Best Practices

Take me to your leader … if you have one

Is your practice ready to meet the looming leadership void?

By Maureen Waddle

I frequently hear from ophthalmic practices the difficulty they have in identifying quality leaders. This is not a surprise. Several factors challenge practices when the time comes to recruit their next administrator, CEO, COO and so on. Let’s take a look at them, and some possible solutions.

IMPACTING DEMAND

First, demographic forces are reducing the pool of available administrators. As baby boomers hit retirement age, many experienced, skilled leaders are leaving the workforce. This becomes an even bigger problem when you couple it with an aging population’s ever-increasing demand for health-care services. This scenario means a dramatic rise in the number of health-care management positions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov) projects a 23% increase in health services manager positions over the next 10 years (as compared to the projected growth rate of 14% for all industries).

From our recruiting experience, when there are qualified candidates to choose from, it takes about three months to identify a new administrator. Now that there are fewer qualified candidates, recruiting takes longer — I’ve seen some practices recruit for a year.

IMPACTING REQUIRED SKILLS

Years ago, an office administrator required a handful of skills. He or she needed to know logistics; how to hire and fire staff; some bookkeeping; and of course, billing. Today’s skillset hardly resembles that collection of competencies.

This dissimilarity adds yet another challenge to identifying qualified leaders: they are also not found in abundance. Don’t settle: There are good reasons why practices need higher-quality leaders:

• Decreasing reimbursement and increasing expenses are forcing many practitioners to seek partnerships — and larger practices to share operating expenses.

• Practices are adding subspecialty services and service lines — particularly retail or cosmetic — to increase revenues.

• Business issues, such as corporate and personal taxation, human resources regulations and litigation avoidance, are adding to the complexity of overseeing business operations.

• Government-mandated programs including HIPAA, Hi-Tech, ADA, OSHA and the Affordable Care Act mandate that practices find leaders capable of managing the increased responsibilities.

• Enhanced data-gathering and computer systems generate mounds of information that need distillation into reports and then analysis.

Practice surveys reveal more CEOs in ophthalmic practices than in years past. A bookkeeper is no longer sufficient; a modern practice needs a controller or a CFO.

WHAT CAN A PRACTICE DO?

This is not simply about replacing retiring administrators. The best option for a practice is to develop and invest in personnel development or succession planning or both. This involves continual assessment of current staff to identify those with the intelligence and emotional quotient to become leaders.

Practices should create development programs so future leaders can obtain the necessary experience they will need to assume leadership roles. This way, when leaders announce their retirement, the practice will not panic. They already will have a plan in place. OM

Maureen Waddle is a senior consultant with BSM Consulting, an internationally recognized health care consulting firm headquartered in Incline Village, Nev. and Scottsdale, Ariz. For more information about the author, BSM Consulting, or content/resources discussed in this article, please visit www.BSMconsulting.com