Loans and subsidies for medical practices: How to succeed in digitalization

Digitization has long since found its way into many companies - and this also applies to medical practices. Unfortunately, however, modernization has not progressed as quickly as doctors and patients would like. In fact, patient communication in German medical practices in particular is often still analog.

Over 40 percent of doctors communicate with their patients in paper form

74% of all doctors are very open to digital innovations, according to the Practice Barometer on Digitalization conducted by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians. However, there is still room for improvement when it comes to actual implementation. For example, only around seven per cent of all respondents stated that they had (almost) completely digitized patient communication. In contrast, around 42% of all medical practices still communicate with their patients mostly or even almost entirely in paper form.

Nowadays, telemedicine and digital document transmission offer a wide range of options for quickly and easily establishing digital contact with patients. Successful doctor-patient communication is part of everyday medical practice and is crucial to the success of treatment and practice.

Overall, there is a willingness to change in medical practices. As the changeover usually costs money, many practices initially put off the necessary digitalization. However, there are many loans that can help with this.

Loans for practice takeovers and start-ups

It's best if you tackle digitalization right from the start. For example, if you want to set up or take over a practice. In this case, there are numerous loans available to you. Loans from the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) are a classic option. Here is an overview of the most important KfW loans:

KfW's smallest loan: "ERP Start-up Loan - StartGeld"

With the KfW start-up loan, you can receive up to 125,000 euros to invest in machinery, computers, software, etc. or to cover running costs such as rent and staff costs. The loan is particularly aimed at small and young practices that were founded no more than five years ago. As a rule, equity capital is not required for this loan. The loan term is five to ten years.

The middle loan from KfW: "ERP capital for start-ups"

If 125,000 euros is not enough for your project, you can also apply for the ERP capital loan. Here you can receive up to 500,000 euros. However, this requires equity capital (usually between 10 and 15 percent). The loan is suitable for medium-sized medical practices that were founded no more than three years ago. The term of this KfW loan is 15 years.

The big loan from KfW: "ERP promotional loan for SMEs"

The ERP SME development loan, which provides a credit line of up to 25 million euros, is more suitable for larger practices with up to around 250 employees. This loan is aimed specifically at older practices that have been on the market for at least three years and have an annual turnover of no more than 50 million euros. The loan term can be up to 20 years.

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Subsidies for medical practices

As a rule, grants that do not have to be repaid are even more interesting than loans. But how exactly do medical professionals find the right funding program for their purposes?

Funding advice helps medical practices

The funding jungle in Germany is almost impossible to keep track of. This is precisely why there are now funding consultancies that find the right funding for medical practices. So that you can continue to concentrate on your patients, the agency takes these tasks off your hands:

Research

If you want to research funding yourself, you have to keep an eye on political events and decisions made by ministries and other project sponsors. It is not easy to find the right funding online straight away. In addition, all funding programs have guidelines that are sometimes very difficult to understand. It can therefore be difficult for doctors to assess whether they are even the right candidates for funding. A funding consultancy will take over this research and compile a detailed overview for you.

Development of a promotion strategy

If you want to have several projects funded at the same time, a strategy is essential. This involves selecting the projects and designing them in such a way that they are eligible for funding. With the right planning and analysis, you therefore have the chance of obtaining the highest grants in the overall picture. The strategy development is made up of the respective possible funding programmes and is based, for example, on your personnel planning or the digitization project. Agencies are also happy to take this step for you.

Application

Once you have found the right grant, all you have to do is submit the application. But even that is not so easy. You have to deal with a lot of paperwork, which also needs to be checked thoroughly to ensure that nothing goes wrong with the application. As a doctor, you are already faced with a lot of documentation and administrative work, so you may want to hand over this task to a funding consultancy.

Whether you want to hire an agency is of course up to you. In principle, it can increase your chances of receiving more funding.

Would you also like to digitize your practice? Nelly can help you!

One of the ways to modernize your medical practice is with Nelly software. Nelly digitizes the anamnesis and billing of your patients - saving you and your team 90 minutes every day. We will advise you on your individual case free of charge and without obligation!

‍Contact Nelly now!

The personal designations used in this article always refer equally to all persons. For the sake of better readability, we have refrained from using double or opposite names.