How to Study Your Medical Practice Competition

No matter how new or old your medical practice is, it is important to identify your competitors and evaluate their strategies to determine their strengths and weaknesses relative to those of your own.

Understanding the competition is a crucial business activity for any physician owner. Some practices hire professionals to track competitors and assess the competitive landscape on a regular basis. But it doesn't always have to be a complicated, time-consuming, and expensive process—particularly given the new wealth of data that can be assembled using the internet.

By investing even a small amount of time, physician practices of any size can develop a framework for making competitive assessments, gather intelligence on rivals, and understand how to position their own brand, services, and practice in the community. Not only can you learn best practices from competitors, but you can also learn to avoid the mistakes they make.

I often tell physicians that keeping track of who your competitors are, what patients and referring physicians are saying about them, and what they are saying themselves can help you differentiate your practice and stay ahead of trends that could impact your business. Staying smart on the competitive landscape helps you make very practical decisions around what services you offer, who you hire, what your messaging is, and where you fit in the brand landscape.

Benefits of competitive research

Conducting a competitive assessment should be an ongoing process, one in which you continue to deepen your understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. There are a series of business benefits you can gain by having insight into the competitive landscape.

The following are potential business benefits from conducting competitive research:

• Understanding your catchment area (this is the geographical area from which your practice draws patients)

• Better targeting patients

• Forecasting the potential for your catchment area

• Figuring out how local forces (economic and political) impact your specialty and even your catchment area

• Understanding what competitors are offering

• Determining offerings in ancillary services

• Finding new patients.

A competitive analysis is a critical part of the marketing plan for your medical practice. With this evaluation, you can establish what makes your practice unique, and therefore what attributes you play up in order to attract your target market (patients and referring physicians).

Analyzing your catchment area

Evaluate your competitors by placing them in strategic groups according to how directly they compete for a share of the patients within your catchment area. For each competitor, list their providers and services, their estimated profitability, growth pattern, marketing objectives and assumptions, current and past strategies, organizational and cost structure, strengths and weaknesses, and size (in patient volume) of the competitor's business.



Answer questions such as:

• Who are your competitors?

• What services do they offer and/or what equipment do they have?

• What is each competitor's market share?

• What are their past strategies?

• What are their current strategies?

• What types of media are used to market their practice (their physicians, their services, and their equipment)?

• What are each competitor's strengths and weaknesses?

• What potential threats do your competitors pose?

• What potential opportunities do they make available for you?

A quick and easy way to compare your physicians or services with similar ones in your market is to make a competition grid. Down the left side of a piece of paper, write the names the physician groups that compete with yours. To help you generate this list, think of where your patients would go for care if you were not around. Across the top of the paper, list the main features and characteristics of each practice. Include such things as target market, providers, size, relationship with referring physicians, and patient volume. You may also want to list services offered, strength of their marketing efforts, and other features that are relevant.

A glance at the competition grid will help you see where your physician group fits in your particular catchment area.

Impact of properly understanding the competition

Gaps in our knowledge of the competition are a natural and unavoidable characteristic of operating within the healthcare industry. We must remember though that a competent study of the competition can help reduce some of that uncertainty and help pave the way for strategic planning and business operations within your practice.

Physician owners must be keenly aware of what competing practices are doing. Practice management requires a firm focus on the competition; identifying its strengths and vulnerabilities is crucial. Since managing a successful practice requires decision and action based on situational awareness, identification of your competition’s expectations and preparations is important.

Because the healthcare landscape is changing so rapidly, accurate and timely information regarding what competing practices are doing is a prerequisite for success.

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Lessons Learned from an Employed-turned-Independent Doctor

Coming out of residency a few years ago, Landon Roussel, MD, had one goal in mind for where his career would be headed.


"I didn't see a way of doing clinical medicine and not being independent because if I were working for any insurance-based system, I'd be doing … factory medicine. That's not what I went to med school to do," he says. At the age of 32, Roussel, an internist, is where he wants to be, running his own direct primary care (DPC) practice in rural Lutcher, La., a Mississippi River community an hour outside of New Orleans.

But before he got to his ultimate goal, Roussel took an employed position, which only solidified his desire to be independent. Moving to Lutcher meant he didn't have an established patient base, coupled with not wanting to take out more loans left him with no choice. He took an employed position for a contract meant to last a year, a temporary arrangement until he could build out a patient base. The agreement ended after six months when the two sides amicably parted ways.

"As a hospitalist, I had 15 to20 patients on my roster per day, including a few discharges and admissions. You got paid for doing more; the quality was secondary. You get paid by CPT codes, so if you can rack up more CPT codes, that means more [relative value units], which means more compensation. That's the bottom line," says Roussel.

Roussel's DPC practice, Communitas Primary Care, is half full. He says it took a lot to attract new patients, but his marketing efforts are starting to pay off. By the end of the year, he expects to have a full patient base.

Physicians Practice spoke with Roussel about why he'll never go back to being employed, how he was influenced by an experience at Auschwitz, and advice to his fellow physicians worried about the lack of security in running your own practice.

Physicians Practice: What problems did you have with being an employed physician?

Landon Roussel, MD: The ‘more RVUs’ mentality [that hospitals have] is frustrating because RVUs don't translate into value to patients or society. We're stuck trying to figure out more ways to generate RVUs rather than give people what they want.. …[Hospitals are] just following the insurance money or the Medicare money, instead of actually providing value to patients where they need it.

PP: What are the advantages of being independent?

Roussel: All physicians should be as independent as possible. From my point of view, I'm actually able to see patients and figure out my schedule in a way where I can also take care of myself. And that allows me to be better to my patients. I think there is been a mentality with physician payment where you just got to keep a carrot on a stick and make them run as hard as they can. That's not a healthy mentality for doctors. It's not good for the patient and [doctors] know it. From a personal level, I'm able to figure out my schedule a lot better. That translates to better physician wellness. Had I not gone this route, burnout was on the horizon.

The other thing is overhead. I'm in control of overhead and that leads to a reduction in waste. I can't tell you how much waste goes on in [employed] clinics where physicians are not paying the bottom line.…. I know where every penny in my practice goes. Every dollar I spend is going towards value. That translates to the patients. If I spend more, I have to charge more. As a result, I'm able to keep my costs substantially lower. I get paid on a monthly basis to provide value to my patients. If they need a prescription, I call it in. If they need a letter for work, I give them a letter for work. I can call a specialist for them….I can call an e-consult. I can't tell you how many orthopedists and dermatologists I've diverted referrals from by using an e-consult.




PP: Most young physicians are going the employed route, as they want a steady paycheck after accumulating so much debt. What made you switch to private practice and have this different mentality?


Roussel: My original inspiration to go into medicine in the first place was my mother's father, who I didn't know much growing up. He was a newspaper editor in New Orleans. My dad was an engineer, his dad was an engineer. They worked for a chemical plant and I thought I'd follow in their footsteps and be an engineer. When I went to my grandfather's funeral, I learned about him and his life as an artist and a journalist. I saw in him part of myself. That combination of art and trying to understand the human condition and experience the human condition through the work you do, combining that with my talent in math and science, medicine was the answer for that. I couldn’t do clinical medicine in that way without being independent.

The other is studying ethics in medical school and I was perturbed by the lack of attention to medical ethics. I was particularly affected by an experience I had after my second year of medical school. Through a fellowship, the Museum of Jewish Heritage brought [me] and other med school students to Auschwitz and Birkenau [concentration camps]. We learned through that fellowship how doctors were instrumental in orchestrating the Holocaust. How our profession was used for destruction. That really affected me.

When I left the hospitalist position, I knew I was in for a lot of work, but I said to myself, ‘That's the price for doing the right thing. I've got one life to live and I'm going to live it, I'm going to do it in a way where I can live with myself in 20 years.’ If I spent the next 20 years as an employed physician, I probably would not be happy with what I did. This might be hard and I may suffer, but at least I can rest comfortably knowing I did my best and did the right thing.

PP: What advice you have to people worried about the lack of security that comes with running your own practice?

Roussel: Seek every opportunity to develop knowledge on the business of medicine and the administration of medicine. You can't practice medicine in a vacuum. Medicine is a part of society. If you don't learn the structures and tools and systems in place to be able to practice it, someone else will tell you how to do it. Learn as much as you can.

The Second thing: Do your best. If you work hard to be a good clinician and take care of your patients and do your due diligence … people will come to you. Just do a good job. They may not come right away. It may take time. Form those relationships. They'll pay off. You have to deal with a little bit of uncertainty in terms of when the money is coming in, but it will with persistence and diligence.

The time couldn't be riper for physicians to be independent, it's what patients want and need. There's not a state where there isn't a shortage of primary-care doctors. Don't be discouraged by the mayhem with healthcare coverage because people will move their feet [to] a good doctor.

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6 Email Marketing Best Practices With Marketing Automation

Email Marketing Automation Basics

Email marketing is one of the most underrated channels for improving ecommerce marketing results. It can be used effectively not just by retail businesses, but also tech companies, startups, and any brand that relies on mass appeal. Emails are effective at selling everything from tech gadgets to beverages and fashion. Marketers are turning to automated communication tools like ConvertKit or MailChimp for help with this personalized form of marketing. These tools have rich features to send, track and measure responses for any types of marketing campaigns.
What Is Email Marketing Automation?


Email marketing automation is the application of technology to help send promotional emails in a smarter way. The automation of promotions to a reader’s inbox is different from basic email marketing. It allows automated sending of emails in follow up sequences and to market to targeted customers based on their actions.

Marketing Automation For Ecommerce And Ecommerce Developers

Ecommerce developers can help boost a product’s conversion by building in effective integrations to allow responsive promotional messages. Building email automation in your product will improve its marketing “stickiness” over time. If you do not have a tech product, you can automate email using third-party tools. Tools like ConvertKit and others (see below), can help you automate promotional messages effectively.


Email marketing is so effective and important that Shopify considers it to be the key to ecommerce success. According to the ecommerce company, emails have a 4,300% ROI, as well as higher customer lifetime value (CLTV) than channels such as social media. Email boosts engagement and is a highly personal marketing channel. If you are not using emails and automating your marketing, you are likely holding your business back. To help accelerate your success with automating promotional emails, implement these best practices for email automation.

Use Personalization And Contextual Emails For Best Results

To be successful with sending automated communications, be as personal as you can possibly be. Treat readers like old friends. Care more about the person than the sale, and be contextual, to give the user a logical reason for the email.


For example, if you are an ecommerce shop, you will be familiar with shopping cart abandonment. Rather than give up when a customer abandons their cart midway through a shopping checkout, you can send them reminder emails to nudge them, in a friendly way, to complete their purchase. You could send emails at intervals of say: 

• 12 hours – a friendly reminder that they wanted to purchase that shiny and cool pair of shoes on your site 
• 3 days – a reminder with a picture of the product that says “Still Want Style?” 
• 7 days – another reminder that says “Rescue a lonely (but fantastic looking) pair of shoes!” 

Email automation, with the right tools, can be so effective because of the opportunity for personalization. That’s another great lesson you should apply – do not take a blanket approach.


Personalization begins with basics, things like first name and last name. Then you can move on to retargeting based on behaviors such as past product purchases. If someone has never bought from you, you can’t expect to sell them with the same sort of emails that convert your existing customers. This is where you can apply behavioral targeting as well as interest-based targeting to get better results from automated emails.

Automate Recipients List Uploading And Always Segment Your List

It is so routine to manually filter and extract emails from your database recipients according to campaign specifics. Instead, load all recipients for all upcoming campaigns with mandatory attributes (like gender, age, interests, date of the last contact, etc). You will be able to segment your list later to select a specific audience for a specific campaign.


When it comes to segmentation, it is important to know the audience of your targeted message. This allows you to make separate appeals to every important segment of your list. For example, let’s say you provide dance classes. You can segment your main list into several segments, such as:

• men 40+ years old 
• young women 18-25 
• kids 8-12 

Segmenting improves your conversions because you can target your messages much more cleanly. Use separate templates for each segment, direct each one at the interests of the group, use specific slang, illustrations, and a color scheme that meshes with the group’s identity.


For kids, you could, maybe send a compelling message with funny dancing animals. For the segment with young women, appeal to the benefits of dancing classes, such as the ability to meet their prince charming. Be creative and make group-specific appeals. You will be amazed how your email promotions results can improve drastically.

Select The Right Email Marketing Automation Software

Some great email marketing automation tools are included here to give you a starting point. Every marketer’s preferences differ, but a good email marketing software tool should give you the ability to upload your list, sanitize it at certain intervals, and set up autoresponders.


ConvertKit – This tool gives you the ability to set up as many autoresponders as you like for just $29. ConvertKit has a great reputation in the market for being very intuitive and easy to use. Prefer this if you want a hassle-free experience.


ActiveCampaign – A well-reputed email sending tool with a free trial, ActiveCampaign makes data-backed email flows easy. It’s a real smart solution for the email marketer. You can get started entirely free.


GetResponse – This comprehensive email marketing automation tool has all the bells and whistles for $15. It includes webinars, landing pages, and more marketing features. Beginners might find its learning curve a bit steep, but it allows your marketing to scale to thousands of email list subscribers.


AWeber – AWeber is great at one thing: setting up autoresponder series and delivering them. If you have a well-optimized sequence of emails, this is the tool to get the deliverability you need to see results.
Strategize A Clear Email Marketing Strategy


Tools are just that, tools. To succeed with email marketing automation, you will need an email promotion strategy. This goes beyond selecting a tool, planning when you will email your recipients and what you will send them.


A starter email strategy could be to send emails once a week with the deal of the week from your website. This is non-obtrusive and gives value since it offers a unique opportunity to recipients to get a deal. However, it doesn’t do much for building the perception of your brand over time.


A second email strategy, therefore, would be to send a round-up of important industry news once every two weeks. You only send an email with big events around your industry, that your list will be grateful for. All of a sudden your emails become very important to your list and they begin seeing you as a key brand in the industry.


Give some serious thought to the email automation strategy you pick because it can make the critical difference in the results you achieve.

Shooting For The Moon With Email Automation

As you can see, email marketing automation is a highly rewarding marketing endeavor when done right. With the right tools and the right email promotions automation strategy, you can reap a ROI that is multiple times your budget and time investment. If this is your first time doing email marketing with automation, you should leap boldly in. Your brand could be in store to have its best year yet!

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Viral Marketing: A Winning Combination of Content and Outreach

Viral marketing is nothing new, but social networking has changed the way we think about it. It has never been easier to share something en masse, and there have never been so many different platforms on which to do this. That said, the key to dissemination is not only utilizing every outlet available but also creating content that people will want to share. After all, you can have a whole host of share buttons accompanying your content, but ultimately the decision to share is up to the user. Here are a few things to consider when aiming for the relentless ubiquity associated with viral marketing.


Define your message. What is the one thing you want people to realize when they view your content? In one sentence, articulate that in specific, but not overly complex terms.


Choose your tone. Viral content tends to evoke either laughter or tears. Do you want people to be ROFL-ing all over the place or do you want them to be moved?


Target your audience. Most viral content targets the younger generation because it is a demographic that is more tech oriented, more likely to share content, and has more free time on its hands. That does not mean you should never target an older audience, but if going viral is one of your goals, you need to include that younger, social networking savvy population.


These three steps are the easy part and should guide you through your creative process. Once you have generated your content, you should review it with these principles in mind. Assuming you have successfully created compelling content, it is time to begin the process of propagation incorporating old school and new school techniques.


First and foremost, if you are hosting your content on your own website, you should make sure that it is accompanied by the gamut of social sharing buttons. Next, you should directly post to each of those social networking sites. Upload it to Facebook, Tweet about it on Twitter, Pin it on Pinterest, and so on. Next, ask friends, family members, and colleagues to do the same. Be courteous, however, and do not wear out people’s good will. Remember, your social networks will see your posts and that is usually when they decide whether something is worth sharing. If you have a large community that you can call to action, by all means capitalize on that. If it is genuinely relevant to someone, they will not hesitate to pass your content along.


The media drives a lot of the attention viral campaigns receive so you need a media coverage strategy. Compose a brief but interesting press release that will accompany your content. In addition, you will need to draft an email pitching it as a story idea and personalization is critical to its success. Whether you are sending it to the local news station or a national media outlet, include a sentence about why it is relevant to their specific audience. If they can immediately see the connection and it is truly compelling, chances are they will be happy to spread the word. In addition to the press, you should approach bloggers.


Start with a list of 50 writers who possess a high degree of authority and a substantial audience. Choose people who are related to your industry or cause and provide a rationale for why your content should be covered by them. Much like how you will approach the media, personalization and specificity is key. If it reads like a form email, you will lose them immediately. We all receive a lot of email, but prominent bloggers receive much more, so keep it brief and interesting. Refer to their body of work or a recent post, and concisely explain why this should matter to them and their readers. Your press release will include all the important details, so do not worry about providing background information. Your primary objective is to have them check out and share the content.


Viral marketing campaigns thrive or fizzle based on your actual content. If you devote the majority of your energies to creating compelling content, it will spread like wildfire. Of course, you still need to share the content with the world, so be proactive and professional about it. Make the most of social media, approach the press, and enlist prominent members of your online community to disseminate your content. Yes, going viral requires a significant amount of time and attention, but anything worth doing does.

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What Data to Look for When Planning a Marketing Strategy

Marketing is crucial to every business in today’s digital and competitive world. You need the right tools and strategies to stay ahead of the curve. If you don’t, you could risk letting your competitors take your customers and falling behind in your market. So use the following data when planning your marketing strategy to ensure success:

Market Size

When it comes to proper marketing with big data, you need to understand the market size you are looking at. For any given company, there is a market cap and if you do not know what this is, you might overinvest or ignore opportunities.


Use resources available cheaply and for free online that let you research how many potential customers you could have. Looking at your competitors is another way to find this information out. If your product or service is too expensive for a small market, then you need to know this ahead of time so you don’t waste the research dollars on rolling it out. It lets you decide how best to spend your time.

Keyword Searching

In addition to market size is the actual keyword search total. For your certain products and services, there will be a number of people actually searching for it in a month. This is available to see on Google’s Keyword Planner. You can see the estimated numbers of people looking for certain keywords around your brand and products.


Make sure that the numbers are big enough to justify an entry into a new market or continuing in an older market. If not, use keyword searching to find a new opportunity that your competitors have not uncovered yet. This could give you a crucial headstart on them.

A/B Testing

You should always be testing your marketing campaigns. If not, you are missing out on great data that can help you grow your business. One method of testing is called A/B testing.


This method of marketing testing involves using data collected from your visitors. When someone hits your site, it tags them and tracks them throughout their total visits, engagement, and conversions (like signups or purchases). This allows you to see how effective a certain campaign is. The higher the conversion rate the more you should invest in that particular marketing strategy. However, with A/B testing you gain other insights such as which headlines, images, and copy to use.

Sales

Big data lets you crunch a lot of numbers. However, before getting fancy, consider the basics. Look at your historic sales numbers. Which products and services are purchased the most? Before rolling out new projects, make sure you are getting the most profit you can out of your proven winners. Perhaps there is a way to enhance the value of a certain product, or to raise the prices and still maintain most of your customer base.

Demographics and Profiling

Your customers are all individuals. However, the one thing they have in common is that they purchased your products or services. If you collect enough marketing data, you can use it to decide how to plan your marketing goals in the future.


A great way to do this is through customer surveys that identify the age, income, gender, and occupation of your customer base. This allows you to see which combination of factors align with the best customers you have. For instance, perhaps the most profitable customers all come from a certain geographic region. That would mean you should double down on your marketing campaigns in those regions.


When it comes to marketing, data is becoming more important than ever. Companies that do not use big data are going to fall behind while those who do will see massive growth. Be sure to look at the data metrics above and put them into action in your business. That way you can enjoy more conversions and profits without as much time, effort, or energy in the process.

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Why more practices are giving physicians raises

After several years of not giving raises, things have turned around for Bender Medical Group, Inc., in Fort Collins, Colo.


John L. Bender, MD, MBA, the CEO of the physician-owned group, says his practice reviews physician salaries at the end of each year. It has given physicians raises since 2014, after several years of being flat. The average salary increase over the three-year period was around 16 percent for a full-time employed family physician.

Production was up, mostly as a result of implementing medical scribes to take notes while the physician talks with and treats the patient. “This boosted provider bonus payouts as revenues increased from team productivity,” Bender says.

But not all physicians in the group received raises. “Raises are still about recognizing what value a physician brings to the table and what they can negotiate,” Bender says. “It’s important for a physician to know their revenue numbers, and to also understand how he or she contributes to the organization’s overall efforts.”

Similarly, Shannon Davis, the office manager for Littlerock Family Medicine, a private practice in Tumwater, Wash., was able to give the entire team raises this year after a few years of not being able to due to limited resources.

“Staff members in our billing department worked hard to recoup as many outstanding payments as possible and chased denials from insurance companies, making raises possible,” she says.

These two practices reflect data from the 2018 Physicians Practice Staff Salary Survey, indicating that more practices plan to give raises beyond cost of living this year. According to the data, 42 percent said they plan on increasing annual salaries, up from 34 percent in 2017.

Competitive hiring environment

Phillip Miller, a vice president, with physician job search and staffing firm Merritt Hawkins and Staff Care can certainly attest to the competitive market for physicians.

“Over the past 30 years, a multi-billion dollar industry has grown up around physician recruitment and staffing,” he says. “Just about every hospital as well as larger medical groups have their own in-house physician recruiters and may also use outside recruiting firms.”

Bender can attest to this. “We saw increased marketplace pressures from two local health systems that heavily recruit family physicians, as well as a downturn in the availability of resident physicians to rotate through our clinic,” he says. “That compelled us to bargain harder to retain our current staff.”

Merritt Hawkins’ 2017 Survey of Final-Year Medical Residents indicates that 76 percent of physicians about to finish residency receive 50 or more recruitment offers during their training; 55percent receive more than 100 recruitment offers.

For this reason, paying higher salaries to retain physicians has become a priority for practices.

About 13 percent of primary care physicians relocate every year, according to the data firm SK&A. “Offering competitive compensation is one way to prevent physicians from exploring greener pastures,” Miller says.

Furthermore, a growing number of sites of service are vying for the same physicians—including hospitals and hospital systems, medical groups, urgent care centers, Federally Qualified Health Centers, retail clinics, and insurance companies.

Demand for care

There are many other reasons why more practices are giving physicians raises, such as a growing need for care. “Demand continues to be strong for primary care physicians,” says Miller. For 11 consecutive years, family medicine has been Merritt Hawkins’ most requested search assignment, which is unprecedented in its 31-year history. Internal medicine has consistently been its second or third most requested specialty.

Demand is driven in part by U.S. population growth, which grew by 28 percent from 1987 to 2010 when it reached 310 million. The U.S. Census Bureau projects it will to grow to 383 million by 2040. An aging population is also a contributing factor—approximately 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day, and people in that cohort visit a physician at three times the rate of younger individuals.

In addition, emerging value-based delivery models that feature team-based care are primary care driven, with these physicians being both gatekeepers and the key coordinators of care who help ensure quality and cost effectiveness. “These models typically are implemented by large, integrated health systems that may require dozens of primary care physicians to be effective,” Miller says.

Another reason why demand for care has increased is because about 91 percent of Americans now have health insurance—the highest rate ever. “The robust employment outlook across the nation and the Affordable Care Act have created an environment in which a lot of people have access to insurance,” Miller says.

When the individual mandate goes away in 2019, he expects premiums to increase and more people to be uninsured. Nonetheless, demand for doctors will remain high because it is mostly driven by older Medicare patients.

Physician shortages

In light of increasing demands, physician shortages are growing. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) predicts a shortage of up to 104,900 physicians by 2030, with about 43,000 of them in primary care.

“Shortages are driven in part by rising demand, but also in part by a constrained supply of physicians,” Miller says. “Supply is inhibited by the long-standing cap on what the federal government pays for graduate medical education, but also by changing physician practice patterns. Younger physicians prefer a controllable lifestyle with set hours and vacations, reducing overall physician full-time equivalents.”

The AAMC projects that physicians who are 35 years old or younger today will work 13 percent fewer hours than previous cohorts as a result.

Other financial perks

In addition to increased salaries, physicians are receiving other financial benefits. Miller says signing bonuses are common and are offered in 76 percent of Merritt Hawkins’ search assignments. Continuing medical education, moving allowances, health insurance, and malpractice and disability insurance are also common. Educational loan forgiveness is offered in nearly one-quarter of searches.

As a small independent clinic, Davis says the practice can’t compete with the big health powerhouses in terms of salary. “So we compensate with offering scheduling flexibility and maximizing the number of patients primary care physicians see to two per hour,” she says. “If [physicians] are motivated solely by money, they will seek work at a bigger outfit. By sharing the additional income we recover with staff members, it shows that we appreciate them.”

The pitfalls of not giving raises

With so much competition, a conspicuously low salary can lead to turnover. “It should be stressed, however, that compensation alone cannot buy physician engagement or long-term commitment,” Miller says. A practice’s quality, including schedules, numbers of patients seen, group governance, quality of the clinical staff, and level of communication are more important.

The risk of not giving raises can result in losing a physician, and sometimes staff will follow them.

“Non-compete clauses are becoming harder to enforce, because courts tend to rule them as restraint of trade, so it is not just about losing the physician, it’s about losing the patient base as well, and perhaps even the entire care team,” Bender says.

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