Medical Equipment Loan – For Doctors in Singapore

Medical Equipment Loan – Helps Singapore doctors set up medical practice

Medical equipment loan can help a doctor setup a private private quickly bridging any possible funding gap.

Some doctors lament that they worked so hard in public hospitals, suffering long hours and yet have so much management red tape, suffocating their working styles. Doctors work one of the longest hours. That is the reason why Doctors always end up marrying doctors or nurses, as they tend to be only able to meet these people.

Paul Ho (iCompareLoan.com)

Doctors are smart people – Public hospitals need to keep doctors

Many doctors are not only good in their profession, they are often selected from the best of the best academically. Naturally they want to have some freedom to do things their way without too much red tape.

Some of the doctors were happy previously in some public hospitals and were not too bothered that they were receiving a lower pay as compared to what they could have earned in private practice as a specialist.

Although there will be bad eggs in every industry, and some doctors in private practice are too commercially driven, not all are doing it purely for money.

So I am certain that there are push factors such as bureaucracy, possible government policies missteps and sometimes sending in the wrong new management team, leading to doctors wanting to set up private medical practice. Not all do it for money.

Image Credits: Pixabay

Doctors have Ambitions for Private Practice

Some doctors are driven by the entrepreneur spirit and made their clinics into a medical franchise and some may even go regional and change the way medicine is practiced. Some simply want to have the freedom when they reach that stage in their lives when they just want a little more time. And of course, some are driven by money.

Doctors are Juicy Pickings to raise per-square-feet pricing for commercial properties

Some specialists are required to be housed near the hospitals where they practice or operate. Hence they may have little choice but to buy medical suites. These medical suites for specialist are priced very high. I shall not go into details as to the practice of pricing medical suites exorbitantly as this is a commercial decision by property developers.

Since 2014, URA has received so many requests for converting commercial space for allowed medical use as such conversion comes with the ability to price the properties higher. (Appendix 1: URA, New Guidelines for the change of use of commercial space to medical clinics)

After this, the new URA rule restricts the maximum area within a commercial property used for medical use is 3,000 square meters or 20% of the maximum floor area, whichever is lower if they are not within the medical zoning. Obviously it is a trend that caused prices of medical clinic suites to soar and hence forcing doctors to obtain more financing.

Can doctors afford Medical Suites

Some doctors who quit their jobs may not have the income to be approved for a medical suite property loan to purchase a medical suite. They may set up a clinic and apply for a commercial property loan for medical own use. If they set up their private clinics, they will also need a location to practice. These rents are not cheap.

Hence from what we heard, most doctors who bought medical suites are existing doctors from private practice, not so much those who are still in public practice.

Setting up Medical Practice – What do I need?

Actually it is really simple. You need a lot of money!

Here is what we gathered speaking to our doctor friends and customers.

1. Setting up a Medical Clinic – GP – medical loan

·      Rental – Easily $10 to $20 per square foot in rental. A 600 square feet small clinic will set you back by $6,000 to $12,000 a month. 2 Month’s deposit for rental lease will be $12,000 to $24,000.

·      Renovation – Easily $100,000 to $200,000 depending on size.

·      Accounting Software, data storage systems, queuing system, display screens, etc. – $5,000 to $20,000

·      Staff

·      Medical supplies – $30,000 to $50,000

·      Equipment (Cardiograph machine – $3,000 to $20,000) – Optional

·      Other scopes and equipment ($2000 – $10,000)

·      Clinic Bed ($1000 onwards)

So we are looking at a start up cost of around $200,000 to $300,000. This is no small sum. The availability of medical working capital loan that allow you to freely use for equipment and other incidental costs would really come in handy. For a basic GP clinic, equipment is not a major cost.

2. Setting up a Dental Clinic

·      Rental – Easily $10 to $20 per square foot in rental. A 600 square feet small clinic will set you back by $6,000 to $12,000 a month. 2 Month’s deposit for rental lease.

·      Renovation, water drainage and piping – $150,000 to $250,000 depending on size.

·      Accounting Software, data storage systems, queuing system, display screens, etc. – $5,000 to $20,000

·      Staff

·      Dental chair (per chair) – $2,000 to $8,000

·      Radiograph machines – Digital imaging – $10,000 onwards.

·      Oral Suction system – $1,000 to $5,000.

·      Surgical lighting – $2,000 to $5,000.

·      Dental implant and surgical motor – $3,000 to $5,000.

·      Thermal tray and trimming knife – $200 to $500.

·      Dental diode laser (for removal of tissue) – $5,000 onwards.

·      Other equipment – $1,000 to $5,000.

Not all dentist can afford to have a radiograph machine, hence they may ask you to go to a certain hospital to have your picture taken, and I do not mean Selfie, I mean the X-ray picture of your tooth and the jaw bone. In this case, dental equipment loan may come in handy.

3. Setting up an Esthetics Clinic

This is another crazy area where costs are quite high. It’s about making you beautiful.

It goes around the theme of modifying the body and face along the following themes: –

·      Size

·      Weight

·      Shape (i.e. is it curved enough, pointed enough or round enough)

·      Colour and texture.

Most of them centers around the Face, Skin, Breast, tummy, buttocks, thighs, hair and so on. The scope is wide and so are the types of equipment.

Examples of medical esthetics equipment are: –

·      IPL Hair removal RF Skin care tattoo removal device – $5,000 onwards.

·      Non surgical liposuction – Using Laser to break down the fat cells such as I lipo, thermage, zerona, coolsculpting, velashape for $5,000 to $20,000 range.

·      Laser treatment for stimulating collagen production for smoother and younger skin costs from $5,000 to $20,000 onwards.

·      Surgical equipment for breast augmentation, enhancement.

·      Anesthesia Machines.

·      Microdermabrasion machines – $3,000 onwards.

·      And many more.

An esthetics clinic will likely invest in more equipment that a normal General practice clinic. A medical equipment loan will be helpful to get started.

4. Setting up a Specialist Clinic

These are some of the equipment used at a specialist clinic: –

·      Sonar ultra sound

·      ENT

·      Recto scopes, endoscopes

·      X-ray machines

·      Dialysis machine (Reno care)

In summary, setting up a medical practice requires much more than the ability to treat and cure. You would need to manage your business finances and market your services to customers (patients).

We can only help with medical equipment loan, you will still need to market your services to patients. Good luck to your new venture and do remember to charge any customers of iCompareLoan.com a cheaper rate.

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APPENDIX 1: URA, New Guidelines for the change of use of commercial space to medical clinics)

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1.     URA has received an increasing number of planning applications for new private medical centres within commercial developments. While medical clinic is an allowable use within commercial buildings, a sizeable number of them in a single commercial building¹ would result in the development becoming a de-facto medical centre. Medical centres should be located on sites zoned for Health & Medical Care (H&MC) use. There is therefore a need to cap the allowable quantum of medical clinics within commercial developments. This would also ensure that commercial buildings have a good mix of other commercial uses such as shops, eateries, offices, etc. within the development to meet different needs.

2.     To guide the conversion of commercial spaces to medical clinics, URA and MOH (as the licensing authority for medical clinics) have decided to implement the following guidelines.

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(Source: URA, New guidelines for the change of use of commercial space to medical clinics, https://www.ura.gov.sg/uol/circulars/2014/Dec/dc14-28.aspx)