What is your time really worth? Use our Doctor’s Time Value Calculator to discover what recovering your admin hours could mean for your practice.

You’ve spent years developing the clinical knowledge, skills & judgement your patients rely on. But how much of your working week is spent doing things that don’t necessarily require a medical qualification?

Writing up clinical notes, preparing referral letters, responding to medical scheme queries, correcting claims, searching patient records & following up on paperwork. It’s all part of running a practice, but does the doctor really need to do it all?

When you’re the default person for every task, valuable clinical time gets swallowed up by administration. And it’s not always obvious what that means for your practice’s profitability.

The real cost of a doctor’s time

In most private practices, the doctor is both a significant operating expense & the main source of clinical revenue. How that time is spent matters.

Consider two hours spent preparing routine correspondence, checking claim information, or dealing with paperwork after consultations. That’s two hours you could potentially have spent seeing patients, handling more complex cases or simply finishing your working day on time.

There can be knock-on effects too, particularly when administrative backlogs delay billing, patient queries or follow-up care.

Of course, not every administrative hour represents lost revenue. Clinical documentation, patient communication & practice oversight are essential. And freeing up time doesn’t automatically mean more income unless there’s sufficient patient demand.

The question is how much of that work genuinely requires your personal attention.

Why South African private practices feel the pressure

South African practitioners deal with administrative requirements that extend well beyond maintaining patient records.

Different medical schemes have their own benefit structures, plan options, tariffs & authorisation requirements. Add clinical coding, motivations, claim submissions, rejections, payment reconciliation & patient shortfalls, & there’s plenty to keep a practice busy.

In smaller practices, much of this work can end up on the doctor’s desk.

A 2026 conference abstract published in the South African Medical Journal discussed the administrative pressures affecting doctor-led primary-care practices, including the overlap between interpreting funding benefits, clinical decisions & billing. It identified repeated administrative intervention & reduced clinical time among the challenges.¹

Anyone who’s had to investigate a rejected claim knows how quickly a seemingly small issue can turn into several phone calls, corrections & resubmissions. A missing authorisation or delayed clinical motivation can create similar headaches.

Multiply those interruptions across a working week, & it’s easy to see where the time goes.

What could you do with five more hours a week?

Let’s put some numbers to it.

Imagine a GP who spends eight hours a week on routine administration. Some tasks require clinical judgement, but with better processes, delegation or technology, five of those hours could potentially be recovered.

If the practice generates an average of R1,500 in consultation revenue per clinical hour, that’s R7,500 in potential additional weekly revenue.

Across 46 working weeks, it adds up to R345,000 in potential annual clinical revenue.

That’s an illustration, not a profit forecast. It assumes sufficient patient demand to fill those hours & doesn’t account for the additional costs of providing care or recovering the time.

And perhaps more consultations aren’t your priority. Five hours a week could mean more time for complex patients, better follow-up or simply getting home earlier.

Either way, it’s worth knowing what those hours represent.

Calculate the value of your time

Find out how many hours you spend on administration each year, how much time you could realistically recover & what those hours could be worth in additional clinical revenue.

Simply enter your average consultation fee, how many patients you typically see per hour & the time you spend on admin each week.

The calculator will give you an estimate to help you decide where better processes, additional support or technology could make the greatest difference.