Physician Community Needs Assessment/Medical Staff Development Planning

With the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) projecting that the United States could face a deficit of 139,000 physicians by 2033, it has become increasingly important for hospitals and health systems to plan appropriately to meet the changing needs of their communities for the future.

At Coker, we help hospitals and health system leadership incorporate this important component into their overall strategic planning process to remain successful in the years ahead. While doing so, it is essential to document physician community need while meeting the Stark regulatory requirements. First, we identify the specialty areas of concern  through multiple tools (e.g., detailed documentation of current service area providers and their full-time-equivalent status, physician-to-population ratios, medical staff interviews/surveys, market-specific dynamics, attrition analysis, population projections, etc.). Then, our team works with hospital leadership to prioritize and develop targeted strategies to meet the physician recruitment needs and improve access within their geographic service area. Additionally, we work with our clients to supplement these services by developing detailed physician recruitment policies and procedures, complete fair market value/commercial reasonableness analysis further documenting the market need and physician retention strategies to help health systems keep the qualified physicians within their market that they’ve worked so hard to recruit.

Our nationally recognized experts are frequent speakers, authors, and resources for multiple-facility health systems with overlapping or disparate markets, pediatric hospitals as well as stand-alone community-based hospitals committed to meeting the healthcare needs of their service areas. Whether your organization needs to update your physician workforce plan or complete a comprehensive analysis for your clinically integrated network to address the changing market needs as you transition to value-based care or a specific analysis for a particular service line, our advisors can customize a solution to meet your needs.