Professional Services

We aim to upskill and empower members at each stage of their professional career by offering proactive training and education on relevant topics.

In 2017, our four focus areas for member education are:

• Business Basics: for doctors conducting a business, as contractors or in private practice
• Employer Essentials: for doctors who employ or manage staff
• Career Planning and Pathways: helping doctors plan for, and navigate professional change and career milestones
• Contract and Bargaining Skills: helping doctors understand contracts, navigate disputes and negotiate better bargains

Please see our events page for more information about upcoming sessions.

Through our website, members are able to access a range of free or subsidised specialised resources, including our most popular items:

• List of medical services and fees
• AMA (NSW) Privacy Kit and templates – Log in to access these files
• Template employment contracts for private practice staff

In 2017, our team will be working hard to develop further online resources, so that popular information and answers to frequently asked questions can be accessed by members 24/7.

Every day, our enquiries team answers a wide range of general questions from members, for example, about:

• fees and billing issues
• paying practice staff
• employee rights and obligations
• consumer complaints
• VMO entitlements
• privacy issues
• subpoenas and court processes, etc

Most of these enquiries can be dealt with by providing simple information via email or over the phone, or by or referring you to someone else who is better placed to help. The information we provide in response is general in nature: it is not legal advice, nor tailored to your specific circumstances. In more complex cases, we may transfer your enquiry to one of the other service streams.

If disputes arise in connection with your training, practise, or workplace, it’s often best to contact your MDO for assistance first. However, if you need help navigating a difficult scenario before it escalates into a dispute, or if your MDO can’t help you, we may be able to provide you with case-managed support.

Our primary areas of expertise are:

• advising and representing VMOs in relation to workplace, billing, or other issues arising from their hospital practise
• helping doctors-in-training with issues relating to Colleges or supervision
• guiding private practices through hiring, firing, and other employee-related processes

NOTE: Although these services are free to members, please note that demand is extremely high. Accordingly, we generally won’t take on pre-existing matters arising prior to membership, and our service remains subject to team capacity. In addition, as a professional body and membership organisation, please be aware that before we agree to assist with any particular issues or disputes, we need to ensure that doing so doesn’t give rise to a conflict (or potential conflict) of interest. A conflict could arise, for example, where the other parties involved in the issues include other members of the profession, particularly if they are AMA members or businesses conducted by other AMA members.

In line with AMA (NSW)’s Future Practice strategy, our team can provide a range of proactive support to private practitioners, including GPs and other specialists.

In particular, we offer a range of packages designed to improve your practice systems, including:

• general private practice health checks (including practice visit)
• Fair Work Act compliance audits
• tailoring service for your non-medical practice staff employment contracts

These services are free for all members, but there can be significant demand on our team (so please provide plenty of lead time if you need this type of assistance).

In appropriate cases, we may agree to provide a limited level of legal services to members.

Our authority to provide legal services arises from our status as a registered industrial organisation under the NSW Industrial Relations Act. Accordingly, the focus of our legal services is on workplace law for VMOs and private practice employers. We are not a law firm, and our team does not have the capacity to provide the full range of medico-legal or commercial law services that are available on the market (or via your MDO/other insurances).

We will not provide any legal services unless:

• the services are provided directly to one or more financial members of AMA (NSW)
• the scope of work falls within our team’s areas of legal expertise
• there is no actual or potential conflict with the interests of another member (and providing the services wouldn’t raise another type of legal professional conflict under the laws governing legal services)
• a supervisory level solicitor is available to supervise and manage the services to an appropriate standard (under the laws governing the legal profession, only certain solicitors are authorised to supervise legal services); and
• the Director of Professional Services has given approval to provide the legal services.

None of the services provided by our team are legal in nature unless this approval process has first been completed and confirmed.

If you would like legal services, please raise this with one of the team specifically, so that your request can be assessed.