We’ve all seen the numbers, and they paint a future with too few physicians to meet the ever-growing health care needs of our country. A recent update by the COGME projected a shortage of 96,000 doctors by 2020. Obviously, the implication for healthcare leaders is huge. Organizations are sure to recognize the impact on planned program expansions; access issues and backlogs for securing hospital services must be part of the equation. CFOs and business development teams are working hard to create never before considered models for employment to ensure tenure and more/different partnership models.

What’s Ahead?

Beyond the strategic business decisions, the question is, “How will it impact the day-to-day relationship processes for us?” Aside from the obvious supply and demand economics, there will be changes in hospital and clinic functioning as a result. Likely, you’ve seen many of these—and perhaps some others:

• Increased tension
• Decreased physician involvement
• Increased physician clout in their negotiations
• Increased emphasis on efficiency for the physician
• Increased need for physician support staff (PAs, NPs and others)
• Increased pressure for the physician recruiter
• Increased challenges for physician relations sales staff
• Increasing shifts by employers to ensure their health plans offer adequate physician access

What You Can Do

Once you identify what will happen, then it’s time to proactively prepare to avoid or alleviate some pain. Some steps you can take are to:

• Create a formal process for talking about this now. The best crisis planning happens before the crisis.
• Promote a culture that invests in learning about the physician’s world and their needs; explore collaboration early on. Physician-friendly cultures are hard to develop and never happen overnight.
• Begin to create a short-run vs. long-run model, especially in the specialty areas where you’re likely most vulnerable.
• Formalize physician retention for any new physician so that there’s a two-year plan that includes lifestyle, practice and medical staff integration.
• Ensure you have an internal database to track who’s here, who’s nearing retirement and certainly, who’s been a past, present or future candidate for physician recruitment.

None of this happens quickly, so make sure you solidify your internal communication—and that includes consistent reminders of your strategy. If you’re actively involved in relationship-building with the staff, start gathering information from the medical staff. Relationship sales teams can start by simply asking, “Have your medical society meetings included discussions of the future physician supply?” and “What impact do you believe it will have on your practice and in our community?”

Dialogue is healthy, and it provides wonderful intelligence for the leadership team.

Lessons Learned

As we look to the future, we can learn from the nursing shortage. Hospitals have taken the lead with innovative methods to manage in the short-run as they encouraged more to join the nursing profession. There were programs across this country to encourage young people to enter the profession, to enhance the compensation and to provide flexible work schedules allowing nurses who were out of the work force to return.

The programs for physicians will need to be equally innovative and likely not quite as easy for hospitals to manage. Remember, while nurses can be trained in two years, medicine takes much longer. Now’s the time to get the wheels turning!

Kriss Barlow, RN, MBA, is a senior consultant with Corporate Health Group, a national healthcare consulting firm, and is based in Wisconsin. For additional information, please call 715-381-1171 or contact us via the Web.

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