Laurel Associates, LLC

Laurel Associates' principals have spent their careers working in the interstitial space between hospitals and their physician constituents. Filling that space with a meaningful relationship has evolved over the last two decades into two overarching strategies:

• Hospital employment of physicians
• Creating a physician-focused culture
  inclusive of independent physicians

Both strategies require significant expertise and sustained focus and resources in order to succeed.

• Laurel Associates' two principals have actually developed and managed primary care networks, multispecialty groups, and MSO's.
• As consultants, we have worked extensively for hospital systems and physician groups across the lifespan of employed practices including acquisition, consolidation and dissolution.
• We have crafted initiatives for hospitals to reach out and successfully partner with independent physicians.

We have helped clients address the following issues in their employed physician practice strategy:

"We want to determine whether there is still a strategic imperative to owning an employed physician practice/network given current market realities"

"We have productivity and operational issues as well as practice consolidation opportunities that need to be evaluated and resolved in order to ensure the viability of the network"

"We built this physician network but they do not act like a group. How do we strike a balance between productivity, group behavior, and system goals?"

"We believe there is potential for our physician network to grow. How do we position our programs and service offerings to garner additional market share and revenue?"

"We need assistance achieving an effective management infrastructure for our practice sites"

"We have decided there is no longer a strategic imperative and want to dissolve our network. How do we implement this decision?"

There are compliant initiatives which can be developed to strengthen the relationship between hospitals and their independent physicians:

• Joint Ventures
• Recruitment assistance
• Marketing assistance
• Education seminars
• Extension of hospital information technology
• Consulting services

There are also many hospital operational improvement projects that make it easier for physicians and their patients to access hospital services. Implementation of these process changes serve as powerful retention strategies.

Laurel Associates has assisted clients in reorganizing their resources to sustain focus and effort on:

• Practice management
• Recruitment and retention initiatives
• Medical staff development initiatives
• Outreach to community physicians
• Effective feedback loops to implement operational changes of interest to physicians