Hiring a urologist for rural practice

[CRNAguy]

I know hiring a urologist is harder than capturing Bigfoot but here goes so please bear with me. I wanted to some feed back on hiring a urologist for a "hypothetical" hospital based practice. A small rural hospital that has a visiting urologist that comes once sometimes every other week (depends on her mood) and has one surgery day per month. Mostly stones, TURPS, bladder tumors etc. Has the occasional prostatectomy. No Davinci robot here. Anyways this urologist is probably going to be moving on as she covers several different areas with her group she is paid very well >$400k. her clinic days can be busy seeing upwards of 50-70 patients. but again that is once a week and occasionally every other week. Her surgical schedule is about 8-15 cases per month and she gets at least 2 OR hours to bounce patients and she is quick with her cases was hired by a previous CEO who has since been told to pound sand as he did a lot of ridiculous things that hurt our facility financially. That is just some background on what we currently have. Can you tell me what type of pay would be fair for a position at our facility on a full time basis. Small rural hospital about 2 hours from a major airport and 1-1.5 from a regional airport. Cost of living is fairly cheap with a lot of nice lake front housing/ land available. No call no weekends no holidays, could be a 4-day workweek or 5 day workweek as we would be very flexible. W2 employee vacation negotiable, 401k and 403b retirement plans. is $350k plus production bonus way too low would it need to be closer to $400-$450k plus production? Am I even in the ball park? Any insight would be helpful. If the person wanted to independent there are multiple hospitals in the region and could make a very nice comfortable living working as much or as little as they wanted.

Thanks

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[anonperson]

I know hiring a urologist is harder than capturing Bigfoot but here goes so please bear with me. I wanted to some feed back on hiring a urologist for a "hypothetical" hospital based practice. A small rural hospital that has a visiting urologist that comes once sometimes every other week (depends on her mood) and has one surgery day per month. Mostly stones, TURPS, bladder tumors etc. Has the occasional prostatectomy. No Davinci robot here. Anyways this urologist is probably going to be moving on as she covers several different areas with her group she is paid very well >$400k. her clinic days can be busy seeing upwards of 50-70 patients. but again that is once a week and occasionally every other week. Her surgical schedule is about 8-15 cases per month and she gets at least 2 OR hours to bounce patients and she is quick with her cases was hired by a previous CEO who has since been told to pound sand as he did a lot of ridiculous things that hurt our facility financially. That is just some background on what we currently have. Can you tell me what type of pay would be fair for a position at our facility on a full time basis. Small rural hospital about 2 hours from a major airport and 1-1.5 from a regional airport. Cost of living is fairly cheap with a lot of nice lake front housing/ land available. No call no weekends no holidays, could be a 4-day workweek or 5 day workweek as we would be very flexible. W2 employee vacation negotiable, 401k and 403b retirement plans. is $350k plus production bonus way too low would it need to be closer to $400-$450k plus production? Am I even in the ball park? Any insight would be helpful. If the person wanted to independent there are multiple hospitals in the region and could make a very nice comfortable living working as much or as little as they wanted.

Thanks

Typical starting urology salaries in Southern California are $300K to $350K when talking to my buddies. And this is Southern California in reasonably desirable areas.

Better open up that wallet if you want someone decent to practice in BFE. Not to be harsh but just the reality of the job situation. Urologists are in the driving seat to a certain extent due to the low numbers being trained and the huge number expected to retire in the next 5 to 10 years.

 

[cpants]

Have to agree with above, with the caveat that it depends what the production bonus amount and threshold are. If the person can really only expect to make 350k, then they can make that or more anywhere in the country. So you should really only expect to be able to recruit someone who already has a desire to live in your area.

Last time I checked, median nationwide urologist salary is around 400k. So while 350K is certainly a lot of money, it probably isn't enough to attract a candidate to a less desirable area. The no call, no weekends thing is certainly worth something, but probably not 100-150K less in salary compared to what a candidate could make in similar rural locations elsewhere in the country.

 

[CRNAguy]

Thanks for all your replies you have been more than helpful. I know would be an expensive endeavor especially in the rural areas. I would like to run another scenario by this forum and would appreciate the feedback. In our area there are 6 hospitals with an hour of each other 5 are critical access and 1 (Our facility) is not but has less than 30 beds. In other words the volume is not that much but the area has close to 40,000 residents. What I was wondering if 4 of the hospitals each agreed to paying part of a urologist salary say contracted at $150k per hospital $600k salary as a 1099, plus a possible production bonus per hospital if the numbers pan out. So each hospital would get a clinic or surgical day per week. I don't see why the urologist would need to be on call but "available" for phone consultation if an ER physician had a question and most patient problems could be handled in clinic the next day or scheduled for procedure the next day or after clinic hours. Either see patients in a centralized office or each hospital could provide the clinic support and that would ensure patients seen at the individual hospitals would be scheduled for procedures in that facility. Does anyone see this scenario as a viable option?

Thanks

 

[cpants]

That does not really sound realistic or viable. It doesn't make a lot of sense to have someone work in 5 different locations on 5 different days. It's painful for the doc, not good for continuity of care, and creates a lot of inefficiencies in terms of office space, staffing, office and OR equipment, etc. Your best bet is to set up a centralized office somewhere where all the patients can be seen. If the other hospitals want coverage, maybe they would be willing to contribute something toward salary and you could kick back something in revenue for procedures. Honestly, it doesn't sound like your area really can support a full time urologist. 50-70 clinic patients every other week and 8-15 cases per month will not bring in 350k, let alone 600k. Maybe you should send these patients out or hire some locums coverage for a few weeks every other month or something like that.

 

[AZpath]

Sorry to start an old thread. Just wanted to say you guys in Uro are in the driver seat for jobs.

I know well our hospital in rural AZ will to pay top dollar for a Urologist. They are looking now.
Nice community not too remote from a city. ( I am a doc and love it here. The weather is a lot cool than Phoenix too. )

I know the hospital CEO well. Personal message me if you are interested.