Who I work with
Community health and ACCHOs
Community health services and Aboriginal Community Controlled organisations run Allied Health against a funding mix almost nobody else has.
What makes this different
The commercial logic here runs the opposite way to a private practice, and advice written for one is usually wrong for the other.
The price was set at contract and then fixed
You cannot reprice your way out of a margin problem. The levers are cost to serve, service model and what you commit to at the next tender.
The real exposure is re-tender, not pricing reform
A contract that ends is a cliff rather than a squeeze, and the work that protects you happens two years before the tender rather than two months.
Clinicians work across programs with different rules
The same clinician delivering a state program in the morning and an NDIS plan in the afternoon is working under two sets of obligations, two sets of documentation and two pricing logics.
One governance system or one per program
Most services end up with one per program, because that is the shape the funding arrived in. Consolidating them is usually the single largest efficiency available and the thing that makes an audit straightforward.
What I am usually asked for
- True cost to serve across block funded and fee for service programs
- Service model design against a fixed contract price
- Tender review, bid strategy and what to commit to
- Whether to enter or exit a Commonwealth funded stream alongside existing programs
- Workforce structure where clinicians span several programs
- One governance system across funding streams rather than one per program
- Board and executive decision support
Payer mix, and where the cliff is
The first thing I do is split revenue by payer and by individual contract, with the end date of each one next to it. Concentration works differently here, because block funding does not decline gradually. It ends on a date somebody already knows, and the useful work happens well before it.
The second thing is usually cost allocation, because a service carrying corporate overhead against a fixed contract price is often subsidising a program nobody has decided to subsidise.
Before the tender, and through it
A scoped project
Cost to serve, service model against a fixed price, or a tender review with a recommendation on what to commit to. Timed to land before the bid is written.
A retainer
Where the useful work is spread across the two years ahead of a re-tender rather than concentrated in one piece. Monthly or fortnightly contact.
Tools and guides
Allied Health Consultation Tracker
Open, upcoming and recently closed consultations on how Allied Health is funded, regulated, paid and employed, with the date each one closes.
Allied Health Margin Calculator
Model cost to serve one clinician at a time, including the on-costs a shared services line usually hides, against a price you did not set.
Building a SharePoint knowledge base
How to build one governance system that holds across every funding stream you deliver under, rather than one per program.
Analysis from someone who has run the business
Clinicians at the provider I co-founded
Annual revenue at that business
Allied Health providers I have worked with
Independent advice, no clinical services
Working out what the next contract has to look like?
This is written for the people accountable for the service, and the useful version of that conversation happens well before the tender opens. Book a discovery call. You leave with an honest read on where things stand and a clear recommendation.