Survey Time

Task force members helped lead the forum on nonphysician providers at the SHM Annual Meeting. Participants’ questions ranged from specifics regarding the roles of nonphysician providers to filling in documentation issues and included a broad spectrum of practice types from small private to large academic medical centers. The Nonphysician-Provider Task Force is making plans for the program for the 2006 Annual Meeting.

We’ve also sought involvement across the spectrum of task forces and committees in the SHM to increase the representation and raise the awareness of nonphysician providers.

The SHM Board approved the list of top five roles for nonphysician providers in SHM. These include:

1. To foster hospital medicine nonphysician-provider educational and professional development;
2. To network with other nonphysician providers to share ideas concerning the integration of nonphysician providers in hospital medicine;
3. To provide input to SHM and SHM committees/task forces related to the role of the nonphysician provider on the hospital medicine team;
4. To serve as “ambassadors” for SHM recruitment of nonphysician-provider members; and
5. To share varied expertise in the educational offerings pertinent to nonphysician providers on the hospitalist team.

In the coming year, the task force will further refine this list and present a revised charge to the SHM Board. The original charge specifically mentions only nurse practitioners and physician assistants. We’ve been fortunate to have a clinical care coordinator and a health systems pharmacist join the task force. This broader perspective will benefit the task force and recognizes the broad range of professionals working with the hospitalist team.

If you’re interested in the issues being addressed by the Nonphysician-Provider Task Force, you have several avenues available to pursue those interests. The SHM listserv is an active forum for discussing issues and sharing solutions. If you’re interested in working with the Nonphysician Task Force directly, contact Jeanette Kalupa at kalupa.jeanette@cogenthealthcare.com or Scarlett Blue at sblue@firsthealth.org to be added to the Hub and Spoke initiative. You can also visit the resource center on the SHM Web site to view the nonphysician-provider resources, or you can submit documents for the task force to review for posting to the resource area.

Dr. Whitford is chair of SHM’s Nonphysician-Provider Task Force. Contact him at whitford.kevin@mayo.edu.

10 Tips for a Successful Compensation Negotiation

Here are some strategies that Linda Snelling, MD, presented at the Pediatric Hospital Medicine conference in Denver in July regarding how to best negotiate your compensation. These strategies apply to all hospitalists.

1. Start with value: describe what you’re doing, who benefits from your work.
2. Review your own billing and collections.
3. Evaluate your program costs.
4. Apply for grants (finding money allows your program to grow).
5. Determine synergy: Are you fulfilling your role in the institution/department? Are there other opportunities to explore?
6. Start from a position of strength. Determining how much the opponent is willing to pay or increase support based on your current success and the anticipated benefit from your continued efforts is the starting point from which you have to negotiate up. A better position is to determine the amount by which you want your support adjusted so you are at the starting point from which the opponent negotiates down.
7. Remember, you’re not going in there for a handout. You’re going in there with a promise of what you’ll deliver.
8. Think long term.
9. Leave room to negotiate. Never put all your cards on the table. You’ll have to make concessions; get something for that concession. “If you can’t do 8%, what can you do? 5%. OK, so what about 5% this year and 5% next year?”
10. Remain positive.