Why Onboarding is an Issue You Can’t Afford to Ignore

Why Onboarding is an Issue You Can't Afford to Ignore

 An effective & results-driven onboarding process is more than a cheerful “welcome aboard.” It’s a comprehensive plan that can become a real asset to your organization. An onboarding process not only helps your physicians succeed. It can increase retention, decrease ramp-up time and improve productivity. Creating a results-based process for new physicians requires you understand the challenges of onboarding, address them effectively, and then measure the results of your efforts. Below is a section of one of our white papers discussing why onboarding is an issue you can’t afford to ignore.

Why Onboarding is an Issue You Can’t Afford to Ignore

You may meet every recruiting and hiring goal you set, but if you can’t keep the physicians you hire longer than a few years, you’ll never be able to out-recruit your losses. It’s not unusual for a hospital to lose half the physicians it recruits over 5 years. As frustrating as that statistic is on the surface, this attrition is also costly. Consider how much your organization spends to recruit and hire a single physician. Add the cost of a guaranteed salary during the new physician’s ramp-up time. Then consider the loss of revenue an unfilled position creates. This adds up to a number most hospitals can’t afford to bear. 

An effective onboarding process can also reduce the time required for a physician to come off guarantee by increasing referrals and effectively marketing that physician. When Geisinger Health System started their onboarding program, an average new physician averaged nine months to reach 60th percentile McGladrey benchmark for productivity, (the productivity benchmark included work Relative Value Units, collections, patient visits and panel sizes.) In just 2 years, they reduced that average from 4-9 months. The reduced ramp-up time saved the health system $9.6 million over 3 years.

5 Reasons Physicians Leave 

At Marketware, experience shows that physicians leave a hospital for 1 or more of the following reasons: 

1. Management that does not seek or listen to medical staff input 

2. The physician’s spouse or children are unhappy 

3. Lack of tools or support to help the practice grow 

4. Low patient volume leading to fear of loss of professional skills or income after guaranteed salary 

5. Lack of professional interaction, support, or camaraderie with other physicians 

Webinar — Physician Recruitment & Onboarding

An Inside Look at Marketware’s Recruit & Onboard Platform

Learn what makes our Recruit & Onboard platform a must-have for recruitment or onboarding teams. Join Leslie Kinkade for this 30-minute webinar who…

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Physician Onboarding Plan

Tool Kit — Physician Onboarding

Physician Onboarding Plan

To succeed in a new provider’s ramp up, day-to-day effectiveness & long-term retention, you need a comprehensive physician onboarding plan that…

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Date: September 01 2021
Subject: Physician Onboarding
About the author
Leslie Kinkade

(Former Client Success Executive @ Marketware)