A physician owner found herself bogged down with administrative and staff duties, and practice growth was faltering without a focused leader.
Situation
A multi-doctor, private ophthalmology practice was in desperate need of a practice administrator. The physician owner, who preferred to focus on patient care, was handling all administrative duties in addition to managing an eager but inexperienced staff and seeing patients. The physician owner needed a practice leader to assume responsibility for administrative operations and staff oversight so that she could focus on providing excellent patient care. Additionally, the practice was experiencing growing pains: They were onboarding new doctors, a time-consuming process that left no space for exploring opportunities for increased efficiency. The owner invested a great deal of time and effort conducting an administrator search on her own, only to have the lead candidate withdraw. Facing the prospect of restarting the hiring process, the owner engaged VMG Health to provide expert support.
Solution
The Recruitment Services team at VMG Health met with the physician owner to understand her requirements for a new leader, the challenges the new leader would face, and the culture of the organization. Delving into the current situation and future goals of the practice helped the VMG Health team understand the full skill set the new leader would need to solve the practice’s current problems and drive its strategic growth. VMG Health provided thought partnership on the compensation and benefits that would reflect fair market ranges and attract top talent, and they discussed alternative candidate profiles to consider based on their insight into the candidate market.
Using this knowledge, Recruitment Services created a customized job posting and proactively sourced candidates across LinkedIn and their vast network. The team conducted initial interviews with promising candidates and, with clarity on the practice’s culture, evaluated the personality fit of each candidate in addition to their skills and interests. They presented only the best few to the physician owner for consideration, with a summary of insights from their interviews that allowed the physician to conduct in-depth, targeted candidate assessments. Follow-up discussions between VMG Health and the owner provided feedback to refine the search and assist the owner with decision-making. When the physician owner was ready to make an offer, VMG Health supported the development of an attractive, compliant offer package for that specific candidate. Throughout the full process, VMG Health’s Recruitment Services team maintained ongoing communication to understand and adapt to changing needs.
Success
Through engaging with VMG Health, the physician owner hired not one but two new employees to lead her practice’s future growth. During the search, the practice’s current clinical manager decided to step back. Recruitment Services pivoted to address the new need and presented a candidate who had applied for the administrator role but didn’t quite have the experience needed; however, the candidate had strong clinical experience and could address some of the clinical challenges in the practice. The owner also hired a new administrator who was well situated to oversee the full business of the practice, optimize operations, and strategically help it grow. Combining the recruitment with onboarding support from a VMG Health senior consultant ensured the new administrator onboarded quickly, helped the physician owner formulate realistic KPIs for the new leader, and removed the burden of full onboarding from the physician owner—who is now free to concentrate on taking care of her patients.
