JOIN OUR CURATED PRACTITIONER COMMUNITY TODAY

Medstars is a curated community of health experts who share our ambition of helping patients find high quality and ethical private healthcare. By clearly explaining your expertise and giving patients an insight into you as a person, you can promote your private practice. Medstars will also give you a helping hand to professionally and sensitively share your expertise through blogs and across our social media platforms. With our focus on working with the very best, we aim to be a ‘kite mark' stamp of excellence and honest values in private healthcare. As our community grows, there are opportunities for networking with colleagues, 'virtual MDTs' and exciting business opportunities for clinicians looking to broaden the scope of their practice.

You can apply to Medstars using the ‘apply now’ button above. You'll then be asked to provide a few details such as full name, job title, location and the statutory regulatory body you belong to. Only health professionals regulated by a professional statutory body are eligible to be part of our online community. Joining is by invitation or formal application through our website. Our team will review your request and carry out research such as regulator registration status, membership of professional bodies, postgraduate training and patient testimonials where available. We review your Google search results in detail. We may also consult with our colleagues and other Medstars practitioners in your specialty, and with hospitals and clinics. We will notify you of the outcome of your application within 7 days. This will be based upon the above, and also on the numbers of other specialists in your field already on Medstars in your geographical area. Having too many clinicians offering exactly the same subspecialty expertise can be confusing for patients. Sometimes we may ask that you go on a waiting list and we'll get in touch when a place in your specialty becomes available. Following this, we will work together with you to set up your Medstars account, get your profile built and live as soon as possible!

A profile on our online platform costs £400+VAT per year for GMC and GDC members, and £325+VAT per year for allied health professionals. This is payable via annual or monthly direct debit.

You get to be part of an amazing team of subspecialty experts across the UK that share your values of ethical, high quality, transparent private practice! You will also have your own bespoke quarterly marketing strategy in which we will create engaging digital content such as blogs, videos and social media posts showcasing your expertise and directing people to your Medstars profile. You're welcome to share this content across your own social media platforms and on your own personal website if you have one. We can also provide you with a Medstars 'button' to direct patients to your Medstars profile. We will help you create and continually optimise your Medstars profile, improve your search engine visibility and aim to provide you with quality private patient leads. You have 24/7 access to your profile as well, which enables you to add to it and keep it up to date as you wish. Medstars is increasingly being approached by diverse organisations wanting to source and pay for high quality medical consultancy and advice. If you are interested in these opportunities, then do let us know and we can arrange a chat to discuss your particular interests and availability.

Yes. This is a legitimate expense advertising your professional services to patients. We'll provide you with an invoice of your Medstars subscription for this purpose.

Patients ask to see you you via your Medstars profile by clicking the ‘request appointment’ button. Your profile will list the clinics you practice at, along with your prices and availability at each clinic. When a patient requests an appointment with you, yourself and/or your secretary will be notified via email. The email will include a brief description of the patient’s medical condition. We ask that you or your secretary then contact the patient to arrange the appointment date within 1 working day. If for some reason yourself or your secretary are unable to get in contact with the patient, a member of our team will also contact them to assist in arranging the appointment. Once an appointment date has been arranged, we ask that yourself or your secretary simply click the 'confirm appointment' button via the original email to notify us that this has been set up.

If you are struggling to log in to your practitioner account, get in touch with us at hello@medstars.co.uk

Our main aim is to be a valuable resource for patients to help them find top-quality private healthcare in the UK. So we work with you to create engaging patient-focused digital content that works hard on our website and across social media to promote the specific expertise of clinicians that we think are among the best in their field. A consequence of improving your online presence is often patient leads. These may be directly through your Medstars profile, or indirectly by patients contacting your clinic directly after, for example, seeing a blog you have co-produced. The more you are able to work with us to develop blogs, videos and social media posts, the more we can promote your expertise online. If you don't create a variety of original online content regularly, your ranking will drop on Google and it's harder for patients to find you!

Your Medstars profile acts as an attractive, search-engine optimised and extremely cost-effective alternative to a stand-alone website. You can add your profile link to your business cards and Linked In page, and we can give you a Medstars 'button' to add to your website if you already have one so you can show off your profile and membership of our community! If you are determined to have your own stand-alone website in addition to your profile, then we do offer high quality website build at extremely competitive rates. Please note that this offer is only available to those who already have a live Medstars profile. Just contact us at hello@medstars.co.uk to find out more.

Our ethos is simple. As doctors, we're asked all the time for peer recommendations. Doctors often do this for family and friends. So we showcase clinicians on Medstars that we would be happy to see ourselves or send our family members to. It's not an exact science, and we don't pretend to be impartial. In general, our practitioners are experts in their field with particular subspecialty expertise. Most work in the NHS as well as in private practice, as in the UK this is a good proxy for ongoing peer review, adherence to accepted clinical standards and governance. Many practice at the country's leading teaching hospitals. For the few doctors that are in full-time private practice, they have reached a high level of seniority and established their respected clinical and academic reputations whilst still in the NHS. We check that what they do in their private practice corresponds with their established expertise, experience and NHS practice. For our non-medical allied health professionals, we make sure that they are engaged with their professional bodies and are considered experts in their given fields by having gone well over and above the basics of what is expected in their profession. We ask their colleagues what they think of them - it's what we would do before going to see someone ourselves. And we interview all of them over the year and gather patient feedback to understand the soft stuff like interpersonal skills. It's important to us and the patients who use Medstars that they are good human beings as well. These things really matter when you are worried about your health and are looking for someone you can trust. And finally, if we find that any of our practitioners haven't adhered to our values around transparency when it comes to expertise, pricing or behaviour, we ask them nicely to step down.