Case Study: Interim Management for an Employed Physician Network

Background

Our Midwestern hospital client had a rapidly-growing employed physician network. The network was multi-specialty and was deployed to expand the hospital’s footprint in outreach markets. Developing the group culture and increasing physician engagement, however, were becoming increasingly challenging. The group lacked a solid infrastructure and didn’t have sufficient dedicated resources to support the practices or the physicians. Practice management turnover was increasing and the network struggled to retain quality talent to lead the organization. As a result, the network was not operating efficiently.

Solution

HSG placed an interim administrator into the employed physician network while the network searched for a new director. The interim administrator had a proven practice management track record and understood the day-to-day challenges of integrating practices into the hospital’s structure. For the first four-month engagement, a roadmap was created to focus the interim administrator’s attention on short-term priorities, including human resources, IT integration and on-boarding new physician practices.

Results

• Enhanced the overall HR function through development of separate policies and procedures to make the physician practice hiring process more efficient.
• Developed job descriptions for all managers and supervisors to ensure the right people were in the right position. This also helped to identify leadership gaps, which led to new hiring decisions and better aligned skill sets within the organizations.
• Led and implemented a key IT system upgrade, working closely with outside IT consultants to ensure a smooth transition with no interruptions.
• Recommended an increase in the number of dedicated IT resources to the employed group. As a result, the lead time to address IT-related issues decreased across the network, which boosted productivity.
• On-boarded three new primary care and cardiology practices, including conversion of the EMR systems within the acquired practices to the systems utilized within the hospital’s employed physician network.
• Ensured credentialing was complete ahead of acquisitions, minimizing cash flow interruptions to the organization.