Medical Staff Recruiting

Meeting the Needs of both Performance and Fit

Recruitment can follow various strategies. From external firms to internal staff, use of existing staff recommendations. However, the overarching issues are how many physicians are needed and or what specialties. Further, not just what is needed today, but also what will be needed at various points in the future.

Further what mix of newly minted and established physicians will best meet organizational and patient needs?

Objectives Based Recruitment

Physician recruitment is an objectives driven process involving:

Demand Planning
Timeline Projections
Realistic Budgeting
Contracting

All these factors, combined with a recruitment staff that is highly knowledgeable of the practice environment, of the organization's objectives and capabilities and of effective, insightful interviewing of candidates is essential for a successful process. However, the most critical variable is the staff member(s) involved in the actual recruiting process. Recruiting staff must be bright and energetic, highly empathetic in understandings the parties goals and objectives, well versed in the practice environment, of industry/medical trends and of the work situation being offered and its' concomitant requirements.

Assuming you have the right staff, let's get started.

Demand Planning

Traditionally, medical staffs have been fairly static and stable entities. Other than relocation, you could usually expect a physician to maintain the same basic practice activity from start to retirement. That is changing, and I address this fully in the Physician Retention section, but effective recruitment is the foundation for effective retention.

Most physicians want to be reasonably busy. Demand Planning should begin with what your organization needs to accomplish in terms of medical/surgical services. For example, if you have a robotic major joint surgery center, you may want your surgery suite to allow for six surgeries per day. Now, is that one surgeon performing six surgeries, or two doing three each or some combination, for example each surgeon doing four procedures every other day. As you can see, this is both a spreadsheet question and a physician practice preference and performance question. However, it is a necessary question to answer. Further, it is a question you will ask whether focused on surgical procedures, patients seen by an Internist in office, a hospitalist, or a medical sub-specialists doing a combination of office and outpatient procedures. In every case, you will be calculating an FTE, Full Time Equivalent, required to meet current and or projected needs.