Physician recruitment in general is getting tougher and requiring more creativity, according to the recent according to the 2007 Retention Survey from the American Medical Group Association and Cejka Search, which conducted the survey of 43 physician groups representing 14,705 physicians.

What are you doing to recruit and retain physicians for practicing at your ASC? What is your best advice for recruiting physicians to buy into your ASC?

E-mail your thoughts to this question to Rob Kurtz at rob@beckersasc.com. Be sure to include your name, title and business name. Shortly, we will publish a selection of the responses we receive and choose one response as our "featured answer."

The following data represents 13 respondents representing more than 300 ASCs throughout the country.

1. What valuation multiples (i.e., for minority interest buy-out) have you most typically observed in the marketplace during the past 12 months?

2.5 to 3.0 -- 2
3.0 to 3.5 -- 4
3.5 to 4.0 -- 2
4.0 or higher -- 4

2. What valuation multiples (i.e., for minority interest buy-in) have you most typically observed in the marketplace during the past 12 months?

2.5 to 3.0 -- 3
3.0 to 3.5 -- 4
3.5 to 4.0 -- 3
4.0 or higher -- 3

3. With respect to your acquisition strategy, do you prefer established facilities with immediate cash flow, turnaround situations at lower multiples/asset values, or de novo development opportunities?

Established, cash flowing centers -- 7
Turnarounds -- 5
De Novo (i.e., startups) -- 8

4. Your company generally prefers how many active physician owners?

1 to 5 -- 0
6 to 10 -- 2
11 to 15 -- 4
16 to 20 -- 7

5. Multiples paid to purchase a controlling interest have remained steady in 2007, with the majority of respondents (59 percent) observing 6.0x to 7.0x multiples of EBITDA and 33 percent of respondents observing 7.0x or higher multiples.

Source: HealthCare Appraisers' 2008 ASC Valuation Survey. Learn more about HealthCare Appraisers.

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