Strategies for Securing Physician Talent

Bob Kahn
CEO
Orthopedic Specialists of Texarkana, PLLC, Texas

We are not recruiting. We're a seven-physician independent practice. We plan to remain independent as long as possible. We make all of our money off of direct patient care so we have sold off all of our ancillaries. The youngest member of the group is 42. At this point we don't see any benefit to recruiting, especially if we have to pay $400,000 to $500,000 for some guy who is either right out of school or near the end of his practice.

Everybody who has come into this practice has asked to come in. There are 10 orthopedic surgeons left in Texarkana. All of the people within our practice are from the area and this is very profitable practice. I'm not sure the hospitals in the area would be in a position to purchase us because the incomes of all of the physicians in the group are well within the 90th percentile. The kind of money they would have to pay and the guarantees they would have to give us would probably cause regulators to look a little suspiciously. We have the W2s to prove it.

As long as my doctors continue to see patients and remain healthy or unless something significant happens with reimbursement we pretty much can do what we want for as long as we want.