Branch Out
Branch Out
#87: Making a Responsible Reputation
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In this episode of Branch Out, Dr. Patten and Larson Hicks discuss how to be in good standing with hospitals. They go over the ideal number of hospitals to partner with, good relationships, and long term strategies to make sure you’re a dependable doctor.
Well, hello and welcome to Branch Out with Sycamore. I'm excited to have Dr. Jason Patton with us. Jason's been a friend and a colleague and a partner with Sycamore since the very beginning. So it's fun to fun to get a chance to catch up with you. So great. Thanks for coming on, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01Chat. In in order to have like stability, what what do you I mean I I know that you've got a few places, I mean you've got a number of places that love you so much that they take every shift you give them. But um just practically over the years, you've been doing this for a long time. What do you feel like is the right number of places to be actively credentialed and working to kind of maintain a steady, predictable, consistent sort of um uh business?
SPEAKER_00I couldn't have told you this answer ten years ago. It's exactly what you said through trial and error. Um the you know, there there is a way to do this where you take the super high rates. The the people who are like, oh, I'll call you last minute, but I got you on my books. I keep you credentialed, we liked your attitude, but yeah, you're expensive. But when we need you, you know, hey, we'll give you a call. And often I'll get that. Hey, we're gonna lose a provider, pregnancy plus another provider out. Uh, we need you in April for seven shifts, and they'll tell me six months out, and I'm like, and they're paying me a fortune. So I keep those guys and I do one shift a year if I can, um, or one shift even every other year because they like my act and they'll keep me around. Um the I keep two actives is what I do. Two that I bounce off of, go back and forth, that I'm not interested in, you know, raising my rate on. I enjoy working there. They give me only the shifts I want. Um, and then I keep about five more hospitals-ish right now that I hardly ever go to once every two years. And they may call me, they may not, and they're perfectly fine with that, and I'm perfectly fine with that. But they'll give me advanced notice and I can shift, you know, away because I keep no minimums at my other contracts. So I'll just shift my availability one month over. And honestly, I'm not gonna lie, when I do shift my availability for a month or two to another hospital, and I maybe only do one shift or no shifts at one of my more frequent hospitals. I missed, you know, the the second I go to try to make you know the following month's schedule. They're like, oh, we're so happy you're back. This is so great. Thanks so much. We missed you. What a great feeling. Two active hospitals and three or four side ones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have to think about, I think you have to think in a in a in a fairly sophisticated, kind of nuanced way about the value that you bring to these these different in these different engagements, you know, and and there's a real value to having somebody that's that's consistent to know that, hey, I've got this guy consistently covering four or five, six shifts a month, and I can bank on that and um and not and not be left high and dry, you know, on a regular basis because this guy's chasing, you know, we call them mercenaries, like the docks that are just chasing the highest. I mean, it it's very frustrating for us as a locums company. We've got a doc who's scheduled, and 31 days before their shift they cancel because they got offered something, you know, better. And we don't recover from that a lot of times. I mean, the client goes, it feels like a betrayal, you know, it feels like you know they're they're being mercenary, cutthroat. I can't depend on this on this doc. And so we're gonna work them off the schedule and try to find someone else, right?
SPEAKER_00And so they're play the long game. Yeah, please play the long game. Your your overall everything is better, you know. Play the long game. What's $10 more an hour? I mean, do the math on that. How inconsequential is a 2% raise or a 4% raise in in the long game of this? No, no, bad, bad decisions.
SPEAKER_01So I like that. So you've got two like stable, kind of consistent baseline, you know, relationships, contracts, and then you keep a you keep another five or so in play that that are probably the more opportunistic upside, you know, uh kind of one-offs here and there. Um and I'm sure you have the ability if you're like, hey, I got nothing going on this month, you know, um, no vacations, no big plans. I'm just gonna go ahead and open up my schedule and and and kind of maximize my income this month at some of those other places.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know me better than that though. No vacations, me.
SPEAKER_01That's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_00You mean this week?
SPEAKER_01My first question every time we call is where are you today? You know, where in the world is is Jason Patton?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, today is the lake in northern Idaho, wakeboarding with my kids, having the greatest time, not working for the next two weeks, still have plenty of money to pay for it all.
SPEAKER_01How far out are you scheduling typically? Like, are like are you is is there a mix there where you you've got some stuff that you're scheduled really far out and some stuff that you're just waiting kind of more to the last minute?
SPEAKER_00Uh good question. So 10 years ago or eight years ago, I was, hey, my schedule's open before I had kids, essentially, right? I left it open. And uh and so I was scheduling some uh and and how I built it, not everybody should do it this way. I originally built it if you schedule me greater than 30 days out, here's the here's the fee. If you schedule me within a month, here's the fee. If you schedule me within a week, here's the fee. They were reasonable numbers, they were high, but not outrageous. And I got picked up, I was working 20 some days a month, sometimes last, some of those were last minute, some of those were spread, you know. I I would only book six in advance because it was a lower rate. And I just left the rest of my schedule open for last-minute fill-ins and I was booking and I was booking a lot. Um, that's one way to do it. If money is and is of is what you're looking for, and you have flexibility and time, do that. But, you know, again, we go back. I was playing the long game, right? I was doing that, paid off my student loans, put a bunch of money in my 401k, had everything dialed in, and I'm in my 40s. I worked six to eight days a month. I travel the world monthly, and I have kids that never miss me because I'm teaching them to wakeboard today, and I'm there every day. So I have chosen a little bit of stability. So again, I I've had these contracts. That one of the my stable contracts, I've been at over 10 years. One of my other ones, I've been over just about to hit four years. I've got other contracts at 10 years that are still opportunistic, so they still call me when they need me. So I've kept this mix so that you know, if I'm available for it, I'll do it. But very rarely do I do these last-minute contracts. I have chosen lifestyle and I have chosen my time over the money now, but I I transition to answer your question, right? I started one way, I've moved to this way to fit my current lifestyle. My current, you know, I have an eight and 10-year-old. I'm there for them now, no matter what. And I never miss a hockey game. So I only work Mondays and Tuesdays. You know, it's there is a way, but play, think through this from the beginning. Do this, do this with attitude, do this with a pattern, do everything planned in advance. Know how you're gonna react, know how you're gonna be, and then the world is your oyster. And you guys will, you know, thanks for all the help. You, you know, you helped take off a lot of the burden of what I used to do, and now I get to live like this.
SPEAKER_01Well, you're one of, you know, the way that Sycamore has built our team, every locum's company is a little different, but the way that we've set things up, we have um we have a we have a dedicated scheduling team, and and two of the of the of the team members on the scheduling team are dedicated to what we what we call our our um our tier one doctors. And and so you're one of those doctors where we've said, this is somebody who is a you know who's who's more of a career partner, um, and we wanna we want to not just shoot you availability from three or four different random sites, but we want to actually be talking to you about like where are you at in your stage of your career, what are you prioritizing, how do you want us to look at your schedule? Do you want us booking you out a year in advance? Do you want us to prioritize you know one side or another? And so we we're trying to to for doctors who are in it, you know, and and and looking at this as more of a career, uh long-term career, we want to kind of come in together as a partner to try to help you manage that schedule, you know, the way that you want it managed. And so, yeah, things like, you know, always, always working on these days, I'm never working on these days, here are the hard stops, like we can we can capture all of that and and kind of serve up a tailored, you know, um schedule for you every month that's that's kind of already got all of your preferences and and goals kind of baked into it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And the best part is you know, like I said, now I'm I'm booked through. I've got my schedule written down for December. Like I know what days I'm working at in December. Five, six months from now. I planned my January vacations because I know I can move my shifts where I want them in January. I'm filling up next year. This is I planned all next summer. This is totally doable in this world. Thanks.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I uh we we're we're trying to keep these shorter and I and I want to do, you know, we'd love to do part two and three and four and dive into more more tips and tricks and and advice. Um, but maybe just to to wrap this one up, um what what would you say are some mistakes that you made, you know, that you made early on that that um that if you could take it back or if you could do it over again, you know, you would change.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah, through trial and error. I mean, I've said enough about that during, you know, so far as is I had to do a lot of trial and error. Um, I wish you guys were there sooner, uh, because it would have been nice to skip some of those errors uh as we went. The negotiating problem is is a difficult thing. Uh negotiating with um with hospital administration to get a uh a contract, or if it's a you know, contract medical group, um it's the same. There's always someone to negotiate with, and there's a bunch of people in there that do that. And the problem is is recruiters don't make those decisions. Uh I would have started low on my money, on what I was asking for, and won the game, and then just asked for more money. Um, a couple of times I started too high, didn't get what I wanted, and and that's that. But I learned that lesson by failing, uh, which was a good lesson. So yeah, that was big. I I would try to find a way to outsource a lot of the things that I do. Travel I personally like doing, but it would have been super easy for me to outsource the travel uh component of this um for a small fee. There's there's lots of things, but I mean, just my last contract that I the the last new contract I got, instead of approaching the hospital like I normally would or the contract medical group, this was the first time I'd ever just called one of your people and said, Hey, I want this contract. And here's what I'm willing to do. I'll I'll work cheaper because it's where I want to be, what I want to do, the right mix of patients and trauma and the things I wanted. And so I called you guys, you guys actually got that contract. And I don't know how many sycamore doctors you have there now, but it's it's several. Um, but that was the easy button.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and I and I think that that's a that's a really wonderful point to end on is, you know, I mean, in my professional career, I've almost never taken a job that a company was hiring for. You know, every every job I've ever had, all of the best jobs I've had were jobs that that they weren't advertising for, right? And I wasn't competing with a bunch of people for an already defined sort of job description. And so I you know, there are you know, just about everywhere. I mean, there's a way in and there's a need, probably. And and so when you come to us and say, I want to be at that at that place, I'm motivated to be at that place, I'm willing to play ball, let's get in there. It's it's uh it's such a compelling thing for us to reach out and be able to say, we know this doctor, we've worked with this doctor. I mean, that's one of the biggest things in locums is is, I mean, we hear it from our clients all the time, um, can you please prioritize candidates that you actually know? You know, like we're we know that you're a locums company, we know that you're always recruiting and trying to find new doctors. That's fine, we'll take we'll take a look at those, but we would really prefer to talk to doctors that you actually know and you can and you can vouch for. And so when I go to a when I go to a client, you know, a new client and say, This is a doctor we've worked with for 10 years. Um, I've got all this great feedback about this doctor. Um, he's getting paid X, Y, and Z all over the place. He's really motivated to work at your place on a consistent basis and and is willing to to give you guys a really reasonable rate. Like that's a that's such an easy sell, you know, for us. And and of course, we've done this enough that that we know what their concerns are and we know how to negotiate and put a deal together that's gonna work for everybody and feel fair. And and uh and so yeah, it's a great, that's a great example of of the way that that you can actually work with a locum's company like ours to be a real career partner. Um and and I think that what we've been trying to fix in this industry since day one is just how short-sighted and transactional everybody is, you know, and it's and and it's really in large part kind of what's wrong with healthcare, you know, is is everybody's short-sighted and transactional. Um and so yeah, it's a real breath of fresh air, I think, for everybody when it's like, hey, let's let's do something that's more relationship driven, more long-term oriented, and um, and so that doesn't have to be um the exception in locums. That can actually be like how you how you do things all the time. Absolutely. Well, super fun, man. Thanks for making time. And uh I look forward to doing part two here. I've got a whole list of other questions and topics to dive into with you, so let's let's uh let's figure that out. But um, I I know this is gonna be really helpful for our for our docs and for docs that that are are exploring and tinkering with or or you know uh interested in locum. So thanks for thanks for giving us your wisdom.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, happy to do it. I live such a great life. I want everybody else to as well. It's better than signing contracts and letting somebody else own your life. That's all I can say. Paying it forward, I love it.
SPEAKER_01Well, thanks, man. Uh have a great rest of your day, and uh, we'll see you next time.