Hospitals: Check Doctor’s Communication Skills Before Buying The Practice
Hospitals today are aggressively buying physician practices in their local markets. Why? Hospitals want to solidify their referral base for inpatient and outpatient referrals as well as increase their negotiating power with insurance companies.
Over 50% of physician practices are now owned by hospitals according to the Medical Group Management Association. As such, many one-time private practitioners are now hospital employees.
Having done physician recruitment in a prior life, I know that before buying a practice that hospitals look at a variety of things including the practice’s patient volume, number of hospital referrals, estimates of patient turnover, and so on. One of the things we did not consider years ago in evaluating and buying a physician practice was the quality of the physician’s patient communication skills and supporting practices. I doubt that things have changed much since. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*