Money matters most of all in recruiting and retaining physician private practice staff, employees say. But practice-management experts counter that compensation is only part of a comprehensive strategy to recruit and retain new employees.
Employee buy-in, getting staff to understand and participate in the vision of leadership, is critical, according to Justin Holtzman, MD, MHSA. He is the medical director of a Boston-area multispecialty physician private practice with three locations.
“That’s the key—getting employees to buy in. We work really hard to make sure that people don’t just come to stamp a timecard and then leave at the end of the day. We want them to have a say in how they design the work and how it gets done. If there is a better way, we want them to implement it,” said Dr. Holtzman.
“If I ask them to take ownership, they own that work, and it works magic,” added Dr. Holtzman during an AMA Private Practice Simple Solutions session, which is part of a series of free, open-access rapid-learning cycles designed to provide opportunities to implement actionable changes that can immediately increase efficiency in private practices.
The session featured expert answers to questions from physicians and practice managers and was moderated by Sea Chen, MD, PhD, a private practice physician and director of physician practice sustainability at the AMA. Other speakers included:
- Carl Knopke, MD, medical director of the Inland Empire Weight Loss practice in Riverside, California.
- Roxanne Marie Tyroch, MD, who has a small medical practice, Intellimedicine, in El Paso, Texas.
All three physicians are members of the AMA Private Practice Physicians Section, which seeks to preserve the freedom, independence and integrity of private practice.
Employee buy-in is critical
Dr. Knopke agreed that employee buy-in is important. “Allowing your staff to have buy-in is valuable and comfortable and makes for a nice place to work. Don’t underestimate that effect.”
However, before the staff can pull together as a team, leadership needs to recruit the key people who are ready and able to take on those tasks. Practice leaders have various techniques, they said.
“We try to use word of mouth, but we often start looking in places where people are already motivated to work in health care—like local colleges and universities—where they may be working between undergraduate and graduate training,” Dr. Knopke said. “These people are intelligent, motivated, and they are bought-in.”
Dr. Tyroch recruits using a staffing agent who knows and understands her practice’s needs. After working together for 20 years, “everyone she brings in is a great fit,” Dr. Tyroch said. The agency recruits from outside the local market, attracting people who bring office management and advanced administrative skills to the practice that may be lacking locally.
“Hiring and HR are two of the toughest things in a running a practice,” noted Dr. Knopke. And compensation is one of the most difficult issues, they agreed, as insurers cut payments to doctors, lowering assets available for payroll and compensation. However, a small private practice has some advantages, Dr. Knopke said.
Smaller practices are more nimble and can be more efficient and can use their staff to create new profit centers that can contribute to income and provide incentives, he said. For example, employees can be trained to make the best use of technology through modalities such as remote patient monitoring.
Dr. Holtzman encourages his staff come up with new ways to manage their jobs, which can boost practice income that they all can share.
“They do their job more effectively and efficiently,” he said.
It takes astute clinical judgment as well as a commitment to collaboration and solving challenging problems to succeed in independent settings that are often fluid, and the AMA offers the resources and support physicians need to both start and sustain success in private practice.
