The High-Performance Medical Group

Topics: Employment, Physician Issues, Practice Management, Hospital-Physician Alignment, Health Care Reform, Market Trends, Strategy

By reading this study, members will learn how to:

• Capitalize on cohesion among employed physicians to generate strong financial, clinical, and operational outcomes
• Develop an integrated identity that encourages physicians to view care as a “team sport”
• Deploy information technology and other scaled resources to help physicians collectively improve quality, efficiency, and coordination
• Capitalize on physician personality traits to develop effective individual performance levers
  

Executive Summary

As physician employment grows, hands-off management approach falling short

Fueled by demographic shifts within the physician workforce, declining reimbursement, and new imperatives for care delivery redesign, physician employment by hospitals and health systems is rising sharply. Yet, many organizations are struggling to capture full value from the growing employed enterprise.

By following a traditional practice management approach that prioritizes individual financial performance and physician autonomy, hospitals are increasingly falling short on broader goals, such as enhancing in-network referrals, improving care coordination, and effectively engaging physicians against quality and efficiency aims.

High-performance medical groups capitalize on cohesion

Taking an alternative approach, some medical groups work to foster cohesion among physicians rather than promote autonomy. By leveraging the employed enterprise as an integrated whole, these high-performance medical groups have achieved strong financial, clinical, and operational results.

Group success due to strategic—not structural—factors

Successful medical groups vary in structural factors such as size, market, or history. However, they share three deeper defining characteristics:

• Identity as a unified, physician-led network
• Infrastructure to enhance group performance
• Incentives designed to engage individual physicians against group goals

Within these categories, groups share 15 core attributes, including:

• Culture-linked hiring policies
• Significant physician involvement in governance
• A deep commitment to information transparency
• Strategy-aligned compensation plans

Members, read on to learn more

Through an in-depth look at the 15 attributes shared by successful employed networks, The High-Performance Medical Group offers actionable guidance for instilling the characteristics fundamental to transforming your practice into a high-performing medical group.

Introduction