Physician shortages continue to be an important concern for hospitals and health systems trying to provide the breadth and depth of healthcare services sufficient to support market need. Addressing this deficit requires an in-depth understanding of the current and projected supply and demand of physician services in the market. Developing this understanding allows hospitals and health systems to create targeted recruitment plans to best meet the needs of their local market and create the appropriate space for physicians to succeed long-term in market.

Numerous Factors Must Be Considered in Developing a Physician Needs Assessment Including:

  • Stark Law (411.357(s)) which provides specific guidelines on defining the hospital’s geographic service area
  • Physician supply drivers which include specialty, age, practice location, and other important statistics including the hospital’s current staffing and service needs.
  • Physician demand drivers which include national physician-to-population ratios reflecting factors such as relative age of the population, prevalence of disease incidence rates, and wait times.
  • When determining and documenting local market requirements, VMG Health has the expertise and data to provide a sound and informative Physician Needs Assessment.

VMG Health offers a comprehensive suite of services related to Physicians Needs Assessment that goes beyond compliance-related offerings in documenting community need to adopting a strategic framework that affords hospitals and health systems a customized road map for their own physician recruitment.    

In the latter example of developing a customized recruitment plan, VMG Health’s expert advisors help hospital and health systems strategically by: 

  • Developing a provider work force plan that sets forth recruitment targets by specialty, geography, and practice; 
  • Stratifying physician growth needs to assure coverage of both mission and stewardship goals; 
  • Translating the recruitment plan to practice operations with interim implementation targets for provider placement; 
  • Projecting the overall system economic impact from recruitment; and 
  • Connecting the work force strategy with broader system strategic priorities. 

VMG Health recognizes that the needs of a hospital or health system vary, and in turn VMG stands ready with a suite of workforce planning solutions.