Question: Our physician group is a subsidiary of our parent.  We use overlapping board membership.  As a result, we have not been able to integrate our physician employees onto the board of our physician group.  Do you have any ideas?

Answer: Yes, we do.  In our experience, a physician group is very different than a typical health system subsidiary corporation and, as a result, the typical parent-subsidiary board has been of little benefit in integrating physicians into the management of the physician group.

We recommend that physician groups consider instituting a “Physician Governing Board” by developing a charter that describes the manner in which the members of the Physician Governing Board are elected by the physician employees; its responsibilities; and its relationship to the corporate board and how it will provide the employed physicians with meaningful input as to the development, integration and operation of the physician group.

Most importantly, we have found that a Physician Governing Board helps to provide the employed physicians with a sense of “ownership” in the group without affecting the health system’s non-profit status and to provide the employed physicians with a platform to adopt groupwide practice standards, which have often increased physician and patient satisfaction, increased physician and patient retention and increased the economic performance of the group.

Do you want to learn more about the physician governing board and much much more?

Join Henry Casale, Rachel Remaley and Charlie Chulack for The Institute on Employed Physicians and Their Impact on the Medical Staff.

October 3-5, 2013
Chicago, Illinois

January 23-25, 2014
Naples, Florida