The latest from Practice Plus Group for you;
Practice Plus Group has outlined plans to significantly increase its private medical insurance (PMI) activity, building on its established private healthcare platform and strengthening its position as a national partner to the UK’s leading insurers.
The independent hospital group, acquired last year by Narayana Health, has spent the past six months putting in place the commercial relationships and operational infrastructure required to scale its insured patient volumes across its hospital network.
Heading up the company’s PMI offering is Claire O’Neill who joined Practice Plus Group as Partnerships Director last year from Circle Health Group, where she held a senior commercial role. Since arriving, she has established a dedicated insured partnerships function, strengthened working arrangements with major insurers and undertaken a comprehensive review of the group’s hospitals to assess their readiness for increased PMI activity.
Claire O’Neill brings experience from both provider and insurer environments, having previously worked within AXA and Vitality, and has prior on-the-ground healthcare experience as an ITU nurse in NHS hospitals. She now leads structured engagement with the six largest PMI providers: AXA, Bupa, Aviva, Vitality, WPA and Healix, with a clear focus on building innovative and sustainable, long-term partnerships.
Central to the strategy has been identification of multiple digital access points to ensure ease of access to care for both patients and insured partners. The objective is to evidence Practice Plus Group as a credible, efficient and nationally accessible provider that consistently delivers quality and value.
Claire O’Neill, Partnerships Director at Practice Plus Group, said:
“Since joining the company, my focus has been on strengthening our insurer partnerships and demonstrating that we deliver high-quality care reliably and at scale. We already have a strong private healthcare offering, and we’re now building upon that to strengthen our insured offering in a structured, sustainable way.
“Practice Plus Group is not new to private healthcare. Our USP is fully transparent package pricing with no shortfalls. Insurers do not need to manage separate consultant charges or complex billing, and patients are never exposed to unexpected payment gaps. We are the only large provider in the market offering this model.”
Alongside commercial engagement, significant work has taken place to ensure operational readiness. Claire O’Neill has appointed two experienced Partnerships Relationship Managers – Neil Brown and Nathan Lang. Neil Brown joins the team leading enhancements to billing and coding processes to ensure transparency, accuracy and compliance, while Nathan Lang completes its PMI commercial team with a focus on embedding consistent insurer-facing processes and mutually beneficial contracts across sites. The group’s predominantly employed consultant model allows greater oversight of pricing and billing management, which is increasingly important to insurer partners seeking cost certainty and administrative simplicity.
Ross Dowsett, Chief Executive, Practice Plus Group, said:
“We’re taking a focused approach to strengthening our PMI proposition and are confident in the team Claire is building to deliver seamless access for insured patients. She has established strong commercial relationships with key insurers, while internally we’ve invested in systems, governance, and processes to efficiently support increased insured activity. Our experience delivering high-volume elective care for the NHS, alongside growth in our private healthcare services, provides a robust foundation for success.”
Practice Plus Group is already included within selected insurer-managed networks in areas such as hip and knee surgery, ophthalmology and endoscopy, where providers must meet defined clinical and performance standards in return for referral volumes. The group is working to broaden its participation across additional networks and to strengthen its presence within open referral frameworks. Inclusion in these arrangements enables access to members whose policies allow insurers to determine provider choice and is seen as strategically important for increasing referral flow.
In readiness for growth, Claire O’Neill has visited all Practice Plus Group hospital sites to assess private patient pathways, accessibility and insurer capability. With 12 sites nationally, Practice Plus Group believes it offers strong geographic coverage in core elective specialties. Where improvements have been identified, work is underway to enhance signage, streamline patient flows and ensure ease of access for insured patients. The aim is to promote the organisation as a cohesive, group-wide private proposition to insurers, even as ongoing refinements continue at individual sites.
The approach to insurer engagement recognises that each insurer operates differently, with distinct metrics, approval processes and strategic priorities. Individualised strategies have therefore been developed to reflect those differences, ensuring that proposals align with specific service level agreements, quality measures and commercial frameworks.
Looking ahead, Practice Plus Group’s priorities include expanding services and specialisms offered, increasing digital pathway access points, furthering network participation, increasing open referral inclusion and continuing to embed operational consistency across sites. At the same time, marketing activity will support greater awareness of Practice Plus Group among insurer teams and members, ensuring that patients recognise the group as a credible choice when selecting a provider.
While NHS-funded activity remains central to the organisation’s model, Practice Plus Group sees clear opportunity within the insured market as insurers seek partners who can combine value, quality and operational reliability.
Claire O’Neill added:
“The market is evolving, and insurers are looking for partners who can deliver consistently and work collaboratively. We have the flexibility and infrastructure to respond to their needs, and we’re committed to delivering excellence and innovation with our PMI partners.”
For more information and locations of Practice Plus Group hospitals visit: Hospitals and surgical centres | Practice Plus Group
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