As physician shortages strain practices across healthcare, here’s how two leaders are approaching physician recruitment and retention:
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length:
Renata Stone. Chief Marketing Officer of Unifeye Vision Partners (Dallas): We are committed to fostering an environment where physicians can thrive both professionally and personally. Our recruitment and retention strategy is built on five key pillars:
1. Competitive, fair market value compensation: We offer a production-based compensation model that rewards physicians for their expertise, efficiency, and contributions to patient care, ensuring financial alignment with their success.
2. Operational support to focus on patient care: UVP handles all non-clinical administrative tasks, allowing our physicians to focus entirely on delivering high-quality patient care. This includes practice management, marketing, HR, IT and compliance support.
3. Investment in cutting-edge technology: We continuously invest in the latest surgical and diagnostic technologies, enabling our providers to stay at the forefront of innovation in ophthalmology and deliver the best patient outcomes.
4. Comprehensive practice model with multi-specialty integration: Our network provides a collaborative environment where physicians benefit from working alongside subspecialists and ASC-based surgical teams, ensuring a seamless continuum of care for patients.
5. Equity ownership opportunities: We offer equity ownership options for providers, giving them the ability to have a vested interest in the long-term success of their practice while remaining aligned with UVP’s mission and growth.
6. Robust marketing and outreach infrastructure to accelerate growth: UVP provides physicians with a highly effective marketing and outreach system designed to help them build their patient base quickly. Our dedicated marketing and outreach teams ensure strong referral relationships with optometrists and primary care providers, along with targeted digital and traditional marketing strategies that drive patient engagement. This infrastructure allows new physicians to ramp up efficiently and establish themselves in their respective communities with the support they need to succeed.
By fostering a physician-centric culture, UVP ensures that our doctors feel valued, supported, and equipped with the tools they need to excel in patient care and professional growth.
Jennifer Pinasco. CEO of Yosemite Pathology (Modesto, Calif.): For recruitment, we utilize a mix of sourcing channels from traditional job boards to physician specific platforms to partnering with recruiters. We are very intentional about creating an engaging candidate experience with several representatives of our group participating in the virtual [or] in person meetings/interviews. We find this interaction provides the candidates with insight into the collaborative environment they will be working in. We are diligent about providing a seamless, timely and organized hiring process, from initial contact through to the final decision. Our onboarding process is very thorough with a detailed agenda that consists of training and interacting with every department in our organization over the first few days to expose them to every area in which our organization is designed to support them.
For retention, we provide a warm inviting environment where physicians are supported and valued. We take the burden of running a practice off of their shoulders and allow them to practice autonomously while fostering a collegial environment, not a competitive one. We try to be as transparent as possible and hold annual “Coffee with the CEO” meetings and seek feedback annually in our 360 surveys because we want to know what we are doing right and where we can improve. What we hear most often is how invaluable the depth of sub-specialties are that we offer within our group and the incredible exposure to unique complex cases within our region. We invest in new technologies, most recently cytology scanning/AI and surgical digital pathology, to improve their case management workflows, and internal peer consultations are encouraged and reciprocated. We offer salaries and benefits that are competitive within our area where there’s a lower cost of living that provides close proximity to highly desirable West Coast amenities — Yosemite National Park, snow skiing, Bay Area, Silicon Valley, ocean, hiking — and include benefits such as [long-term disability], perk[s] and matching retirement plans. We show appreciation and recognition through various methods — newsletters, shout-outs, national days [and] end-of-year bonuses. The demand of our specialty has become intense since 2020 so our focus has been one of providing them with quality timely slides, organizational stability and support, and acknowledgement and respect for their contributions. We have physicians who have been part of our group for decades and for some this was their first and only job. Leadership and growth opportunities exist for those who wish to pursue them, but they aren’t forced upon for those who don’t.
