Robert Chavez, MD
President, IEPC
Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance

Hello friends and colleagues,

Those of us who run small independent emergency medicine groups will find recruiting against the USACS, Team Health and Vituity’s of the world quite challenging. We certainly do not have the PR budget to compete with them; therefore, we must have a more tailored approach.

All group leaders and candidates consider criteria such as pay per hour, benefits and administrative burden, as well as shift distribution for new recruits. However, other considerations that can be equally as important are all the decisions that have to be made by moving into a new place and starting a new career.

The ability to furnish your new recruits with access to real estate contacts in the community or attorneys or bookkeepers to help them set up a corporation. Also, access to good reputable CPAs, Insurance Brokers and Trust attorneys are equally important. Unless they want to work for the rest of their lives with little chance for retirement, they will also want to have access to solid financial advisers as well.

Another excellent recruiting tool is setting up educational meetings to train your new recruits in your group’s culture, standards and practices and expectations. In addition, I find it very useful to have training sessions on billing and how to be a productive physician. New residents just starting out are all clinically solid, however, they receive no training on billing and coding and have very little idea on what constitutes a good work rate or billing rate. Showing them “how the sausage is made” will serve them not only in your group, but in their future career with any group.
Finally, delineating a clear pathway to enter the group and advance through your practice clinically, financially and administratively is also crucial to avoid any misunderstandings in the future.

Small independent groups know recruiting season is year-round and require a dedicated point of contact to manage all the correspondence that happens between your practice and potential recruit.

All the best,
Robert Chavez
President, IEPC