A behavioral profile of physician executives

In late 1993, ACPE and Tyler & Company, a national health care executive and physician search firm based in Atlanta, Ga., jointly conducted a survey of physician executives to determine their most likely behavioral patterns. It is the first of a two-part survey that, when complete, will create a multifaceted profile of the "ideal" physician executive as seen through physician executives' eyes and through the eyes of hospital management. Questionnaires based on the DiSC method of behavioral analysis were mailed to 750 randomly selected members of ACPE. More than 170 responses were received. The survey results showed that the majority of physician executives have strong communications skills, are people-oriented, and are strong leaders. The majority of respondents are self-motivated and industrious and are driven by accomplishments. The second part of the survey, which will be conducted later this year, will poll hospital CEOs and boards of directors about their preferences for behavioral patterns in their executives. Comparisons and consistencies will be analyzed between the two surveys to develop a comprehensive profile of the "ideal" physician executive, and the results will be reported in Physician Executive.     

Skills needed by physician CEOs. Interview by Barbara J. Linney

How do you transition from physician executive to physician CEO? Three physician CEOs were interviewed to explore the skills they needed to land in the top position. They share their views on what it takes to be a successful CEO. They describe the skills that they needed when they moved into the CEO role and how they acquired them. Some of the qualities it takes to be a CEO include the ability to: Articulate your values; use your people skills; describe a vision; solve problems; listen; walk around; and use analytical skills.     

Physician executives report high job satisfaction. Summary of findings from a survey of senior physician executives

The role of the senior physician executive is well established in American hospitals and health systems. There is little research, however, on overall physician executive job satisfaction, their perceptions of their organizational role and job performance, or their views of the medical staffs with which they work. A recent survey of physician executives examined these and other areas. It found physician executives to be quite satisfied with their jobs. What follows is a summary of the findings. An article based on the survey will be featured in a future issue of The Physician Executive.     

Department chief roles more clinical in nature.

Earlier this year, the American College of Physician Executives, in collaboration with the Physician Executive Management Center, the recruitment and career counseling affiliate of the College, surveyed the College membership in group practices and managed care organizations. The Management Center was asked to coordinate the project because of its experience with physician executive compensation surveys. A small number of such organizations outside the College membership was also polled. Physician executives in all these organizations were asked about the duties of clinical department heads and about the compensation packages of the physicians that the organizations hired in these management roles. The survey also asked for information about the marketplace for physician practitioners in these groups. This article reports only on the director portion of the survey.     

Compensation for chiefs of staff: a '90s phenomenon

As part of its annual survey of physician executive compensation levels, the Physician Executive Management Center, a Tampa, Fla.-based physician executive search firm, sought information on compensation of medical staff leaders. In this report, the Center's findings are summarized. Forty percent of the responding hospitals compensate these leaders in cash, with an additional 34 percent providing noncash benefits. Three-quarters of the hospitals thus indicate recognition that some kind of compensation for voluntary medical staff leaders is warranted.     

Boards want leadership and decisiveness.

Regardless of whether they aspire to the top executive spot, physician managers are likely to benefit from insights into what hospital boards want in their chief executive officers. Many of the attributes board chairs desire in hospital CEOs involve how they handle medical staff matters. In general, board chairs want leadership and decisiveness--attributes they likely would covetin any physician manager who has hospital management responsibilities.     

How U.S. and Japanese CEO's spend their time

Managing Directors (CEOs) in a number of large U.S. and Japanese corporations were asked to write a detailed diary of a typical working day, and they were asked what kind of information was useful for certain kinds of decisions. Some of the results of the survey are described in this article. It was found that the average age of the CEOs in the two countries was about the same—60 years old, but CEOs in the United States stayed longer in the position than Japanese CEOs because they were promoted at a younger age. CEOs in the United States worked a longer day than the Japanese. American chief executives spent about 3 hours longer in meetings than their Japanese counterparts. In Japanese corporations the information is distributed and the negotiating is done beforehand, so meetings tend to be shorter. In America contacts with businessmen outside the company were important sources of information, for strategic decisions in particular.     

Physician leadership. Physician executives share insights

Senior physician executives were asked to share their insights about how the medical management field has evolved. The Physician Executive Management Center, a Tampa, Florida-based search firm, has been surveying senior physician executives each year for the past decade. This year's report on physician executive compensation and duties in hospitals, managed care organizations, and group practices provides an excellent picture of the growth of the profession, as well as a broad perspective of anticipated changes for the future of medical management. The respondents addressed the following questions: What are the skills necessary for success? How have their jobs changed over the years? Have they made the right choice in pursuing medical management careers?     

Role stress among physician executives

On the one hand, physician executives are clinicians who place value on professional autonomy. As clinicians, the best interests of the patient drive their decision making and their value system. On the other hand, as managers, physician executives serve as agents of an organization. Because of the differences in the two cultures, some physicians have called the physician executive position a "no man's land" To address these issues and answer the questions that surround them, the authors developed a survey that was mailed to a random sample of the membership of the American College of Physician Executives. Parts of the survey served in other studies of role conflict and role ambiguity. Parts of the survey are new, developed specifically to analyze the physician executive role. The findings are reported in this article.     

High expectations mirror high stakes for physician executives

Because the stakes in health care are high, physician executives are challenged to meet high expectations set by their CEOs and boards. These may be unrealistic--for example, demanding that physician executives possess expertise in finance or strategic planning. Job stresses for physician executives are specific to the role, but are not unlike those faced by other senior executives. It's a fact that professionals leave jobs for any number of reasons; sometimes, not through their own choice or fault. Thus, every time a physician executive leaves a job, it should not be characterized as "being fired," and not every job-leaving should be taken as a failure. Accept that you may make mistakes while doing the best job you can. Rely on your own value system and integrity to see you through.     

Why become a certified physician executive?

What is the CPE Tutorial and how can it help advance the careers of physician executives? This five-day program teaches executive skills that make physician executives more valued in the marketplace. When candidates successfully pass an evaluation judged by a panel of health care CEOs, recruiters, and Fellows of the College, they become Certified Physician Executives (CPEs). This certification provides recognition to potential employers that CPEs have: stature as a physician; been successfully tested in all disciplines of medical management; demonstrated management experience; and successfully completed the Tutorial with a five minute presentation describing skills and competencies on the last day. As CPEs become widely known in the marketplace, the designation will be a valued credential that helps physician executives get and keep desirable positions, as well as advance to the next level in their careers.     

Quality management remains top medical manager responsibility

Earlier this year, the Physician Executive Management Center conducted a survey of physician executives in management positions in hospitals, group practices, managed care organizations, and industry. Information was obtained for physician executives in both full-time and part-time roles. In addition to gathering compensation information, the survey sought to define the scope and intensity of the responsibilities of physician CEOs and senior medical managers (medical directors or the equivalent) in these organizations. In this article, the authors summarize the findings on responsibilities for senior medical managers in hospitals, group practices, and managed care organizations.     

The compensation of physician executives.

In January of this year, the American Academy of Medical Directors and the Physician Executive Management Center mailed a survey questionnaire to the approximately 2,300 members of the Academy of record at that time. More than 1,000 responses were returned. The purpose of the survey was to begin to collect data and establish a reliable baseline of compensation information for the physician executive profession. Subsequent annual surveys will allow the two organizations to track the course of the profession, insofar as this can be done on the basis of compensation. In this article, we provide a summary of some of the findings of the survey as they relate to physician executives in a variety of nongovernment health care settings. Except for the summary of overall data, the report is limited to the responses of physicians who indicated full-time involvement (75 percent or more) in management. Later this year, the complete findings of the survey will be published in a monograph that will be available from the Academy and Center.     

Who will lead?

A recent survey conducted by the UCLA Center for Health Services Management and the Physician Executive Practice of Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search firm, sheds light on the emerging physician executive's role. The goal of the research was to identify success factors as a means of evaluating and developing effective industry leaders. Respondents were asked to look at specific skills in relation to nine categories: Communication, leadership, interpersonal skills, self-motivation/management, organizational knowledge, organizational strategy, administrative skills, and thinking. Communication, leadership, and self-motivation/management emerged, in that order, as the three most important success factors for physician executives. An individual's general competencies, work styles, and ability to lead others through organizational restructuring defines his or her appropriateness for managerial positions in the health care industry.     

Health reform bridging gaps between physician executives and CEOs

Recently, Hospitals & Health Networks reported the results of a study it conducted, in conjunction with Premier Health Alliance, Inc., and among hospital CEOs and COOs to gauge their preparedness and level of concern about various health care reform issues. Because administrators and physician executives are not always in agreement, we wondered how physician executives would rate the same issues. To find out, the American College of Physician Executives polled some members and posed the original survey questions. The results and subsequent interviews revealed that health care reform appears to be a catalyst in bringing the two factions closer in their thinking.     

Satisfaction higher for physician executives who treat patients,survey finds

If you're satisfied with your physician executive job, one factor contributing to your happiness may be that you're still seeing some patients. Check out the results of a national survey that examines why some physician executives are more satisfied with their jobs.     

An executive hierarchy analysis of stock options: Does gender matter<Emphasis Type="Italic">?</Emphasis>

This study takes a step forward in addressing the influence of stock options on executive risk-taking behavior, examining the moderating role of the executive hierarchy—CEOs versus non-CEO executives—and the gender effect within these corporate positions. Panel data analysis for matched samples of S&P 1500 listed firms between 2006 and 2011 confirms both hierarchical and gender differences in the relationship between executive stock options (ESOs) and risk taking. The maximum wealth at risk at which risk-increasing behavior changes to risk-reducing behavior—in the inverted U-shaped relationship—is higher for CEOs than for non-CEO executives, while gender differences in the ESO risk-taking effect are stronger at the level of CEOs. Thus, our evidence shows the importance of considering executive’s decision-making freedom (by means of hierarchy) in order to predict risk preferences according to executive gender.     

Physicians in transition

The study of physicians as managed care executives has been relatively recent. Much of what was written in the past focused primarily on doctors who had taken hospital-based administrative positions, especially as medical directors or vice presidents of medical affairs.1 But the '80s brought rising health care costs and the emergence of the "O's"--HMOs, PPOs, UROs, EPOs, PHOs, H2Os, and Uh-Ohs--in response. It also brought a growing number of physicians who traded their white coats and their particular "ologies" for the blue suits of executive management. I am convinced that it is important now, and will be increasingly important in the future, to better understand that transition. That belief led me to undertake, with the help and support of ACPE, the survey that is reported in this article. A questionnaire was sent in 1994 to a random sample of 300 managed care physician executive members of ACPE. Responses were returned by 225 members, a response rate of better than 80 percent. Twenty-five of the responses were not applicable, having been returned by physicians who had never made a transition from clinical careers. The remaining 230 responses form the basis for this report.     

Friend or Foe? CEO gender,political ideology,and gender-pay disparities in executive compensation

Do female CEOs reduce gender-pay disparities in top management teams (TMTs)? Some scholars draw on social identity theory to argue that, as individuals tend to identify with and support their in-groups, appointing a female corporate leader (i.e., CEO) will mitigate the gender-pay gap among executives. Yet, others draw on the queen-bee syndrome to postulate that some female CEOs may rather strengthen gender-pay disparities in upper echelons – by favoring out-groups (male) more than their in-groups (female). We bring together these opposing theoretical arguments to develop a ‘beyond CEO gender’ perspective, arguing that the effects of CEO gender on TMT gender-pay disparities should be considered in conjunction with the corporate leaders' values – as reflected by their political ideology. Our research demonstrates that conservative-female CEOs compensate female (versus male) executives lower compared to all other CEO gender-ideology categories (i.e., female-liberal CEOs, male-liberal CEOs, and male-conservative CEOs). Overall, our work contributes to theory on the CEO-TMT interface by highlighting the role of the CEO as the ‘architect’ of executive remuneration.     

Real executives make career moves. Will you?

Not all physician executives have accepted the career move as a key part of executive life. They prefer to stay put and they often do just that. While clinicians may have the luxury of choosing a single geographic location and remaining there through retirement, physician executives often have to reorder their priorities to give the position greatest significance in career decision-making. Spouses and families need to be educated to the new reality of executive life--sometimes, to support an important career opportunity, a move is required. Physician executives unwilling to make career moves limit their career potential.