I became a physiotherapist because I wanted to make a difference to people. Straight out of university, in 1999, I worked in a combination of private practice and hospital work for a couple of years, combined with some sports trainer work with local sporting clubs.

The work was good; I learnt from great physiotherapists, people would come to see us because they were in pain, and we might have made them feel a bit better.

Contractor versus employee

The post-COVID-19 private practice will look considerably different for many clinics, and technology will have an evolving role in the practice of the future. This month, Stephen King joins the APA in presenting a webinar on how to embrace the technological changes for a better client outcome. 

When Stephen King and his business partner Andrew Lemon opened their suburban Melbourne physiotherapy practice in 2016, a key foundation of the clinic’s operation was the uptake of technology.

For the next generation of physiotherapists to be able to graduate, and to allow them the best education they can have in private practice, requires an unprecedented approach, a blend of online and social- distanced consultations, mixed with less hands-on work and more clinical reasoning.

Across allied health, including private physiotherapy clinics, there is not one clear method of digitally collecting standardised outcome measures from patients.

There has been a seemingly endless series of underpayment scandals that have rocked the Australian industrial relations landscape. While larger organisations have primarily been in the firing line, small-to-medium-sized businesses are not immune from attracting the attention of the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Finding the right award is critical

The majority of Awards contain provisions that require employers to pay their employees a loading on top of their base earnings while they are on annual leave. In most cases, this loading is 17.5 per cent. This is consistent with the Health Professional and Support Services Award 2010, which applies to employers and their employees in a physiotherapy practice.

Business entity insurance