To sell or not to sell:
That is the question
Emergency medicine practices face difficult decisions amid a challenging landscape
Physicians:
By the numbers
Own their practices today
31%
Own their own practices in 2012
49%
Are experiencing feelings of burnout
78%
Plan to change careers
46%
are at full clinical capacity — or stretched beyond
80%
Amount of their time spent on paperwork
23%
Portion of the profession whose compensation is tied
47%
Burnout, low morale and piles of paperwork — it’s not easy today to be an emergency room physician leader, run an independent practice and keep the focus on patients.
Complicating matters, increased competition, lower reimbursements and shifting payment models all make it that much more difficult for these practices to remain independent.
Emergency medicine physicians who still own their own practices today likely remain reluctant to sell.
And it’s not difficult to understand why: After an initial financial windfall, selling typically means a national company puts their name on the group, which changes the relationship immediately that you have worked hard to build with your health system and physician partners. It also oftentimes means becoming an employee and losing the ability to run your own department and keep your own schedule. Even more, it means the threat of someone else — perhaps a non-physician — micromanaging the difficult, on-the-fly decisions you have to make that ultimately are in the best interest of patients.
At the same time, it’s challenging to work on your emergency department while you’re working in it. The ever-increasing list of administrative, legal, financial and human resources responsibilities all take away time from practicing medicine. And without access to the right data and analytics, it’s all but impossible to reduce wait times or participate in alternative payment programs that represent the future of healthcare reimbursements.
Interested in learning how your emergency medicine practice can retain its identity and leadership, continue to offer partnership to your physicians and recapitalize for future growth while retaining an ownership position? Let’s talk. We’d like to discuss how you can gain access to a strong partnership of like-minded groups and a robust technology platform that increases efficiency and facilitates participation in value- and quality-based payment models.
Emergency Care Partners (ECP) is the national emergency medicine partner for successful, high-quality regional physician practices. ECP provides successful regional practices with the resources necessary to thrive in today’s dynamic healthcare landscape. We help visionary emergency medicine practices position themselves for long-term success. We believe that through collaboration, emergency medicine groups gain the resources necessary to thrive. Recapitalize, don’t sell out.
ECP provides robust and experienced resources for its groups to stay strong and grow with their health system partners: Clinician recruitment in existing and new growth practices, revenue cycle, payor negotiations, HR/benefits, accounting and the latest data informatics.
Why Choose Emergency Care Partners
Healthcare is evolving — and so is your practice.
We provide a structure that allows emergency medicine groups to retain their name, operational identity and leadership teams while gaining the resources and support needed to continue to succeed.
In today’s healthcare environment, it is more important than ever to be proactive. ECP partners see a number of benefits, including:
Financial liquidity and
diversified risk
Administrative and operational resources
Retain an ownership position in a true partnership model
Let us know how we can help!