Single specialty or multispeciality group?

[Member223232]

For attendings or senior residents who recently went through (or currently going through) the job hunting process. I'm curious as to your opinions on whether to join a single specialty or multispecialty / hospital owned group (one or two radonc in a group of larger med oncs and urologists.)

I'm personally leaning towards a multispeciality or hospital group since You'll end up giving a large chunk of your income to your "partners" but they'll feed you regularly with referrals. It seems your autonomy might be impacted since you'll be pressured to treat everyone to keep the RVUs up. But on the other hand, you wont have to fight tooth and nail for every referral. Also, even if you are in a solo practice or have other radonc partners, the pressure to generate RVUs and please referring doc is as present as ever and may be even more intense.

I feel like with the coming of bundled payments etc, being "on the same team" at least finaicially with referrings will even be more important.

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[Gfunk6]

Single specialty --> Multi specialty --> Hospital owned

As you move along the spectrum you get less money and less autonomy but more job security. It's as simple as that.

In my view single specialty practices will die off, but you may still be able to get in while the getting is good. The future belongs to multi specialty groups but I would rather be in one that is physician owned than hospital owned. That means more money, autonomy and risk.

 

[medgator]

Single specialty --> Multi specialty --> Hospital owned

As you move along the spectrum you get less money and less autonomy but more job security. It's as simple as that.

In my view single specialty practices will die off, but you may still be able to get in while the getting is good. The future belongs to multi specialty groups but I would rather be in one that is physician owned than hospital owned. That means more money, autonomy and risk.

I agree with the above with the caveat that the biggest source for your referrals are going to be medical and surgical specialists, so that's the type of group I'd want to be in, not just one with med oncs.

Outside of perhaps lymphoma, med oncs and rad oncs theoretically draw from those same docs, so it's way more valuable to have a breast surgeon, dermatologist, ent, urologist or pulmonologist in your group than a med onc. I have med oncs in my group and they don't add as much value as you would expect unless they are well liked and go getters. I often get dual referred from specialists where they end up seeing me with the med onc anyways, and often I end up making plenty of med onc referrals myself. I also generate referrals from outside med oncs who don't have xrt in their practice.

I'd pick a good single specialty group over an average multi specialty one, and either over hospital employment if you have the choice. Again, that may not be applicable to everyone. If you don't like the idea of generating your own referrals and benefits/risks of that model, single specialty may not be for you and maybe being a part of a big referral chain is the best way to go