Printer-friendly format

It’s Still About “Show Me the Money”
While a Jerry Maguire type might be a bit extreme, physicians today are discovering that an agent can be an asset when establishing or relocating a practice. After all, it’s still about “show me the money.”

“A lot of physicians aren’t really sure what their worth is and what they can get in a given community, and they’re frequently not very good advocates for themselves, especially younger physicians,” said Greg Piche, a partner with the Holland & Hart law firm in Denver. He’s been representing physicians “in one form or another” for 30 years, he said. “I think one of the most difficult things you can ever do out there is represent yourself. You don’t see football players doing it. You don’t see actors doing it,” said Ralph Grudzinski, president and founder of Pennsylvania-based Agents For Physicians. Grudzinski sees his role as a buffer between his physician client and a hospital or group practice manager, for example, especially when it’s time to talk turkey.

“Money can become a little bit of a touchy issue,” he said. “From an agent’s standpoint, I know how far I can push them because I know the (compensation) range. If I have to be the bad guy, I’ll be the bad guy, because I want to see the two parties come together and have a happy marriage that gets off on the right foot.”

In 1977, Grudzinski launched his first recruiting enterprise, specializing in financial and information technology professionals. He entered the medical market a decade ago and also owns Medical Career Agents, which represents healthcare professionals in a variety of fields from nursing to radiologic technologists.

When representing physicians, compensation is just one of the issues, Grudzinski noted. Other issues could be relocation packages (including the immediate purchase of the physician’s home), partnership or even assistance locating the physician’s spouse a job. Grudzinski said he and the agents he employs also conduct extensive research on the communities a client is considering and connect the client with real estate agents and other professionals in a community.

“We are not a headhunting firm,” Grudzinski emphasized. “Recruiting or headhunting firms generate job openings and then scramble to fill a job. We are not in the business of filling jobs. We represent physicians of all specialties throughout the United States and market them to select healthcare organizations that meet their personal criteria.”

About headhunters, Piche said, “Sometimes going through a headhunter can be a problem because the representations they sometimes make are not always that accurate. And they don’t always do their homework in terms of what the community’s like or what the referral patterns are.”

Piche said he has working relationships with agents like Grudzinski, who aren’t attorneys, to review contracts, and he fills both roles -- agent and attorney – for many of his clients. He said the reasons for a physician to hire an agent are many and include:

• Promoting talent. “It is far easier for an independent professional to sing the praises of a physician and turn the perspective on the physician to its best vantage point,” he said.
• Compensation surveys. Piche said hospitals frequently use physician compensation surveys to their advantage in employment contract negotiations, and many times, doctors are in the dark. “Knowledge and access to the surveys by agents can enhance a physician’s negotiating position and can provide a point of departure for a demonstration as to why a particular physician is worth more than median value survey results,” he said.
• Practice value. “As a rule, doctors don’t have a very good idea as to what the parameters of value are,” Piche said. “You can have a practice that one day is worth $2 million, and it’s two heart attacks away from zero.”
• Regulatory oversight. Physicians need an experienced negotiator, he said, to wind through the maze of “private inurement” prohibitions, the Stark Law and anti-kickback statutes.
• Speed. Professional negotiators tend to get the job done faster.
• Coaching. Outside agents are “listening posts” for their clients and should provide feedback and encouragement, he said.

A final reason, and one Piche stressed, is physician recruitment fraud. He said there’s “a growing trend” toward fraudulent inducements by hospitals to attract doctors.

“Physicians lured into a community based on false representation by a hospital end up caught in a very, very difficult situation because they don’t have income to sustain themselves in the community yet and a huge debt load that forces them to try to stay,” he said.

In fact, Piche currently is representing five physicians in fraudulent recruitment cases. He said the problems may include a misrepresented payer mix, local political tensions that inhibit referrals or even established referral patterns.

“Just because you’re in the community doesn’t mean you’ll get all the business. In fact, it’s very difficult to break down those existing patterns,” he said. “If you’re doing that on your own without any kind of support from the hospital, it’s a huge struggle.”

Piche’s advice? “(Physicians) would do well to assume that any inducing statement is false unless the hospital is willing to put it in writing,” he said.

March 2007

Tags:

None

Do you know someone else who would like to see this?
Your Email:
Their Email:
Comment:	(Will be included with e-mail)
Secret Code	In the box below, enter the Secret Code exactly as it appears above *