Private practice in rural areas: An untapped opportunity for dietitians

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to describe the current demography of rural dietetic private practice and to determine the drivers and barriers for further development. DESIGN: A sequential explanatory mixed methods approach was used. Document searches and semistructured in-depth individual interviews were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. SETTING: Six rural case study sites of dietetic service delivery in rural northern New South Wales. PARTICIPANTS: Forty key informants including past and present dietitians, dietetic managers and health service managers were recruited, of these a subset of 15 interviews included discussion or comments about private practice in rural areas. MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURES: Themes identified from the interview transcripts, Medicare enhanced primary care consultation data and public/private dietetic staffing levels from document searches. RESULTS: Private practice staffing ranged between 0% and 26% of the dietetic workforce across the six sites in 2006. Themes relating to the drivers and barriers for private practice were identified: financial factors, job satisfaction, opportunities for private practice and establishing private practice. CONCLUSIONS: There is an opportunity for growth of private practice to meet the gap in public dietetic services in rural areas.