The prevalence of larger, more complex employed physician networks is causing many hospitals and health systems to reevaluate the management infrastructure required to run them.
Finding the executive talent to lead these organizations is imperative to their future success and sustainability. If you find yourself on the recruiting circuit, we recommend:
- Take the time – Conduct a national search. Done correctly, this could take 80-100 days to complete. Treat these searches with same imperatives as you would a hospital executive.
- Use an interim – During those 100 days, many clients engage us for interim management of their physician network. This helps bring stability to a potentially chaotic situation and the interim can begin laying the ground for building the proper infrastructure for a high performing network.
- Spend the money – This is a tight talent pool. Experienced network leaders often have advanced degrees or certifications. Be willing to offer executive level salaries and benefit plans to attract the best candidates.
- Use the right firm – Many physician recruiters or hospital executive search firms are narrowly focused on either physicians or hospital executives. Find a search firm like HSG that has experience recruiting for the specific position of physician network executive.
- Know what you don’t know – Honestly assess the management talent in your network. If the management horsepower does not exist, make the decision to devote resources to a network management firm. Multimillion dollar physician networks are important to hospitals and health systems and management mistakes can be costly and devastating to the system.
- Use the right eyes – Those of us who have run large networks know inherently what to look for in a candidate. An in-house recruiter or traditional HR department may lack the knowledge to peruse candidate resumes for what your network needs.
- Recruit to where you want to be, not where you are – If your organization’s strategic plan calls for doubling the size of your network from 25 to 50 physicians in the next 2 years, look for someone who has grown a network, not someone who has operationally maintained a 20-physician network.
- Be a team – When bringing candidates on site, set up meetings with key physician network leaders and some of the directors or managers. These folks may have different insight and feedback about a candidate.