Don’t have your Nedbank ID yet?
Nedbank ID single sign-on gives you full digital access to Nedbank’s banking and lifestyle products and services on the Money app or Online Banking.
Log in
Log in to Online Banking or another one of our secured services.
Get in touch
Find us
- Login & Register
- Online Banking
- Online Share Trading
- NetBank Business
- NedFleet
- Nedbank Greenbacks
- Nedgroup Investments
- Nedbank ID
- Bank
- Accounts
- Credit cards
- Digital banking
- Switch to Nedbank
- Fraud awareness
- Forex
- Greenbacks
- Explore Bank
- Accounts
- Everyday banking
- Kids accounts
- Youth banking
- Seniors accounts
- Private Clients
- Private Wealth
- Digital wallet
- See all accounts
- Premium banking
- Get help choosing
- Goal saving
- Family Banking
- Refugees and asylum seekers
- FAQ
- How-to guides
- Discontinued accounts
- Everyday banking
- MiGoals Premium
- MiGoals Plus
- MiGoals
- Kids accounts
- MiGoals4Kids
- Youth banking
- MiGoals Premium
- MiGoals
- MiGoals Plus
- Seniors accounts
- MiGoals Premium Senior
- MiGoals Plus
- Private Clients
- Pay-as-you-use
- Young Professionals
- Private Bundle and Private One
- Private Wealth
- Private Wealth Bundle
- Digital wallet
- MobiMoney
- American Express
- Amex Gold
- Amex Platinum
- Digital banking
- Switch to Nedbank
- Fraud awareness
- Forex
- Greenbacks
- Exclusive discounts
- FAQ
- How-to guides
- Save & Invest
- Accounts
- Investment services
- Share trading
- Explore Save & Invest
- In 24 hours
- JustInvest
- PlatinumInvest
- Tax-free Savings
- MoneyTrader
- EasyAccess Fixed Deposit
- PrimeSelect
- In 32 days
- Electronic 32Day Notice
- 32Day Notice
- End of term
- Tax-free Fixed Deposit
- Electronic Fixed Deposit
- Electronic Optimum Plus
- Platinum Fixed Deposit
- Fixed Deposit
- OptimumPlus
- Investment services
- Share trading
- Borrow
- Personal loans
- Home loans
- Student loans
- Overdrafts
- Vehicle finance
- Solar finance
- Debt assistance
- Explore Borrow
- Personal loans
- Loan consolidation
- Secondhand car loan
- Home improvement loan
- Exclusive short-term loan offers
- Explore loans
- FAQ
- How to guides
- Loan consolidation
- Secondhand car loan
- Home improvement loan
- Exclusive short-term loan offers
- Home loans
- Building loan
- Switching home loan
- Repossessed properties
- Start your home buying journey
- Solar-energy Finance
- Earn R32,000 p/m or less? See offer
- HomeVision extra funds
- Home-buying Toolkit
- Managing your home loan
- Explore home loans
- FAQ
- How to guides
- Track application
- Building loan
- Switching home loan
- Repossessed properties
- Start your home buying journey
- Solar-energy Finance
- Earn R32,000 p/m or less? See offer
- HomeVision extra funds
- Home-buying Toolkit
- Managing your home loan
- Student loans
- Explore student loans
- Overdrafts
- Vehicle finance
- Solar finance
- Debt assistance
- Consolidate all your debts into a simple loan | Nedbank
- Short-term payment relief | Nedbank
- Take charge and restructure your finances | Nedbank
- Assisted-sales solutions for homes and vehicles | Nedbank
- Flexible payment plans for loans and credit | Nedbank
- Understanding how repo rate works | Nedbank
- Consolidate all your debts into a simple loan | Nedbank
- Short-term payment relief | Nedbank
- Take charge and restructure your finances | Nedbank
- Assisted-sales solutions for homes and vehicles | Nedbank
- Flexible payment plans for loans and credit | Nedbank
- Understanding how repo rate works | Nedbank
- Insure
- Life cover
- Funeral cover
- Short term insurance
- Credit Life
- Travel insurance
- Business cover
- Secure investments
- Explore Insure
- Life cover
- Get a call back
- Explore MyCover life
- Funeral cover
- Individual R10,000
- Individual R30,000
- Family Cover
- Build your own cover
- Get a call back
- Explore MyCover Funeral
- Individual R10,000
- Individual R30,000
- Family Cover
- Build your own cover
- Short term insurance
- Vehicle insurance
- Building insurance
- House contents insurance
- Valuables insurance
- Valuables insurance
- Get a call back
- Explore MyCover short term insurance
- Vehicle insurance
- Building insurance
- House contents insurance
- Valuables insurance
- Valuables insurance
- Credit Life
- Home loan credit life
- MFC Vehicle Finance Assurance
- Overdraft Assurance
- Balance Protection Plan
- Personal loan Assurance
- Get a call back
- Explore credit life
- Home loan credit life
- MFC Vehicle Finance Assurance
- Overdraft Assurance
- Balance Protection Plan
- Personal loan Assurance
- Travel insurance
- Business cover
- Secure investments
- Guaranteed Growth Income Plan
- Guaranteed Growth Plan
- Get a call back
- Explore MyCover Funeral
- Guaranteed Growth Income Plan
- Guaranteed Growth Plan
- Plan
- Financial planning
- Estate, wills & trust services
- Nedbank Private Wealth
- Speak to a financial adviser
- Explore Plan
- Financial planning
- Investment planning
- Insurance planning
- Give
- Retirement planning
- Investment planning
- Insurance planning
- Give
- Retirement planning
- Estate, wills & trust services
- Will drafting
- Ensure your estate is managed by an executor | Nedbank
- Trust services
- Financial accounting
- Tax services
- Leave the admin of your estate to us, and not to your loved ones | Nedbank
- Will drafting
- Ensure your estate is managed by an executor | Nedbank
- Trust services
- Financial accounting
- Tax services
- Leave the admin of your estate to us, and not to your loved ones | Nedbank
- Nedbank Private Wealth
- Speak to a financial adviser
- Learn
- Blog
- Explore Learn
- Blog
- Contact us
- Talk to us
- Find us
- Explore Contact us
- Talk to us
- Find us
3 ways to combat inflation in your medical practice
Your medical practice is not immune to the effects of inflation. Here’s how to respond.
Consumer inflation continues to rise sharply, and businesses in all sectors of the economy are having to adapt if they hope to remain profitable. For many businesses, that means hiking prices to cover the higher input costs. Such a straightforward solution, however, isn’t always open to all medical practices.
With your revenue subject to medical aid drug formularies and prescribed rates for procedures, this leaves you little room to manoeuvre. You could charge patients more on co-payments, but consumers are already under pressure, so if you’re not careful, you might price yourself out the market.
These pricing dynamics are forcing medical practitioners to get creative to remain profitable. Here are 3 tips that can help:
Be serious about business management
You’re not able to control input costs and rising inflation, so look at other aspects of your business that you can control. First, focus on your debtor management and cash flow. If you can reduce your debtors book – all your unpaid patient accounts – and get those payments into your practice’s account, it’s less likely that you’ll need to use credit to cover your costs.
Avoid this by being proactive – the accounts manager in your practice needs to find the right balance of pressure and incentives to get clients and medical aids to settle their bills on time. Having sufficient cash flow allows you to negotiate with suppliers for bigger discounts on cash-on-delivery orders. Lower supply costs in turn will help boost your profit margins.
Proper medical practice management and accounting software allows you to monitor all financial aspects of your business and react promptly if inflation starts to eat into your profits. Your management software should be able to show you a clear breakdown of your operational costs. These expense reports will allow you to track costs that have risen sharply or out of proportion with other expenses. Taking the time to generate an in-depth review like this every few months will help you identify the areas in which inflation is having the worst effect, so you can make the appropriate changes.
Pool resources for shared services like accounting, operations management, cleaning and reception
If you’re not sure how to proceed or how to optimise operations, speak to your relationship banker for advice or assistance. They have access to medical-practice experts in our network who can help you get a grip on your financial management.
Review and renegotiate contracts
While reviewing your operational costs, have another look at all your contracts with service providers. This can be tricky, because you don’t want to damage long-standing relationships that add value to your business. Recognise that these partnerships have a value that may overrule factors like a competitor offering a cheaper service – this applies especially when a service is unique to your area of medicine. However, it’s worth reviewing more impersonal, transactional services like your internet and cellphone contracts – you might be able to get the same benefits from another provider at lower cost.
Outsource or consolidate business functions
When analysing your expenses, zoom in on your fixed overheads like bookkeeping or cleaning – could you save money by sharing these or other functions with other practices nearby? If your practice is located on a property with other medical practices, it should be quite easy to pool resources for shared services like accounting, operations management, cleaning and reception.
If you don’t have other medical businesses nearby to share the cost, it may work out cheaper to outsource some of these functions. By paying only for the services that you need to run your IT systems, do your books or clean your premises, you’ll save on your salary overheads. Taking charge of your expenses helps you control and minimise the impact of outside factors driving up your costs.
As a Nedbank Private Clients accountholder, you’ll have access to all the banking products and services you need for your medical practice and your personal financial management, as well as expert advice from a team of relationship bankers who deal exclusively with medical professionals and their practice requirements.
