MSc applied research Ongoing
Healthcare value proposition for physicians in Switzerland
What do doctors' practices in Switzerland really need from practice-management consulting? An applied research project built on interviews with physicians and healthcare specialists.
What value proposition should practice-management consulting offer physicians in Switzerland?
This project is running now. This page explains the context and our approach, and I will add the findings as the project moves forward.
The context
Swiss doctors’ practices are under pressure from several directions at once. On 1 January 2026, the new outpatient tariff TARDOC replaced TARMED, the system used for almost twenty years, and many doctors worry that complex cases are not fully covered. At the same time, rural practices often struggle to find a successor, and administration, billing and staffing take time away from patients.
That creates a possible market for practice-management consulting: helping physicians run the business side of a practice. But a market only exists if doctors see enough value to pay for it. That is our question.
In my startup survival study, health was the best-surviving sector, protected by licences and stable demand. This project looks at the same sector from the inside: what keeps an established practice healthy as a business.
Our approach
We use a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design:
- Interviews first. Qualitative interviews with physicians in solo and group practices, and with healthcare specialists, to build a map of their real pain points.
- A survey second. A broader quantitative survey to test how widespread those pain points are, and which services doctors would value most.
- A value proposition last. Turning the evidence into a clear offer: which problems to solve, for whom, and why a doctor would choose it.
What I am learning so far
How to prepare for interviews with senior experts whose time is limited, and how to keep a research design honest when everyone already has an opinion about what doctors need.
