Building Physician Partnerships
- Increasingly empowered and motivated medical staff
- A steady stream of venture capital to entice entrepreneurial physicians
to develop their own surgery centers - Hospital boards that expect stronger alignment and relationships
with medical staff - Old, tired surgery centers that need to be rejuvenated
- The need to recruit the sought after young doctors to help
meet a community need - Ongoing pressures to protect market share, increase productivity
and hold down costs.
To address these challenges, a number of innovative hospitals have developed joint-venture businesses with physicians, as one of many effective physician loyalty strategies. Additionally, ambulatory surgical center joint-ventures can be designed and organized to meet different objectives:
- Increase OR capacity without undercutting the hospital’s bond rating or
requiring large capital outlays - Improve cost-effectiveness
- Defend market share – half a loaf is better than no loaf at all
- Expand geographic presence and move into competitors’ service areas
- Strengthen ability to recruit younger physicians and rising "stars."
Developing joint-ventures is very difficult, and requires a unique skill set. Once hospitals develop one successful JV, they can apply the new joint-venturing expertise, skills and lessons learned to other opportunities – like surgical centers for women or spine surgery centers. The upside is potentially huge – sustainable, long-term gains in capacity, improved efficiency , larger market share and better physician loyalty – but it's not easily realized. Joint-venture surgical centers take work. And many projects die because, in the eyes of the physicians, hospitals move much too slowly in developing the business.
Further, focus is required to make joint-ventures work well – physicians and health systems have other priorities which diffuse their energies and resources. That's why many hospital and health systems draft skilled and experienced partners, who have the skills, knowledge and bandwidth to focus on the JV business.
Blue Chip develops and manages successful, joint-venture businesses in partnership with physicians and hospitals and health systems. Our only objective is to make our joint-venture business successful.
Occasionally, a health system or hospital will be presented with an opportunity to acquire a surgical center and then syndicate the surgical center with community surgeons. Or expand the ownership of the hospital’s surgical center with a syndicate of local surgeons. In either case, Blue Chip understands how to address the issues of due diligence, asset valuation, and physician organization. We have the skills and experience to manage the full process of acquisition, syndication and launch of a new refocused venture.
Why Hospitals Choose Blue Chip
Blue Chip has been involved with successful hospital joint ventures:
- Turk's Head Surgery Center; West Chester, Pennsylvania
The keys to our success:
Physician Leadership: We work with doctors every day – they own and advise our company. Blue Chip launches numerous physician-led partnerships every year. Collectively, our team has launched hundreds of joint-venture businesses. We know how to speak rather directly with physicians, get them energized about business ventures, and organize partnerships that deliver more satisfaction, results, and remuneration. Blue Chip knows how to focus physician energy and intellect toward building and managing successful businesses. Physician-led joint-venture businesses can be very successful if the physicians trust their business partners.
Focus, Speed & Agility: Our core goal is achieving the vision and financial objectives of the joint-venture business. We are focused on the joint venture; hospitals have multiple priorities, as do physicians. Time kills many potential physician partnerships – for physicians, time is more valuable than money – Blue Chip understands the need when working with physicians to set the course and then deliver results. Our ability to move fast, respond nimbly, and make required mid-course corrections means physicians will not complain about the slow pace of project development. In fact, we get projects started after a few brief meetings. And we tailor the business model (both the financing and operations) and J-V structure to meet the needs of our partners, complement their strengths and satisfy local market conditions.
Trust: Our team of executives knows how to build trust among all partners in a business – including surgeons and hospital/health system executives. In our experience, that's the common denominator of successful projects. We build trust by ensuring commitment to the vision, openly sharing information and numbers, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and delivering on our promises. We do what we say we
will do.
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