Recruiting, Retaining, and Building Your Medical Staff

My wife and I see the same primary care physician. Our primary care physician had a sports medicine background. Earlier this year, he left to go to work for another healthcare organization. The physician who took his place also had experience with sports medicine, which is important because my wife and I participate in boot camp-style workouts.

Not too long after the second physician took over, he informed us he was switching from primary care to work in urgent care at another facility. He was going to be replaced with a third sports medicine physician who had yet to join the healthcare organization. In the meantime, we had a family practice physician as our primary care physician.

Earlier this week when I inquired as to when the new sports medicine physician would be starting, I was told that she had decided not to accept the contract. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

It made me think if the healthcare organization had made the new physician a better offer, she may have signed a contract to work for the organization. I also thought, if you want to recruit and retain the talent you want, you need to offer them something they want.

Reports show the number one concern for all US physicians is retirement. A lifelong pension benefit plan with a long vesting period could be just the thing to help your healthcare organization recruit and then retain talent over the long term.

This can also be a way to build a great team because it will make your organization very attractive to the best talent.

You only offer it to the candidates you really want to recruit, and to the top performing physicians, and key non-clinical employees you wish to keep.

Over time you can weed out the people you don’t want while holding onto the talent you do want. Eventually you'll have a dream team that works well together and ultimately provides better patient care.

If you have questions, send me an email to David@TheAlemianFile.com. Check out my website PhysiciansRetirementPlan.com. Follow me on Twitter, connect with me on LinkedIn, and absolutely make sure you come back here next week to Physicians Money Digest for another edition of The Alemian File.