Expert Medical Director IT Support for Australian GP Practices

Medical Director is one of Australia’s longest-serving clinical software platforms — and for the thousands of GP practices still running it, it is as mission-critical as ever. PIP provides specialist IT support for Medical Director environments: keeping your clinical records accessible, your Pracsoft billing running, and your practice compliant with Australian healthcare regulations.

Whether your practice runs Medical Director on a local server, a virtual machine, or a hosted cloud environment, PIP has the infrastructure and clinical software knowledge to keep it stable, secure, and performing.

The most common call we get from Medical Director practices is a failed Pracsoft Medicare Online connection on a Monday morning.

About Medical Director — Australia’s Established GP Clinical Platform

Medical Director, now owned and developed by Telus Health (formerly Health Communication Network / HCN), has been a cornerstone of Australian general practice for decades. It remains one of the most widely installed clinical software platforms in the country, trusted by GP practices for its depth of clinical functionality.

What Medical Director does

• Electronic health records — full patient history, clinical notes, immunisation records
• Prescribing — electronic prescriptions (eRx), repeat management, drug interaction checking
• Pathology and radiology — electronic ordering and result retrieval
• Referral letters — templated clinical correspondence
• My Health Record — integrated upload and retrieval of patient health summaries
• Secure messaging — integrations with Medical Objects, HealthLink, and Argus for eReferrals and results

Pracsoft — the billing engine that pairs with Medical Director

Most practices running Medical Director also run Pracsoft for appointment scheduling, Medicare billing, and claiming. PIP supports both applications as a unified environment — because a billing outage is just as disruptive as a clinical one.

Medical Director 3 vs Clinical

Many Australian practices continue to operate on Medical Director 3 (desktop client/server model). Telus Health has also introduced Medical Director Clinical (web-based). PIP supports both versions and can advise on what upgrade or migration path is right for your practice.

Keep Medical Director Fast, Stable and Always Available

Medical Director and Pracsoft are not applications you can afford to have down — even for an hour. PIP’s managed support is built around preventing downtime before it happens, responding rapidly when it does, and giving your practice a single accountable partner who understands both the clinical software and the infrastructure underneath it.

Specialist Medical IT Support for Medical Director

PIP delivers specialist IT support for Medical Director across on-premise, virtualised, and cloud-hosted deployments. Our support is not generic MSP service with a medical label on it — our engineers know Medical Director, Pracsoft, and the clinical workflows that depend on them.

Core support services for Medical Director practices

• High availability infrastructure designed around Medical Director’s SQL Server architecture
• Proactive monitoring of the Medical Director database, application server, and client workstations
• Patch and version management — updates tested before deployment, not applied blindly
• Backup and disaster recovery — automated, verified, with tested restore procedures
• Secure remote access — VPN and RD Gateway with multi-factor authentication for multi-location practices
• 24/7 helpdesk — staffed by engineers who know what a Pracsoft billing error actually means
• Ad-hoc support and structured support agreements — we work to your practice’s preference

Medical IT Managed Support for Medical Director

PIP’s managed service for Medical Director practices covers the full stack — from the SQL Server database at the core of Medical Director through to the workstations in every consulting room.

What’s included in managed support

• Proactive server and workstation monitoring — issues flagged and resolved before your staff notice
• Comprehensive monthly reports outlining issues rectified, problem areas and future mitigation projects
• Patch management — Windows, Medical Director, and Pracsoft updates on a controlled schedule
• Backup monitoring — automated verification that backups completed and are restorable
• Cybersecurity — ASD Essential Eight alignment, endpoint protection, and user access controls
• ISO/IEC 27001 aligned security practices across your environment
• Unlimited remote support during business hours; out-of-hours coverage for critical clinical systems
• On-site support across Sydney and beyond for issues that require a physical presence

Medical Director and Pracsoft — Supported Together

Most Medical Director practices run Pracsoft alongside it for appointments, billing, and Medicare claiming. The two applications share infrastructure — the same server, the same network, the same backup regime — and an issue in one almost always affects the other.

PIP supports Medical Director and Pracsoft as a single integrated environment, not as two separate support tickets. That means:

• A single point of contact for both clinical and billing system issues
• Upgrade coordination — Medical Director and Pracsoft version compatibility managed together
• Billing continuity — Pracsoft Medicare Online and ECLIPSE claiming kept online and up to date
• HotDoc integration support for online appointment bookings feeding into Pracsoft
• Eclipse and DVA billing support for practices with specialist billing requirements

If your practice also uses Health Communication Network (HCN) messaging or other Telus Health products, PIP can support those integrations as part of the same engagement.

Why GP Practices Choose PIP for Medical Director Support

• Clinical software expertise, not generic IT: PIP engineers are trained in Medical Director and Pracsoft. We know the difference between a SQL Server connectivity issue and a Pracsoft configuration problem — and we fix the right thing the first time.
• Australian infrastructure: All PIP-managed cloud environments are hosted on Australian soil, in ISO/IEC 27001 certified data centres. Patient data does not leave Australia.
• One accountable partner: PIP covers your IT support, cloud hosting, backup, security, and compliance in a single engagement. No finger-pointing between your IT provider and your hosting provider when something goes wrong.
• Proactive, not reactive: We monitor your Medical Director environment continuously. Most issues are identified and resolved before they impact your clinical sessions.
• Decades of healthcare IT experience: PIP has supported Australian medical practices through multiple generations of clinical software. We understand the regulatory environment — Privacy Act 1988, Australian Privacy Principles, My Health Record obligations — and we design your IT environment around it.

Medical Director IT Infrastructure and On-Premise Architecture

Medical Director is a client/server application with specific infrastructure requirements. PIP designs and maintains the server environment that Medical Director depends on.

Core server infrastructure

• Database server: SQL Server instance running the Medical Director database; sized for practice patient volume and concurrent users
• Application / terminal services layer: Remote Desktop Services for multi-location or work-from-home access to Medical Director
• Active Directory: user authentication, group policy, and access controls
• File server / NAS: shared storage for clinical documents, letters, and attachments
• Backup server: local backup target with offsite or cloud replication

Workstation environment

• Windows workstations and laptops: configured for Medical Director client and Pracsoft
• Peripheral support: label printers, receipt printers, card readers, document scanners
• Secure remote access: VPN or RD Gateway with MFA for clinicians working from home or satellite locations

Network and security

• Firewall and network segmentation: clinical traffic isolated from guest Wi-Fi
• Managed switches and wireless: coverage across all consulting rooms and reception
• Email security: filtering and anti-phishing for practice staff

Security and Compliance for Medical Director Practices

Medical practices hold some of the most sensitive personal information in Australia. PIP builds compliance into your Medical Director environment by design, not as an afterthought.

Privacy Act 1988 and Australian Privacy Principles

PIP configures Medical Director environments to support your obligations under the Privacy Act — access controls, audit trails, data minimisation, and breach response readiness.

ASD Essential Eight

PIP aligns your infrastructure to the Australian Signals Directorate Essential Eight maturity model — the standard framework for Australian healthcare cybersecurity.

My Health Record

GP practices have specific obligations under the My Health Record system. PIP ensures your Medical Director environment has the correct network access, certificate configuration, and software versions required for compliant My Health Record connectivity.

Australian data residency

For practices using PIP’s cloud hosting, all patient data remains in Australia — in ISO/IEC 27001 certified facilities. No offshore cloud, no data sovereignty risk.

Medical Director Onboarding and Migration

New practice setup: PIP configures Medical Director and Pracsoft from scratch for new practices — server build, software installation, PRODA and HPOS configuration, Medicare Online setup, and staff training included.

Version upgrades: Moving from an older version of Medical Director or Pracsoft to a current release requires careful planning. PIP manages the upgrade process with a test environment first, scheduled downtime minimised, and a validated go-live.

Migrating from Medical Director: If your practice is considering moving from Medical Director to Best Practice or another platform, PIP can manage the data migration and transition support. We are software-agnostic — our job is to support your practice, whatever clinical platform you choose.

Migrating to cloud hosting: If your Medical Director environment currently runs on an ageing on-premise server, PIP can migrate it to a secure Australian private cloud — eliminating the server hardware liability while keeping Medical Director running exactly as your clinicians expect. See our Medical Director Cloud Hosting page for details.

Frequently Asked Questions