MDNews - Greater Boston

A fter he was approached by a friend and colleague hoping to demonstrate physician recruitment return on investment (ROI), Shawn Kessler, Senior Strategist at ab+c Creative Intelligence, began searching for a way to highlight ROI without relying solely on national averages. His solution, The Missing Physician website, provides a customizable formula that demonstrates how shorter recruitment periods may lead to revenue gains. "When reporting ROI, it's not always enough for organizations to compare themselves to national averages because there are many variables outside of an organization's control," Kessler says. "For example, an organization in the Midwest may struggle signifi cantly more than an organization located in Manhattan. The Missing Physician's equation allows healthcare executives to evaluate where their organization is currently and look at what it would mean fi nancially if they were able to reduce their time- to-fi ll by 5 percent, which, from a national average perspective, is approximately 11 days." Providing more concrete figures can help recruitment professionals and healthcare executives focus on streamlining efforts to bring physicians on board faster. "Once everyone is in line with one goal, it opens the door to say, 'Hey, if we reduce the time it takes to credential each physician, can we get physicians in the door quicker?' or 'What do we need to do to free up the schedules of the leaders who will interview each candidate?'" Kessler says. "If you can better prioritize all of those pieces, it will ultimately lead to a reduction in time-to-fi ll, which can bring signifi cant amounts of net revenue back into an organization." For more information, visit MissingPhysician.com. ■ P H Y S I C I A N R E C R U I T M E N T PHYSICIAN VACANCIES UNDOUBTEDLY AFFECT A HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATION'S BOTTOM LINE, BUT QUANTIFYING THE EFFECT IS AN IMPRECISE SCIENCE. A RECENTLY DEVELOPED WEBSITE AIMS TO GIVE HOSPITALS AND PHYSICIAN PRACTICES A CLEARER GAUGE OF HOW MUCH VACANT POSITIONS COST THEIR ORGANIZATIONS. In Recruiting Physicians, Time Is Money By Tiffany Parnell T H E M I S S I N G P H YS I C I A N I N AC TI O N TO UNDERSTAND THE mathematics behind The Missing Physician formula, take a look at the following example equation developed by Shawn Kessler, Senior Strategist at ab+c Creative Intelligence. He used national averages from the Merritt Hawkins' 2013 Survey of Physician Inpatient/Outpatient Revenue and the 2012 Association of Staff Physician Recruiters Benchmarking Survey. If the average organization cut its recruitment time by 5 percent, time-to-fi ll length would decrease 11 days, from 222 to 211 days. To obtain the estimated cost savings per physician vacancy, multiply the average daily net physician revenue — $3,849 — by the number of days time-to-fi ll length would decrease, which equals $42,339 per vacancy. Because the typical organization completes 23 physician searches per year, multiply the estimated savings per vacancy by 23 to obtain the estimated yearly revenue gain: $973,797 for the average organization. M D N E W S . CO M ■ MD NEWS Greater Boston | 1 5

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