We are in the business of sourcing physicians and advanced practitioners, of all specialties, to all sorts of new practice opportunities across the country. The hiring entities could be huge health systems that employ 10,000+ physicians, solo practitioners that are looking to expand their services, or just about any setup in between. At any given time, we have over 7000 physician jobs that are open, and seeking candidates to fill the role. With so many options it is often times asked of us: What makes for a good practice opportunity? In today’s installment of the Inside Job, I’ll provide several traits that almost guarantee an opportunity to be towards the top of the chart.
- Lack of Competition: In my experience this has been the single most important aspect to any great opportunity. In communities that lack competing entities, physician practices thrive. Of course, this is dependent on a population base that will support the specialty being sought. The best targets for non-competitive positions are in communities with only one hospital providing service. Lack of choice is paramount to lack of competition, when you’re there alone, there’s no one to compete! With no competition, these hospitals will only recruit new clinicians when necessary due to growth, or replacement, and only to meet the demands of their patients. Competition between hospitals will often times lead new hires being placed to maintain, or capture, market share from competing entities, in many of these cases, practices take a long time develop and mature, simply due to the amount of choices available to the patients.
- Physician Replacement: Physicians leave great opportunities for a myriad of reasons; relocation, retirement, spouse’s career, death, etc. Replacing a clinician that is walking away from an established practice sets you up to step into a ready-made practice. You will be busy from the day of introductions and will not have to go through months of building up a new book of patients. It is often times said that it takes 18-24 months for a new practice to be profitable, a replacement situation will allow you to generate profitable revenue from Day 1 and accelerate your personal income. In the grand scheme, simply investing this early income windfall will ease your path to an earlier retirement.
- Physician Run Organizations: Whether a large hospital organization or small single specialty practice, when a Physician is in charge, it’s likely that they are going to look out for their own. We work with many Private practices, both single and multi-specialty based, that are physician-owned/operated and offer partnership tracks to incoming physicians. Additionally, we work with many hospitals in which a physician is the CEO, or the board of directors is dominated with a physician presence.
- Opportunities for Ancillary Income: It’s been said that the people become wealthy not through their work, but, through their money working for them. Ancillary income is essentially your money working for you. Labs, X-Rays, Surgery Centers, etc, are all excellent sources of ancillary income that does not require your physical output to generate income. Although they are less prevalent than a decade ago, there are still many practice opportunities that offer the additional income that comes from real estate investments, surgery centers, in-house labs, etc. Additional, passive, income is always a nice job benefit.
- Lack of Clinician Turnover: Of all the traits mentioned, this is the one that can make all the rest moot points. If an organization has a lot of turnover, there is a problem that is likely to eliminate their positions from being considered “great.” High clinician turnover truly trumps all the rest of these traits that would otherwise make for a good opportunity. Likewise, an organization that offers none of the above traits, but, has very little clinician turnover, is very likely an early sign of a great opportunity. If you are lucky enough to find an opportunity with several of the above traits AND very little clinician turnover, make the leap!
While the above traits usually will lay the foundation for a great opportunity, I can promise you that just because these traits exist, does not 100% guarantee that the opportunity will be stellar. Being recruited to a job, and being an individual in that job, often comes with varying results. Call us today and let us help you sift through your best available options. We will be happy to help!