Due Diligence on the Internal Front Enhances Recruiting Success
January- February 2004
In every aspect of health care today, competition is intense. Physicians must continue to grow their practices while payers continue to reduce reimbursement rates. Increasing patient loads means increasing the staff to care for them. While health care groups struggle with the workforce shortage in nursing and technical staff, having an adequate number of physicians is becoming an ever-present challenge as well.
The first step in ensuring a successful recruitment effort is to assess how the organization is structured, positioned, and disciplined to be effective.
Know Your Marketplace
Physicians typically make recruitment decisions based on their geographic preferences, and every locale has its pros and cons. An organization needs to understand what implications these preferences will have on a specific search. In a search conducted for a New England hospital, for example, we presented data that showed the number of practicing internal medicine (IM) physicians in the nation, then the number that practiced locally in the state. We also showed the number of IM physicians in other states that had a possible affinity to the region based on their place of birth, education, or training location. This information not only helped target the prospecting activities, but it also helped the organization understand the competition it would face while conducting the search process.
As recruitment begins, matching the analysis of the marketplace against a prospective physician’s wants and needs allows a health care organization to be better prepared to:
- Respond to a candidate’s questions
- Know the most effective methods for sourcing candidates
- Set clear expectations about the time frame needed for the search
Everyone in the organization also needs to speak knowledgeably about the medical practice climate of the area (i.e., mergers and acquisitions, economic issues, malpractice costs, HMO penetration, etc) and know what aspects of the medical practice are positive in your area versus other regions of the country. Also, a practice group should have a plan in place to manage those regional economic aspects that are weak. Be prepared to share those weaknesses upfront with candidates and discuss what is being done to counter the current situation.
Positioning the Practice Opportunity
To attract quality candidates, an organization needs to offer an appealing practice environment. Take a close look at what your practice offers from the eyes of a newcomer. Prospective physicians are looking for sound financial practices, existing demand for their specialty, strong operational support systems, and a balanced call schedule.
Also note that compensation today includes not only a base salary but the entire financial package. Be prepared with dollar values for the benefits offered, including insurance coverage and malpractice. Review the local and national markets as well to ensure your practice is competitive. Signing bonuses are becoming quite popular, and paid relocation is assumed in today’s market. Specialty areas such as radiology, cardiology, and some surgical specialties are growing rapidly with demand outpacing supply. Don’t assume that the financial package you put together a couple of years ago is still relevant in today’s marketplace.
Prepare Your Recruitment Team
Recruitment is a team effort, and everyone — including current physicians and administration — needs to work in tandem to demonstrate their commitment and support of the process. Ensure that each team member clearly understands his or her role, how the recruitment process works, and how the practice should be positioned for the prospective physician.
An effective way to get everyone on board is to conduct an internal orientation to review the marketplace dynamics, how the group will approach the process, and the human and financial costs associated with recruitment — successful or not. A discussion would likely include the following: who will solicit candidates and how this soliciting will be done, which physicians will do the initial screening of candidates, and who will participate in on-site visits. Other important points to discuss and clarify would include who will take the lead in collecting feedback from the group on the “fit” of the candidate and who will manage contract negotiations.
Sales is a critical element in the recruitment process. Your recruitment team is selling the benefits of your organization in every meeting, phone call, and written communication. Ensure that the recruitment team members have strong interpersonal skills and an ability to listen carefully and ask thoughtful questions.
Interacting with Candidates
Unless a candidate is local, it is more cost effective to conduct an initial screening interview on the telephone before incurring the expense of a site visit. Select a key member of the practice to have the initial conversation with the candidate. The two parties would then need to mutually agree that there is a good fit and that advancing to a site visit makes sense.
The on-site interview process is typically a minimum of two visits. The first visit allows everyone to assess if they think it would be a good clinical, philosophical, and cultural fit. It is also an opportunity to showcase the practice group’s community in terms of housing, education, and professional opportunities for family considerations.
If there is agreement to continue, the practice group should be prepared to extend an offer to the candidate on the second visit. This means having documents prepared, including statistics demonstrating patient demand, group financials, sample marketing plans, and a draft contract. And then, the close: make sure to make the offer and ask for an answer.
To ensure an effective closing process, however, remember to provide some downtime during the second site visit. This will give the practice partners time to assess whether the group is prepared to extend the contract offer and for the physician to assess whether he or she is ready to accept said offer. Make sure this time is specifically built into the schedule, so the practice partners can make a decision on the offer before the prospective physician completes his or her visit.
Recruitment Is a Learning Process
Spending time assessing your recruitment practice is an eye-opening experience for any organization. You’ll find out things about your team you may have not realized. Every practice opportunity has some rough spots. The key is to manage them effectively, and this includes an organizational review to ensure there is the following:
- Clarity about who you want and what you have to offer
- A good opportunity
- A market-competitive financial package
- Effective relationship sales skills
- Internal commitment to the process
- A targeted approach
- Solid organizational skills
Remember that recruitment is a team effort, and it takes commitment to make it work. It would be great if we could wave a magic wand and have the perfect candidate appear before us. But in the absence of that, do your best to nurture an environment where discipline, diligence, and a lot of diplomacy come together to bring about the desired results.
Source: Kriss Barlow, R.N., M.B.A., and Allison McCarthy, M.B.A., are consultants with Corporate Health Group. The firm provides consultation for customer strategies involving physicians, employers, and consumers.
Please feel free to contact them at kbarlow@corporatehealthgroup.com or amccarthy@corporatehealthgroup.com.
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