When partnerships go sour

Can group-practice civil wars be prevented?

Start with one small disagreement, add a dash of intransigence, a personality clash or two, mix well and voilà! You’ve got a medical practice civil war on your hands.

Take this true story, for example. A few years back, three specialists in western Canada — two newly certificated and one established physician — decided to create a small group practice together. When the question of how to split office expenses came up, they just figured it would be fair to each pay a third. What they didn’t account for, however, was the fact that the established physician already had a huge patient roster. It soon became apparent that the veteran MD’s work alone was consuming more than 50% of the group practice’s office and staffing resources. Suddenly, that cost-sharing structure didn’t seem so fair. “The new doctors realized they were getting hosed,” says Rick Jamison, the national director of Practice Solutions Consulting, who dealt with this incident. But the veteran refused to renegotiate their deal. The practice fell apart after only a year. “There’s still some animosity against the established physician five or six years later,” says Mr. Jamison.

Many doctors’ partnerships function perfectly amicably. Some, however, do not.

Read the rest of this article, from the January issue of Parkhurst Exchange, on the magazine's website.

Photo: Shutterstock

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