At Orthopaedic
Multispecialty Network
Inc., it’s not every man for himself. Instead, employees look at the bigger picture,
and it’s not unusual for a
physician to hand over a case
to another doctor in the practice who can better help the
patient.
“Even though it represents a
loss of revenue to the physician doing that, it’s ultimately
better for the patient and the
practice,” says Dr. Anthony
Pentz, the orthopaedic surgery
group’s co-founder, partner
and CEO. “You are judged
based on your outcomes, and
that’s the attitude that’s reflected here.”
Pentz believes it is that team-work that has been the key to
growing his company —
which does business as OMNI
Orthopaedics — to 92 employees and four locations.
Smart Business spoke with
Pentz about how he establishes and maintains team unity.
Q. How do you define team
unity?
There’s a tremendous mutual
respect among the partners
here, and we are working
toward a common goal.
Everyone here takes a lot of
pride in their own personal
practice, but they also view
themselves as part of a greater
entity, and so the reputation
and the growth of the group is
of paramount importance to
every doctor and to our
employees here.
Part of it is just the personalities of the people that are
joined together, but there are a
lot of positive things you do to
foster it.
Q. How do you hire people
with the right attitude?
We are very diligent in terms
of review of the candidates’
background, but we also try to
do additional interaction with
them. As we become more
serious with a potential candidate, we meet not just them
but their spouse and their family, and get to know them. The
hiring process typically spans
at least six months but closer
to a year.
Oftentimes, our prospective
partners are at a medical meeting, and we’ll
try to meet up with
them and spend time in
a number of venues
with the person to really
get to know them and to
have them get to know
us. A partnership is very
analogous to a marriage.
It’s very expensive to
bring a new partner on
board, get them started
and incorporate them
into your practice, and
it’s a huge leap of faith
on their part. They’re
setting up themselves
and their family in a
new community typically so to have that work
for a year or 18 months
and then separate serves neither party. So, as much as is
humanly possible, we want to
make sure there’s a match
before the two come together.
