Join Us for the NAPR School of Healthcare Recruitment Coming in 2010!
WEDNESDAY, April 7, 2010
8:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. Registration Open
8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. 101 Beginning Recruitment – Session #1 - “Ethics and Physician Recruitment”
Speaker: Patrice Streicher, Fox Hill Associates, Milwaukee, WI, Jane Born, Born & Bicknell, Boca Raton, FL
Since 1984, the NAPR has promoted a positive industry image and required its members to adhere to a practical, but strict, Code of Ethics. This session walks through an overview of the recruitment process offering insight and awareness about ethical practices within each component. Discussion highlights pragmatic approaches and critical thinking skills necessary in working in the industry.
9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. NAPR Board of Directors Meeting
9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. 101 Beginning Recruitment – Session #2 - “Sourcing Candidates From All Perspectives”
Speakers: Nicole McMillen, Medstaff National Medical Staffing, Cary, NC; and Sandi Buchanan, Carolinas HealthCare System, Charlotte, NC
Participants will be able to interact with the speakers in a dynamic setting. The topics covered in this session will include: Effective ways to source candidates using the Internet, examples of Paid Advertising Options (journal ads, direct marketing mail pieces, conventions, etc.), how to generate Candidate Referrals, how to work with Residency Programs, utilizing your database.
10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Refreshment Break
10:45 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. 101 Beginning Recruitment – Session #3 – Part I - “Cold Calling, Pre-Qualifying, and Presenting”
Speakers: Pat Doyle-Grace, Cejka Search, St. Louis, MO; Craig Fowler, Pinnacle Health Group, Atlanta, GA; and Tracey Black, Carolinas HealthCare System, Charlotte, NC
In this highly interactive session, attendees will learn a variety of techniques and practical applications to screen and pre-qualify prospects, including behavioral-based interviewing techniques to determine a prospect’s likelihood to make a move.
11:45 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Lunch Provided
12:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. 101 Beginning Recruitment – Session #4 – Part II - “Cold Calling, Pre-Qualifying, and Presenting
Speakers: Pat Doyle-Grace, Cejka Search, St. Louis, MO; Craig Fowler, Pinnacle Health Group, Atlanta, GA, and Tracey Black, Carolinas HealthCare System, Charlotte, NC
Continuation of Part I.
1:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. Refreshment Break
2:00 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. 101 Beginning Recruitment – Session #5 - “Overcoming Objections”
Speaker: Sherri Carlton Bowles, Delta Locums, Dallas, TX
An interactive session allowing audience and instructor input on how to handle common objections. Attendees will take away practical knowledge to put to use when back in the office and on the phones.
3:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. 101 Beginning Recruitment – Session #6 - “Closing – Bringing it All Together”
Speaker: Rich Cornell, Santé Consulting, LLC, St. Louis, MO
Tying in the objectives from the five previous sessions, this segment will bring it all together so attendees will have a basic understanding of the closing sequence from the first conversation with a candidate to the last (post-interview/ offer) conversation. The instructor will provide attendees with the tools and telephone techniques necessary to enhance their closing skills by understanding the entire process.
4:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Wrap Up/Award of Certificates
5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Exhibit Hall Open
6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. NAPR/NALTO Presidents’ Welcome Reception
For more information on the 2010 Annual Convention, visit www.napr.org or www.nalto.org.
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NAPR/NALTO are Pleased to Introduce One of the 2010 Annual Convention Speakers: Joe Flower
With nearly 30 years experience, Joe Flower has emerged as the premier observer and thought leader on the deep forces changing healthcare in the United States and around the world. Joe Flower has explored the future of healthcare with clients ranging from the World Health Organization, the Global Business Network, and the U.K. National Health Service, to the majority of state hospital associations in the U.S. as well as many of the provincial associations and ministries in Canada, and an extraordinary variety of other players across healthcare - professional associations, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, health plans, physician groups, and numerous hospitals. He has worked on change and the future with the U.S. Department of Defense, Airbus and ArianeSpace, and a number of governments in China.
Joe Flower is the author of hundreds of articles. For over 20 years he was a contributing editor and regular columnist at the Healthcare Forum Journal. When the Healthcare Forum became the Health Forum of the American Hospital Association, he went on to a regular column in Hospitals and Health Networks Online. For 12 years he has written a regular column for Physician Executive, the Journal of the American College of Physician Executives. Joe Flower is the author, as well, of a number of seminal articles of the Healthy Cities/Healthy Communities movement.
Flower was a contributing writer for Wired Magazine in its explosive early years, and a columnist for the pioneering health websites DNA.com and HealthCentral.com. His deep research into the nature of change in organizations and people led to interviews with the top thinkers on organizational change, from Peter Drucker to Peter Senge and Ari de Geus. He went deeper, into the study of chaos theory, Eastern thought, and martial arts, eventually earning a black belt in Ueshiba Aikido.
Joe Flower was a founding member of the International Health Futures Network and the principal author of the landmark forecast, "Technological Advances and the Next 50 Years of Cardiology," Journal of the American College of Cardiology (vol. 35, no. 4, 2000).
NAPR 2010 Candidate Sourcing Program...What's New?
We're keeping costs down for 2010...but increased technology! Over 200,000 doctors will be contacted by email through their smart phone and we've made it easier for doctors to view your jobs online at specialty websites. Spend less money and contact more doctors...what could be easier? The NAPR Candidate Sourcing Programs are an exclusive member benefit. Complete details coming within the next week.
There's a Better Way to Recruit!
Targeted. Affordable. Everything you need: NAPR and HEALTHeCAREERS Network are offering new ways to find top physician candidates online. Click here to learn more!
Vendor Profile: PracticeFolio
PracticeFolio uses Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) architecture to deliver a 100% web-based suite of application modules for Healthcare/Physician Recruiters and their departments to manage the entire recruitment process - easily and efficiently. By integrating and assimilating PracticeFolio in this process, recruiting departments can ensure that the entire cycle is simplified and organized.
PracticeFolio offers feature-rich software that improves the physician tracking process by driving recruitment efficiency during the critical phases of pre-employment, employment, and retention.
In addition to the state-of-art Applicant Tracking system, PracticeFolio suite keeps tabs on users' daily activities. At-A-Glance homepage gives a simplified view of progress. Rich and custom reports give management a summary of all activities.
A full-fledged and shared Calendar that is integrated with MS Outlook assists to streamline important recruiter activities. By using your real-time data, PracticeFolio permits recruiters to gain immediate insight into their performance with a custom report generation capability.
PracticeFolio supports extensive collaboration and its flexible administration component makes it easy to adapt to your recruitment strategy. PracticeFolio has point-and-click set up tools for administration and user interface customization, to suit any workflow integration with all physician recruiting scenarios.
PracticeFolio has a rich feature-set that helps recruiters and their departments - however big or small they may be. These are implemented in the following modules: Opportunity Management, Applicant Tracking, Activity Management, Contact Management, Integrated Email, 3rd Party Agencies/Reviews, Campaign Management, Rich, Informative Reports, Efficient Administration, and Excellent ROI for Managers.
Additional modules are available in the PracticeFolio Suite, including Outlook integration, Retention Module, Mass Mailings, Shared Calendars, and E-Forms.
PracticeFolio is available in the following editions: Professional Edition and Group Edition.
For more information, please visit http://www.PracticeFolio.com.
Sharon Forness, Business Development Manager, joined Capricorn Systems, Inc. to launch a national sales effort for PracticeFolio. With over 17 years of successful Sales Marketing and Sales Management experience in the communications field she is excited to be a part of PracticeFolio and considers herself a dedicated professional who leverages her technical, analytical skills within the product development life cycle as it relates to multiple initiatives primarily focusing on producing sound deliverables, and quality results.
PracticeFolio, A product of Capricorn Systems, Inc., 3569 Habersham at Northlake, Building K, Tucker, GA 30084; 866-612-8611; 678-514-1081 Fax; sforness@practicefolio.com www.practicefolio.com, www.capricornsys.com.
Dear Miss Deed:
I’m not sure this is an Ethics issue, but I have an observation.
Since I am now getting into the physician search field, I reviewed the process physician recruiters utilize to place doctors. Some recruiters mirror what I did in executive search. I questioned the client to get a full and clear understanding of the search and the type of candidate I was to seek. I reviewed candidate sourcing strategies with my client and confirmed what experience was required in a candidate.
When prospective candidates were identified, I thoroughly interviewed them. The results were scripted in a dossier containing the candidates’ experience, training, unique job skills, personality traits and why they were interested in the job.
Following the interview, I assisted with the negotiations. In physician recruiting, I notice that a certain number of firms utilize a similar process to what I followed in executive search, but surprisingly, many do not.
It seems physician recruiting is the business to be in because it seems to involve a minimum of effort with a high pay out.
This is what I mean. A physician candidate sees a job online and responds via e-mail. The firm responds to the inquiring doctor with some additional information and asks for the doctor’s Curriculum Vitae and permission to refer it to the client. The client receives the CV and either accepts it or rejects it. If accepted the client calls the candidate, interviews the candidate and invites him or her for an interview. If things go well, the client works out the details, makes an offer and sends a contract. The recruiter is then notified and in turn, bills the client. Not much effort, pretty good pay out.
So why did I write to you, Miss Deed? I think that what I observed is an eye opener for both in-house and firms. I believe the in-house people should require a higher standard of performance for the fees they are paying and the firms should provide more service for the fees they are collecting.
If the recruiting firms are not promising much and delivering nothing more than a candidate name and a CV, they are diminishing a highly important and worthy industry. If the in-house people are not requiring a higher level of commitment and service, they are underutilizing a service that is critical to recruiting quality physicians for their organization.
Shouldn’t firms be doing more and in-house recruiters be requiring more? I apologize for getting on….
The Soap Box
Dear Soap:
Ethics are a standard of conduct. They are the basis for our profession and should not be sublimated to the dollar. There are many firms and in-house recruiters who perform to a self imposed level of excellence, but clearly there are those who contribute little to the profession. Maybe it is time, in these economic conditions, to reevaluate and upgrade what firms do for their clients and in turn, that in-house require new, higher standards of service.
Miss Deed
MGMA Physician Placement Starting Salary Survey Highlights
By Tammy Jamison, Lehigh Valley Hospital, NAPR President
The 2009 Physician Placement Starting Salary Survey, a collaborative effort between the Medical Group Management Association and the National Association of Physician Recruiters, was recently released to provide timely data to aid hospitals and medical groups make competitive and realistic offers. In this increasingly challenging recruitment environment, employers need tools to help determine the right mix of salary, bonus and benefits to recruit needed physicians.
This 2009 report based on 2008 data represents the participation of over 600 groups based on offers accepted by 3,500 providers across the country. The survey reports on starting salary data by specialty, practice type, geographic region and practice model and size. Salary data is categorized by years of experience, including in which specialties new graduates’ salaries are exceeding those of experienced physicians. Also included in the report are data on bonuses – production and signing, and on tail coverage, loan forgiveness and vacation and CME time. New this year is a section on non-physician providers, including CRNAs, physical therapists, psychologists and more.
Economic pressures are complicating employers’ decisions on the best structure of an offer so that it is competitive but minimizes the groups’ risk and takes into account the groups’ financial parameters. The decisions are equally complicated for job seeking physicians balancing the need to reduce high debt and facing the uncertainties of the housing and employment markets. The results of this study will help groups learn what is being offered and determine the right mix of compensation, benefits and incentives.
Some states are experiencing more success than others in recruiting physicians, between 2006 and 2008, only seven states have shown an increasing trend in placements including Virginia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oregon and Colorado. Ten states have had a decrease in placements, most notably Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Massachusetts and Mississippi. Some states that reported high placement numbers including Illinois and North Carolina attracted more physicians right out of training, while California, Florida and Texas hired more experienced physician candidates. Interestingly, many physicians are relocating within the state, such as in Florida, North Carolina and New York.
The physician recruiting market, largely affected by shortages is driving up median salaries that groups and organizations are being pushed to offer to be competitive. In fact, in some specialties, graduating fellows are being offered the same or more as experienced physicians. Specifically, fellows in infectious diseases and hematology/oncology are being offered more than their practicing colleagues, most notably in hematology/oncology with median compensation offered to fellows at $350,000 and $300,000 to newly hired experienced oncologists. Similar trends are noted in emergency medicine and neonatology, though the differences are slight.
There are differences in compensation level based on the type of model a physician joins, whether a single or multispecialty group practice or an employed hospital group. With the exception of only three specialties, surgery, GI and endocrinology, starting salaries were the highest for physicians joining employed hospital practices. Many recruiters have commented on the increasing number of physicians who chose employed hospital practices over private practices.
When looking at how salaries have changed from 2005 to 2008, you will see that in some specialties there have been significant increases, and in other areas minor increases and even some decreases. The greatest change in starting salaries has been in pulmonary medicine. In 2005 the median salary offered was $180,000, and in 2008 it was $249,531, representing a 38.6% change. Interestingly though the median dropped 2.1% from 2007 to 2008, from a high of $274,358. In dermatology, the median increased by 36.5% from $197,000 to $270,000 from ’05 to ’08. In gastroenterology, the median salary has dropped by 1.5% over the past four years.
In primary care, around which there has been significant dialogue among healthcare leaders concerning the projected collapse of the primary care infrastructure, median salaries have increased from ’07 to ’08 most notably in internal medicine in which a 10% increase was cited. While overall there was a 10% increase in median compensation among all specialists, there were decreases in invasive cardiology, obstetrics/gynecology, otorhinolaryngology, psychiatry and urology.
The survey represents a broad sampling of physicians and employers. While the majority of placements reported are among physicians with 1-2 years of experience, representing 46.8% of the survey group, over 21% of responses are based on offers to physicians with 3-7 years of experience and over 18% with 8-17 years of experience. There is more information on male compensation, comprising over 65% of the survey results; however with over half of recently enrolled medical students being women, future surveys will most certainly represent more women’s salaries.
The majority of employers represented in this survey are including production bonuses as part of the physician compensation formula, however 37% are not. With the increasing use of pay for performance measures the use of bonuses, whether they are individually or group based, is bound to be reported more frequently. The gap is closing among employers who offer tail coverage. While 52% of surveyed employers are not offering tail coverage as part of their offers, 43.9% are.
The signing bonus is an often used incentive to get physicians to sign employment contracts. Over half of survey respondents are offering sign on bonuses. The amounts vary among specialties, in primary care the average bonus is $15,000 and in specialty care $25,000. The highest bonus offered in 2008 was in orthopedic surgery for $45,000. While not part of the survey, a number of employers are evaluating the effectiveness of retention bonuses.
Another incentive to entice physicians to sign on the dotted line is loan forgiveness. It is not prevalent among surveyed employers, however. Only 10% of groups and hospitals are offering loan forgiveness. The majority of employers are paying relocation expenses, with much variety as regards the amount.
Summary
The 2009 Physician Placement Starting Salary Survey is a valuable tool that recruiters and the hospitals and medical groups for which they recruit can use to develop competitive offers in an increasingly competitive market. Recruiters who submit data for the survey can receive a complimentary copy. The NAPR encourages greater participation each year to make the survey data richer. In fact, respondents can now enter data on a perpetual basis so that the information can be entered when the placements are made, and then stored, compiled and submitted at the end of the year, rather than requiring that respondents save the data as it’s obtained and then entering all the data for the year in one sitting, which depending on the volume can require a lot of time. Non-participants can order the survey from MGMA by calling 877-275-6462, ext.1895 or ordering from the MGMA website.
Recruiting in today’s market requires a comprehensive understanding of the market dynamics and the Physician Placement Starting Salary Survey is one more tool to build that understanding.
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Less Than Half of Medical Students Say They Are Adequately Trained to Navigate Health Care System
Reprinted from Birmingham Business Journal, Sept. 30, 2009
Less than half of graduating medical students in the U.S. say they received adequate training in understanding health care systems and the economics of practicing medicine, according to a study conducted by the University of Michigan Medical School.
The national survey of more than 58,000 medical students from 2003-2007 showed an overwhelming majority were confident about their clinical training. But when it came to understanding health economics, the health care system, managed care, managing a practice or medical record-keeping, 40 percent to 50 percent of students reported feeling inadequately prepared.
The findings were published this month in Academic Medicine.
"Our patients expect us to understand the system," says Matthew M. Davis, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine in the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unit at the University of Michigan Medical School. "If we don't, that can result in poor patient care.
"And if we don't expect doctors to understand the health care system, who is going to?" asks Davis, who co-authored the research with Monica L. Lypson, M.D., assistant dean of graduate medical education at the U-M Medical School and Mitesh S. Patel, M.D., M.B.A., a U-M medical school graduate now at the University of Pennsylvania.
Davis explains researchers wanted to assess what medical students are learning about health care systems, especially as the nation struggles with health care reform. It's important, Davis says, that physicians can contribute to the national dialogue.
The study looked at graduates nationwide from 2003 to 2007, and also compared two top-ranked medical schools in more detail. One of those schools had a higher intensity curriculum in health care systems.
Students who had the higher intensity curriculum were three times more likely to report that they had appropriate training in health care systems. The time devoted to health care systems training, however, did not lead to lower perceptions about their clinical or other training.
"So, a higher intensity curriculum in health care systems could hold the potential to overcome medical students' perceptions of inadequate training in the practice of medicine," Davis says.
"Those students in the higher-intensity curriculum were not less confident about other things...in other words, instead of a tradeoff, there is a payoff," he says.
Davis says he hopes the survey will prompt medical schools to stress the importance not only of physicians' ability to heal, but also to help guide their patients through a complex health care system. A higher-intensity curriculum in medical economics appears to work, he says.
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