on running a sustainable business by determining models that can be used to ‘rent rooms’ in the premises to other practitioners, calculate the cost to serve, and help set contractors up for success in the early years of their careers. 

Once a sustainable model was determined with the Business Owners, we assisted with rolling out communication to the team and supporting Sarah and Andrew through Q and A. 

Now, we keep an eye on the performance of the business and have meetings with Sarah and Andrew when circumstances change, such as the most recent pandemic and its impact on the allied health system, or major staffing changes. Quarterly Business Activity Statements also provide a great opportunity to address any issues and quickly tackle any Xero software training points. 

With the Business Owners referring recently qualified practitioners to us, we assist these practitioners in setting them up for success as Contractors. This includes GST Registration, Basic ‘Business Owner’ Training and an explanation of their ongoing taxation obligations as a Contractor. This helps reduce queries to management, and reduces the psychologists’ personal stress regarding their career and finances, as they move onto the next phase of their career. 

We love collaborating with future-focused clients who want to practice their talent, whilst supporting their community – patients, practitioners, psychology students. If you would like to talk about how your local Accru office can support your future plans, contact your closest office.