Senior Physician Liaison

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How to Apply

A cover letter is required for consideration for this position and should be attached as the first page of your resume. The cover letter should address your specific interest in the position and outline skills and experience that directly relate to this position.

Summary

Physician Relations and Outreach is part of the Office of Patient Experience.  We are committed to promoting and sustaining the ideal patient and referring physician experience through excellence in patient and family centered care.  Each employee is expected to understand and demonstrate that in every interaction we represent our entire organization in the care we provide and in the courtesies, we extend to referring physicians, patients, families, and each respective team member.

The Physician Liaison Program is part of Michigan Medicine's physician relationship management initiative. The physician liaison serves as a personal contact for referring physicians, practice managers and their staff.  The physician liaison is responsible for identifying business opportunities that align with the strategic goals of Michigan Medicine, promoting clinical services, U-M faculty expertise and clinical trials, generating new patient business, communicating referral enhancements, and gathering market/competitive intelligence.  This position will be responsible for cultivating and promoting physician engagement that will lead to long lasting referral relationship and expand the Michigan Medicine footprint across the state of Michigan and northern Ohio. The Physician Liaison will:

• Maintain and gain positive referral relationship through personal contact;
• Introduce physicians, programs and medical technology;
• Support strategic objectives;
• Serve as a resource for consult guidelines, clinical trials and learning opportunities;
• Provide an accountable party to follow up on concerns;
• Supply feedback and serve as a U-M Health senior management advocate for external physicians issues

Mission Statement

Michigan Medicine improves the health of patients, populations and communities through excellence in education, patient care, community service, research and technology development, and through leadership activities in Michigan, nationally and internationally.  Our mission is guided by our Strategic Principles and has three critical components; patient care, education and research that together enhance our contribution to society.

Responsibilities*

Physician Relationship Management

• Establishes effective working relationships with service line clinical program staff and physicians to ensure knowledge of clinical/research programs are well understood.
• Assists in quality improvement initiatives to promote process improvement and provide the voice of the customer in determining value added steps in redesign efforts.
• Responds to referring physician concerns and seek appropriate resolutions.
• Provides timely reports regarding customer service issues.
• Travels to referring physician offices in order to cultivate referral relationships.
• Nurture new and existing U-M Health affiliate relationships.
• Document in a CRM system each provider/office staff encounter, including needs, opportunities and information and materials provided.
• Conducts effective office visits with the purpose to:
  • Educate referring and new offices on services offered, new studies and advances, essentially target market
  • Increase referral volume from loyalists and splitters
  • Impact non-referring physicians
  • Implement new services and protocols in referring offices
  • Effectively manage referral relationships in strategic markets

Strategic Analysis

• Utilizes current referring physician market research, statewide referring physician satisfaction survey data and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) referral data to guide prioritization of workload and ongoing role development. 
• Identifies target markets in accordance with organizational strategy utilizing familiarity with hospital operations and existing reporting, tools and dashboards.
• Evaluates and interpret market utilization data and market demographics, including market share data for each service line.
• Interprets current physician referral patterns, trends, and financial margins, ensuring that liaisons resources are optimized.
• Implement strategies to maintain up-to-date knowledge provided by individual current/potential referring physicians.
• Develops and implements strategies to strengthen current referring physician relationships.
• Actively pursues development of new physician referring relationships in targeted markets.
• Develops retention strategies for target markets and facility service lines to:
  • Goals and timeliness for closing new or enhanced physician referrals
  • Goals and timeliness for growing referral volumes based on new or established physician and outreach relationships
• Prepares program and referral activity reports to internal stakeholders.

Clinical

• Establishes effective working relationships with clinical staff and physicians to ensure proficient knowledge of clinical programs and activities.
• Participates in clinical and administrative meetings.
  -Meets regularly with appointment scheduling staff to facilitate communication of referring physician issues and promote access into the Health System.
• Meets all new physicians.

Project Management/Outreach Coordination

• Attends CME events and outreach activities.
• Helps develop communications for referring physician audience and events, i.e. letters, flyers, fax broadcast messages, newsletters, e-mails, etc.

Required Qualifications*

• A bachelor's degree in healthcare administration, marketing, sales or an equivalent combination of education and experience is necessary.
• 5 or more years of physician relations or sales experience. 
• Ability to research, understand and explain healthcare services, volume, utilization, market data, and physician referral patterns.
• Experience in provider marketing and relationship development techniques.
• Ability to develop customer service and operations improvement initiatives.
• Knowledge of key industry business drivers, emerging medical trends, and performance metrics, and ability to leverage that knowledge to inform strategy.
• Ability to lead and/or participate in multidisciplinary groups to solve service issues.  Familiarity with University's policies and procedures.
• Discipline in goal setting, prospecting, networking, territory management, and the time management.  Skills in account management, needs assessment, value propositioning, handling objections and gaining agreement.
• Travel is required 80% of appointment.  Must have reliable transportation.
• Flexible as it relates to schedule, responsibilities and priorities.  Please note this job may require attending after-hours and weekend events and meetings with external referring physicians and U-M Health Faculty.
• Must be highly professional in appearance, tone, and delivery.
• Skills to employ technologies effectively and proficiency (MS office suite and Customer Relations Management (CRM) systems).

Desired Qualifications*

• Familiarity with Health Information Exchange systems
• Five to eight years' experience in healthcare
• Unwavering sales focus and intensity (personal motivation)

Additional Information

Supervision Received

• Direction is received from the Senior Administrative Director of Physician Relations and Outreach.

Salary

• The salary for this position will be based upon the selected candidate's education and experience.

Background Screening

Michigan Medicine conducts background screening and pre-employment drug testing on job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent job offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background screenings.  Background screenings are performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Report Act. Pre-employment drug testing applies to all selected candidates, including new or additional faculty and staff appointments, as well as transfers from other U-M campuses.

Application Deadline

Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days. This job may be removed from posting boards and filled anytime after the minimum posting period has ended.

U-M EEO/AA Statement

The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.