May 18, 2013

If you had to, how would you eat an elephant?

Probably, one bite at a time.

PSA Partner eating an elephantSo, where do I begin? What do I do first? These are important questions when you start a business. Not to mention, what do I do second, third and so on?

Within a week or two of signing up, both PSA Partners, and their Candidate Recruiters, know just enough to be dangerous:

Partners know how to deduce the selling points of an assignment, how to edit their Recruiter’s scripts, how to order candidate leads, and most importantly, how to take the pre-screened candidate from their Recruiter and move them towards interview.

Recruiters know how to canvass candidates all day, get them interested, perform an initial screening and schedule a second call for the Partner.

Of course, we’re not trying to make them perfect at search before they start generating revenue as it really is a “chicken vs. egg” scenario. Instead of being in the “classroom” for months before making money, we roll out the training for our unique approach to healthcare and medical search at a pace that let’s you start working on projects in your first week or two.

We accomplish this by doing some key pieces for you initially and providing you with:

  • Contracted search assignments
  • Recruiters to make initial calls
  • Candidate leads for Recruiters to contact

It is a matter of “first things first” with the concentration on revenue. Not so much to benefit the Partner, more to capture the total commitment of your Recruiters. While your team generates candidates for active positions, you can learn client development, marketing and management procedures.

The idea of “leverage” is at the core of the PSA business model as Partners manage their teams. The Recruiter makes 90-100 calls a day to candidates, with the goal of finding three or four quality candidates for the Partner to speak with.

As a PSA Partner, you are leveraging their time and effort as you are talking with the three or four that are interested, NOT the other 97. This is replicated, over and over, with multiple Recruiters.

Over the past few weeks, a handful of PSA Partners (and the Recruiters we assign to them) have started initial operations with our “Physician Search” group.

Their first objective has been to learn the basics so they can start working on open search assignments for physician positions. These are contracts with hospitals and healthcare systems that have agreed to pay a specific search fee ($20,000 to $50,000) when they hire one of the physician candidates referred by a PSA Partner.

PSA has hundreds of physician search assignments under contract and every new PSA Partner in the “Physician Search” group begins with ten or more. They also start with Recruiters that PSA recruits and trains for them.

New PSA Partners can sign-up any time next and be ready to participate in a revised “Physician Search” four-week training curriculum, starting on Monday, September 17th.

Not ready to join? If you haven’t done the steps below, that is understandable. In similar fashion to the enormity of starting a business, due diligence can be overwhelming too.

Sometimes when there is too much to do, we can simply put the entire thing off. We cannot let that happen with the individuals who choose to be PSA Partners. Don’t let it happen to you in considering the business. Instead, take it one step at a time:

  1. Read the PSA Partner Briefing
  2. Call us and get questions answered
  3. Interview with PSA Partners
  4. Speak with training staff to get answers
  5. Talk with Dr. Peter Stanos
  6. Review PSA contract

At the end of that process, you’ll know whether or not becoming a PSA Partner is the right fit for you. Call us anytime at 614-300-1103.

What Doctors Want Today: A Life

Associated Press Medical Writer, Lindsey Tanner, wrote an article that was published yesterday in the Washington Post, the Boston globe and others.

The story highlights the newest generation of doctors and what motivates them. Not surprisingly, she found they “embrace technology and teamwork. They like electronic medical records and smartphone apps. And they like sharing the load with other doctors on the team.”

This is relevant for PSA Partners participating in our “Physician Search” curriculum where they have access to more than 600 contracted search assignments for doctors. Here’s an excerpt:

Nasiri, 32, is a medical resident at the University of Oklahoma in Tulsa. He likes the idea of working in a large health plan group where doctors, specialists and other medical staff work as teams, with easy access to patients’ electronic medical records. That kind of setup is more likely to be ‘‘wired’’ than smaller practices, and Nasiri can’t imagine working without his iPad.

‘‘The older guys carry around little pharmaceutical books’’ when going room-to-room visiting hospitalized patients, Nasiri said. He thinks that’s less efficient than being able to quickly view patients’ electronic charts and online drug information.

Wen, 29, will soon finish a residency in emergency medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. She’s also a newlywed whose husband is an information technology project manager.

‘‘I want to have a balanced life that includes having time for my family,’’ she said.

She chose emergency medicine because the hours are more flexible than those of primary care doctors. That will allow her to work part-time in the ER and follow her other passions — teaching, research, writing and blogging about empowering patients to get the best medical care.

Wen finds her smartphone as handy as her stethoscope. Its apps help her quickly figure out proper medicine doses for critically ill patients, or translate medical instructions for Spanish-speakers. That means she doesn’t have to wait for a hospital translator to arrive, and she thinks it makes patient care safer.

The PSA “Physician Search” program is concentrated on targeting doctors in small practice groups and attracting them to the 600 plus hospital assignments PSA currently has. Like the young doctors referenced in the article, physicians are increasingly attracted to what working at a hospital or within a health system has to offer.

Peter Stanos Associates is conducting a special four-week “Physician Search” Training Curriculum, starting this Monday, September 10th.

If you are interested in becoming a PSA Partner and participating, contact our office today at 614-300-1103.

Physician practice groups searching for top Nurse Practitioner talent (Dr. Peter Stanos)

Specialty physicians in areas like cardiology, orthopedic surgery, obstetrics/gynecology, dermatology, psychiatry, oncology and rheumatology are all looking to expand. However, they are not doing so with the traditional “hire a physician” growth model. Instead, physician practice groups are using search firms like Peter Stanos Associates and PSA Partners to locate, recruit and secure Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and to a lesser degree, physician’s assistants (PAs).

The reasons are simple and straightforward: there are not enough doctors available on the market and those than can be had are too expensive. It all comes down entirely to economic realities.

There is growing difficulties for doctors in expanding their practices (they can’t find doctors) and increasing the number of patients their private practice is able to see. In this video interview excerpt, Dr. Peter Stanos, the president and founder of Peter Stanos Associates, explains the business forces behind this dramatic healthcare hiring trend and how PSA Partners seek to take advantage of it.

Bottom line: a physician can look to recruit a doctor and give up $300,000 to $500,000 annually to them, or the practice group can hire a Nurse Practitioner, pay her 25% more than what she’s making and only be out $120,000 to $130,000 annually. While doctors never would have gotten behind this trend seven to eight years ago, today patients are accepting of seeing a well trained specialty Nurse Practitioner before seeing the physician.

As the practice has proliferated, patients have become receptive, given the economic realities. The “well trained” Nurse Practitioner is the key and why so many doctors need help with attracting the right talent. As you might imaging, simply having a license and a pulse will not do when you are trying a Nurse Practitioner to see your patients in regards to oncology treatments.

Recognition of this trend has had a tremendous impact on the healthcare search operations of Peter Stanos Associates and PSA Partners.

PSA Partners receive extensive training in starting their own search business, learning a medical specialty, the pro-rated search billing process and how to manage the team of recruiters and salespeople that PSA puts in place for them.

Download a FREE Overview and Briefing of the PSA Partner offering.

Watch more video interviews with Dr. Stanos.

Physician Recruitment Division

The Peter Stanos Associates Physician Recruitment Division is expert in physician recruitment.

We are committed to providing superior, personalized service in order to provide physicians and organizations with a positive recruiting experience.

Dr. Peter Stanos practiced physical medicine and rehabilitation for twelve years before starting his own physician recruitment firm. Since then the firm has expanded into other areas of expertise. However, Peter Stanos Associates prides itself on its dominant ability to recruit and secure physicians in every specialty.

The entrenched client and physician relationships we possess make Peter Stanos Associates the search company of choice for:

  • Cardiology
  • Family Practice
  • Orthopedic Surgery
  • Obstetrics/Gynecology
  • Internal Medicine
  • Pediatrics
  • Dermatology
  • Psychiatry
  • Hematology/Oncology
  • Neurology
  • Neurosurgery
  • Rheumatology
  • Radiology
  • Surgery

At no expense to clients, we market extensively on the web to attract physicians, residents and fellows. We know which websites and marketing techniques (beyond job posts) will give your position the most exposure and provide the most effective means of reaching the best and most qualified career-minded physicians.

PSA can help develop personal and practice goals, assist in income negotiation and mediation and any other key assistance as needed. Our system of matching skills, career objectives and priorities with the position reflects your goal of optimum engagement and obtaining a long-term solution.

We spend a great deal of time with every physician, creating detailed candidate profiles through our recruiting and sourcing process. It allows for the best possible fit for your opening, taking into account:

  •     Professional/personal goals
  •     Income requirements
  •     Personal interests
  •     Spouse and family’s professional/personal needs
  •     Children’s educational needs
  •     Target practice opportunity

Practice profiling

Our knowledge of the physician recruitment space dictates a systematic approach toward every recruitment project. Before we conduct a search we ensure its’ successful completion by conducting a thorough interview of the healthcare organization to develop a practice prospectus, obtaining the information that will be needed to attract the right candidate:

Community information:

  •     Schools
  •     Economy
  •     Cultural and recreation opportunities

Practice description:

  •     Call schedule
  •     Reason for opening or need
  •     Compensation terms
  •     Necessary credentials
  •     Procedures performed
  •     Patient volumes
  •     Equipment
  •     Service area and population

Our Associates speak with numerous candidates to refine your selection process, matching your needs with those of the physician. PSA thoroughly screens every active physician CV we receive. It is a critical step toward gaining an accurate representation of physician education, experience and skills. Everything we learn is considered against what we learn in our fact finding phone interview process.

We believe the interview we bring you should be an affirmation of facts, not a discovery process. This is only possible with the hard work and due diligence of our Associates.

We work closely with every client and physician through the initial stages of placement to ensure complete engagement. We find small issues can be relieved before they become big ones, only when they are unearthed.

A big part of this philosophy is tied to our relationship building model, built around a successful and lasting hire.