Some leaders of hospital-based groups, and I use the term “leader” broadly, believe that their groups are a function of the hospital. If the hospital no longer wants to contract with them, then that would be it, they’d simply pull the plug on the group.
But what kind of group is that? What kind of leader is that? What kind of business is that?
Sure, Peter Drucker is quoted as stating that the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer, but he wasn’t speaking in the singular, i.e., a single customer.
If a group allows itself to get into that position, then it has truly lost control of its business function. In fact, it’s allowed itself to become simply a risk taker – in essence managing the risk of providing its type of specialty services for the hospital. The group takes the risk of recruitment, of coverage, of collections, of having necessary cash flow to pay its providers, etc. But the hospital really runs the business as it controls the group’s future.
What kind of future is that?
